Lane Wallace

Just one more note on the subject of risk (discussed previously here) ...As mentioned in that previous post, most people underestimate the risks associated with driving, in large part because it's a familiar activity and we feel some measure of control in the process (whether or not that's really true). At the same time, most people overestimate the risks associated with flying on airliners, because it's not a familiar activity, and they don't feel as if they're in… More »

Illustrator Christoph Niemann's exhibit "Over the Wall," posted on the New York Times website this week, is a simple piece of work. In a captioned series of woven paper sculpture images, Niemann--who says the Berlin Wall was only an abstract notion when he was growing up in southwest Germany--describes his recent move back to Berlin. Living in the Bernauer Strasse neighborhood, which awoke on August 13, 1961 to a new national boundary running down the middle of the… More »

On Tuesday, Mt. Everest claimed yet another victim. Wu Wenhong was 40 years old ... an amateur climber from China who summited successfully, but succumbed to altitude sickness and/or exhaustion on the descent. Over the years, more and more people have attempted Everest ... especially with the advent of professional guiding operations. And the death rate has stayed brutally consistent: for every 10 who make the peak, one dies. May is the best month of the year to… More »

Another note on our attitudes about risk ... Jane Brody wrote an excellent column in the Science Times yesterday about the "slippery slope from fear to panic." She quotes two British researchers, whose recently-published book Panicology looks at how ridiculously irrational we humans are when it comes to the risks we fear. We panicked about bird flu, for example, even though the 2005/2006 bird flu "epidemic" killed fewer than 300 people worldwide ... while ignoring… More »

Back in February, I heard David Sanger, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Sanger's book The Inheritance, a fascinating read about the myriad of daunting challenges facing the new Obama administration, had just come out, and he was discussing some of the thornier issues on that list.While most of his talk concerned foreign policy issues, Sanger made the comment that one danger facing the U.S. was that… More »

After I finished my last post defending a liberal arts education--especially in terms of an entrepreneur's willingness to challenge convention--a friend pointed me to this column by David Brooks. Titled "What Life Asks of Us," the column quotes a Harvard report as saying the purpose of a liberal education is to teach individuals to "think for themselves ... break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their own… More »

We're entering commencement time, which means all kinds of notable people (the President and First Lady included) will be giving well-crafted speeches about the importance of education and a college degree. But is one kind of degree better than another? Much has been said about the importance of science and technology degrees in terms of keeping the U.S. competitive with the rest of the world. And as the economy has worsened, and fears of joblessness have risen,… More »

A follow-up to my earlier post on the MoMA "Into the Sunset" exhibit ...My second thought on the subject: While it's true that any photo or story is only a piece of a far more complex puzzle, it's also true that photographers (and writers) make choices about which puzzle pieces they capture and share with the rest of us. Every day. On every subject. But are they intentionally skewing our vision, or trying to reinforce a fantasy image? Well... sometimes. A travel… More »

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently running an exhibit called "Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West." The exhibit's premise is that photography and the American West essentially grew up together, and that photography played a key role in "shaping our collective imagination of the West." But one of the key questions raised both in the exhibit and in this Slate review of it, is: did that photography help create a myth of the West… More »

A follow-up to my last post about places in America where being "secure-job-free" (as a "car-free" Californian might put it) might be easier ... both in terms of emotional and cultural support, and in terms of tangible networking and freelance help from experienced independent workers, for those who decide to launch their own business or creative endeavor. It turns out that last summer, CNNMoney put together short profiles of the 100 best places, in their opinion,… More »

"Location, Location, Location," is the time-tested Rule #1 (and #2 and #3) for real estate dealings. A good location is the bottom-line determiner of real estate value. But what constitutes "good"? While real estate agents tend to focus on factors such as low crime, neighborhood aesthetics, good schools, and access to commerce, there are other factors ... especially in a recession, or if you have a creative or entrepreneurial bent. I'm putting those three… More »

If all goes according to plan, the shuttle Atlantis will lift off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center today for the last servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope ... bringing together, possibly for the last time, the two sometimes-competing arms of NASA's space exploration divisions. To the outsider, NASA might seem like one big entity that, collectively, explores near and far space. But having written six books for the agency, I can tell you… More »

I have a soft spot in my heart for Minnesota Public Radio, having spent four years living in Garrison Keillor country back in the early 1990s. If you have that much snow and sub-zero weather in your life, maybe you have to have both an enduring, and slightly wry, sense of humor about things. Or maybe you don't. But ... you betcha ... it certainly helps. In any event, this piece by Bob Collins of MPR--full of wry insight and humor--is well worth the reading. It… More »

Right after I'd returned to the U.S. from a month-long trip flying relief supplies into Chad, Sudan, and the tumultuous eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I overheard a woman in the locker room of my gym admonishing someone not to drink from a particular kind of plastic water bottle, because it might cause cancer. Compared with lawless conflict zones populated with angry, AK-47-toting young men, the dangers presented by a plastic water bottle… More »

Americans are huge fans of adventure. Man vs. Wild is a big hit. Survivor put reality shows on the map (for which I still want to have words with its creators). Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and George Lucas are iconic business heroes. As a culture, we romanticize people who climb mountains, start innovative new companies, fly or sail around the world, hand out malaria nets in Africa, or otherwise take on daunting physical, business, or cultural challenges. Most of us… More »