The City Mouse in the Country

Recently I learned that nearly two out of every three Americans have been affected in some way by climate change.  That 62% of Americans think climate change is currently having some sort of effect on their local community and economy. I mention this because climate change is one of the several reasons we moved from Tampa, Florida to Northwestern Pennsylvania a few years ago.   My wife, Susan, likes to tell the story of when it was 90 degrees (32 C) on New Year's day, which is an exaggeration but the point remains.  It was hot and humid on a day that really should not have been. It got so bad that even the natives were saying "It's to hot." Migration is defined as " The movement of a person or people from one country, locality, place of residence, etc., to settle in another ."  Thus Sue and myself became, without even realizing it "Climate migrant's." Now I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not comparing Susan and myself to any...

 I was on a bit of a side quest a few days ago and ended up eating dinner by myself at a cute 1950's style diner, complete with the music and red plastic chairs of the period.  I entered and had already resigned myself to a chicken or meat dinner; so imagine my surprise when I was able to order a vegetarian meal.   That's something that I've been trying to do for some time because I know that when I order a vegan/vegetarian dinner at a restaurant; I 'm doing my part to make these items a little bit more accessible to others, as well as helping my overall health and reducing my carbon footprint just a tiny bit more. The waitress and I started chatting about this and she stated she wanted to try more plant based items.  I mentioned one of my favorite companies Quorn .  Either due to luck or more likely the all powerful algorithm; what showed up in my news feed at the diner was that Ron DeSantis, current governor of Florida, was in the process of trying to ba...

  I am not that creative of a person.  Yes, I write and have written some fiction and such but I have more of an analytic mind.  I like to deal with facts, numbers and hard data.  The conclusions that I've reached are driven by columns of pluses and minuses. I'm not going to lie, much of my belief system and philosophical views are based on rational and scientific thinking.   Most, if not all of the the work that I've done all my life was driven by data and information.  When you understand what the data tells you, it affects your world view in a lot of different ways. For example, data from the FBI and other sources state that the most violent city in America is not Chicago or New York; but the tiny city of Bessemer, Alabama.  For a city of only 26,000 people, the chance of you being a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 30.    In a place like New York city, the chances of you being a victim of a violent crime is only 1 in 192. ...