...when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.

We live in an age of artificial scarcity, maintained by ignorance and fear.

We have been told over and over that "you can't change human nature", but the study of emic realities shows quite the contrary, that almost anything can become "human nature" if society defines it as such.

The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.

I'm using myself as a typical 20th century model as I'm trying to make sense out of the world around me.

[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel---back in 1980, before I was online---I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or 100 feet or 120 feet. This led me to formulate Wilson's 22nd Law: 'Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.'

The secret to my success has been optimism tempered by anger.