Thanks to some mysterious alchemy of genes, neurotransmitters, and environment, I’ve never been particularly susceptible to the lure of alcohol or drugs. Of course, I have my own temptations. I won’t mention the embarrassing ones, but I’ve sometimes been seduced by the complicated algorithms that spread their pernicious brain worms via social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

I place my left hand against the slab of grayish-black, water-polished rock. It is 3:46 PM Mountain Standard Time on March 20, 2025, and I’m somewhere deep in the Grand Canyon. The rock beneath my hand belongs to the Granite Gorge Metamorphic Suite, which sounds like the title of an orchestral piece by Ferde Grofé, rather than a series of geological strata roughly 1.75 billion years old, give or take a few million years.

My son and (now) daughter-in-law got married recently, in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley of Montana. Martin and Bess’s celebration was lovely and joyous, but during the weekend—their weekend—I could never quite shake the terrible knowledge of what had happened one week earlier, when the horrific events in Israel and Gaza began to unfold. A mélange […]

I grab my binoculars and a small pack, then head west on State Street before turning north on Park. Once across the Erie Canal I track the towpath east, where another five minutes of walking brings me to a vantage point above a small, somewhat shabby-looking wetland. The wetland lies below a berm backing the […]

Question: what’s the connection between Houghton University, a conservative Christian school in western New York, and female Bobolinks cloaked in male Bobolink plumage? And no, Houghton University’s sports teams are not the Fighting Bobolinks, although that would be an extremely cool name, not to mention much more fearsome than the school’s actual mascot, which is […]