Even before the usual fire season got underway in Southern California this year, we had one of the largest fires ever in the Angeles National Forest. It was arson-set, and suspicion is cast on an immigrant who developed mental health issues over the past few years. Just fighting the fire cost the state nearly $100M, […]
It has happened a number of times now that a high-powered executive or other successful professional has come to our Woodland Hills office for neurofeedback training for one issue or another, or simply for optimum performance training, and confided that they depend on marijuana to get them through. The usual outcome is that their marijuana […]
Up to this point, commentary on Major Hasan has had as much to do with us, the observers, as with Hasan himself, given how little we actually know about him. One wants to be careful not to jump to conclusions prematurely. That may also have been at work early on while Major Hasan was working […]
I have the impression that my newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, printed more articles on veterans’ issues today than they printed articles about Labor on Labor Day. Veterans’ issues are ok to write about; we can show that at least our hearts are in the right place. Labor issues have become more inconvenient. But veterans’ […]
Last May, Science Magazine featured a review of a recent study of human health going back some 10,000 years. Surprisingly, perhaps, our state of health has been declining generally over the last 3,000 years, coinciding essentially with the broad adoption of agriculture. The trends are not subtle, apparently. Statures have shrunk, and there was an […]
The Rare Event: Toyota, Tasers, and Autism
The issue of sudden, rapid acceleration in Toyota vehicles presents an interesting case study of how our society approaches rare hazardous events, and a consideration of this history can shed light on how other such instances are handled that are of more direct interest to us here. It turns out that this issue has been […]