Column #1,196: Memory is already fragile at best and easily corrupted at worst, and introducing convincing synthetic remakes of deceased people creates a wildly fraught ethical trap -- especially when AI hallucinations are already a known hazard.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/digital-ou...

Column #1,195: Age is no guarantee of perfection, either for humans or their institutions. But the groups we form do tend to take shape around corrections encountered along the way, improved by reforms that accrue over time.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/orchestrat...

Column #1,194: Boeing has announced a special program to convert 747s into VIP private jets. It is a tribute to the value of good design that Boeing would even bother to market a plane that is nearly 60 years old as a modern status symbol.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/yesterdays...

Column #1,193: It’s foolhardy to commit to high-technology solutions to corporate governance when very few corporate boards are any more capable of critical thought or independent analysis than a collection of potted houseplants.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/a-seat-at-...

Column #1,192: Biology makes persistence our superpower: It’s what got us to the top of the food chain. And it lodged something special in our brains that we have to be smart enough not to abandon in our social affairs with other humans. Don't give up.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/dont-give-...

Column #1,191: It’s hard to imagine just how much better cable news networks would be if TV news came with a “loading” screen. Something to say, “We’re working on it, but there’s nothing reliably intelligent for us to say quite yet.”
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/loading-mo...

I still want the kids to have self-respect. But I'm going to count on self-interest instead.

Until someone starts that column, this (or at least an older version of it) was the core of a World Literature class I took in 9th or 10th grade. An excellent sampler of great literature that pointed me to the longer works of James Joyce, among other authors.

Used editions are online for $6.

In middle and high school, you want to concentrate on getting kids to discover their own interests while helping to orient them to themes and symbols that will come back again and again later. Anthologies are great for both -- as long as the goal is finding full-length texts of readers' own choice.

Pro tip: The Norton Anthology of World Literature is a gold mine. The stories are so varied that something in it will appeal to practically every taste.

And since it's widely used, there are lots available on the used market for $5 or $6 each.

Bork! Bork! Bork!

Thank you, my dear pal! Thanks for being one of my favorite pre-Internet people!

Great example: Say you're in the market for a Toyota Grand Highlander XLE. The premium to get the hybrid version rather than gas-only is $1,750. For that price, you get about 10 more MPG. The payback period on that is basically a no-brainer. You'd be nuts not to get the hybrid on dollar value alone.

Column #1,190: The intrinsic value of something like education shouldn’t be measured by those battling to control it like some abstract battlefield, but instead by just how hard people will work to get it when they have been denied.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/righting-e...

Column #1,189: What we’ve failed to do amid all the Internet-based flattening of information (and information access) is to distinguish what content really needs to be permanent from that which can be forgotten without regret.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/memory-hol...

Column #1,188: If there's an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, there's usually a third character around. Most decisions end up depending upon not just the balance between our good and bad natures, but where self-interest ultimately lies.
issues.eveningpostandmail.com/p/angel-devi...