The Valley of Death

Solar panels are heading into the Valley of Death—again. The White House is having additional solar panels installed this spring. President Carter installed them, Reagan dismantled them, and George W. Bush reinstalled a few. It’s a start/stop story picturing what plagues innovation: ideas failing to get traction. It’s a problem plaguing the faith community as…

Bent

A quarter of a million people will gather today in Washington DC to voice their opposition to abortion. This is appropriate as dissent is essential to democracy. It is insufficient for changing minds, however. Protest relies on rigorously using rules of logic—rules that are bent in fallen beings. This is why protest rarely bends attitudes….

Too Big To Fail?

“Chill, dudes,” chimed the cheery dinosaur. “We’re too big to fail.” When institutions become “too big to fail,” they inevitably fail. “Too big” is a faulty frame. It guarantees an organization’s ultimate failure, including Wall Street and Main Street institutions—and even the institutions of marriage and the church.

The Bigger Dig

Rerouting Boston’s Central Artery required more resources than anyone imagined. The “Big Dig” was the largest civil engineering project in U.S. history. Promised to cost $2.8 billion in 1985, it came in at $22 billion in 2007. These numbers are miniscule however when compared to the costs of tackling a human engineering problem—weight gain in…

Feelin’ It

“When you have to stop and think about things is when they go wrong.” When San Antonio Spurs’ forward Tim Duncan is playing well, he’s feelin’ it. Think too much and things go wrong. You might not be involved in high-speed sports, but you do experience high-speed decision making everyday. Why then does the Western…