In 1991 I won a literary prize. Materially, the award changed my life for the better; The Fabulous Wife and I used the money for the down payment on our home. But psychologically, the award threw me; it led me to believe I’d make a career out of writing, which didn’t happen. The one consolation was the friendship I forged with fellow prizewinner and Californian Janet Keller. I’d never had a real writer friend before.

Publishers rejected our next novels, so while casting about for projects, Janet and I hit on the idea of co-writing a book about talk radio…

It’s become a tradition: whenever Trump is impeached, I don’t watch. This time, in honor of All Presidents But Him Day, I pulled out a book sitting on my shelf for more than twenty years, Joseph J. Ellis’s American Sphinx, and finally read it.

The sphinx in question is Thomas Jefferson. In Mediterranean myth, sphinxes were inscrutable. According to Ellis, Jefferson’s character was never sufficiently plumbed by prior biographers to convincingly explain its contradictions, the most flagrant of which was proclaiming that all men are created equal while owning two hundred slaves. American Sphinx is an astute, persuasive analysis of…

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (don’t you think they came up with the acronym before the name?). My symptoms peak in early February. This year they’ve been aggravated by the pandemic and political turmoil. I went to the University of Pennsylvania Authentic Happiness Questionnaire Center, took the well-being survey, and scored moderately depressed.

Not as bad as I expected, actually. My Retirement Elation Syndrome must still be providing some resistance.

Nonetheless, I’m trying to climb out of the ruts that trap me this time of year. One way is to search for good news about near-and-dear subjects. Because a…

Gentle readers: I must apologize. For the last few months my posts have been unrelentingly grim. Time to lighten up! So here’s The Fabulous Wife with one of her patented cultural reviews.

There is much to be lamented in Bridgerton, the latest piece of pseudo-Austenian skunk-butt dribble on Netflix.

Fabulous Wife, isn’t “skunk-butt dribble” a little rude?

Yes, Darling Husband, you are right. I apologize. To the skunks.

There are many spoilers to follow, if you think it possible to spoil anything as predictable, pedestrian, and baffling as Bridgerton, set around 1810 London and adapted from a series of novels…

The root cause of authoritarianism is fear for the tribe’s way of life — and, ultimately, for the tribe’s survival. When a real, exaggerated, or imagined threat is identified (usually by opportunistic leaders), the resulting anger and resentment compel authoritarians to lash out—and to rationalize their violence and cruelty as self-defense.

The logical point of intervention is at the beginning: reduce the fear, and you reduce the likelihood of reaction. But that isn’t easy. As Robert Altemeyer notes in his book On Authoritarianism, authoritarian leaders relentlessly stoke fear, peers reinforce it, and authoritarian followers are disinclined to seek dissenting opinions…

Inauguration Day, just after Biden and Harris took their oaths of office.

I mentioned in my last post that few authoritarians are smart or well-socialized. That’s not to say they lack intelligence or charm; random distributions of each are as apt to fall their way as anyone’s. But they dismiss both as weaknesses. To explain why, I turn to retired University of Manitoba psychology professor Robert Altemeyer and his 2006 book The Authoritarians, which you can download for free, with his compliments, at this website. (It’s a scholarly but convivial read.)

Altemeyer doesn’t flat-out say authoritarians are militantly anti-intellectual, but…

The day after Trump’s second impeachment.

I started this blog, which I call Element of Uncertainty, on Martin Luther King Day 2017, just prior to Trump’s inauguration. The motivation was simple. I’d been writing since age ten, had commercially published four books and several articles, and worried that my right of free expression was in jeopardy. Before that right could be taken away, I wanted to share what I’d learned over my life.

Early on, I identified what I consider the three biggest risks confronting humankind: climate change, wealth inequality, and the demise of privacy. And yet, as I skim…

In remembrance of former Los Angeles Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda, who died Thursday at 93, and in reflection upon the authoritarian assault on democracy earlier this week, I offer this excerpt from my book The Giants and the Dodgers: Four Cities, Two Teams, One Rivalry:

When the Giants played their last night game at Candlestick Park, they asked their opponents — the Dodgers — for a favor. The Dodgers obliged, and so, shortly before the game began, Thomas Charles Lasorda emerged one last time from the visitors’ clubhouse in right field. Wearing a Dodger blue jacket on which his name…