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I don’t know where this proverb came from, but it expresses very well my views concerning environmental policy.  The only thing I know about it is that it is an Ancient Indian Proverb. “Treat the Earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.  We do not inherit…

I read an interesting article a few days ago.  It was entitled “How I Became a Best-Selling Author,” and was written by Alexandra Alter and reprinted from the Wall Street Journal on Yahoo Finance.  The article concerned a self-published author, Darcie Chan, whose debut novel, “The Mill River Recluse,” became a hit after she self-published it, and…

Back on March 3, 2011, I posted a blog that argued for a slightly new way to define the word “life.”  I suggested that since–given the appropriate conditions–life on any planet floating around in the cosmos is an inevitable consequence of the action of light, heat, water, simple organic and inorganic compounds stewing over a period of millions…

Well, the Curiosity Mars rover has been launched and is on its way. That’s quite a feat.  The rover is as big as a car (though NASA didn’t say what kind of car and that includes some variation, from a Mini Cooper to a Ford Excursion), and it’s expected to roam around Mars for about two…

Well, I’ve started querying literary agents in a substantial way over the past couple of weeks.  My first novel, The Anthanian Imperative–Blue, is ready for someone to take a hard, serious look at, and I’ve started trying to get an agent interested.  But querying nowadays is a little different–at least for me–than it used to be. …

I picked up a copy of the memoir of Jaycee Dugard last week at the local bookstore (oddly, it was in the “True Crime” section), because it was a book I had been wanting to read ever since it came out.  Kidnapped from her house in Tahoe, California, at the age of eleven in June, 1991, and…

To my mind, there’s a difference between a “writer” and an “author.”  They’re not mutually exclusive, but they are separable.  A writer is anyone who writes, but an author is a person who’s been published and makes a living (or part of a living) from writing.  That means an author is a writer (he has…

I’m not much of a mathematician, but I’ve never been intimidated by numbers or the different ways we manipulate numbers, which is really what mathematics is all about.  I’ve just never been very good at it, and that’s a large part of why I became a biological scientist because I didn’t need much higher mathematics to understand biological…

A couple of Nova programs on PBS last night got me to thinking.  Always a dangerous concept.  But these two programs were all about the possibility of life on other planets, and in this discussion I’m including planets in our solar system as well as planets circling other stars.  The prevailing wisdom to now has been that in order…

Well, the end is near.  At least the end of the writing phase of my first novel, The Anthanian Imperative–Blue.  If you’re new to this blog, I’ve been working on this science fiction novel for a long time (never mind how long, but the number of years has two digits).  I think I’m in position to…

A euphemism is a substituting of a mild or inoffensive word or phrase for one that’s unpleasant or offensive.  Two weeks ago, a friend of mine commented on one of my blogs (“African and American?” of 9/18/2011) in which I questioned the use of the phrase (moniker, epithet?) “African-American”.  She had some interesting comments about terms we…

Do you watch “The Big Bang Theory”?  I have, but stay tuned, I’ve got more to say. I didn’t watch it until it went on re-runs a few weeks ago, but that’s because I don’t watch prime time TV, I’ve got better things to do.  Like write and blog.  I only picked it up when it…