Last week, I reflected on the perils of big data and its octopus-like embrace in Just Because Facebook is Foxy Doesn’t Mean We Need to Be Goats. This week I offer a silver lining. And if you prefer the option of listening … Fablecast Here We are obsessed by what the Internet, in the guise of Facebook or Google or others, knows about us. And indeed, big data may be our new cerebroscope, a mythological device, which reads the true contents of our brains. While many argue for big data’s eerie accuracy and insight, just as many poke holes in its ultimate efficacy. Yet no one can deny that it yields new, often uncomfortable, insight into the human condition. Privacy…

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Facebook has mad amounts of information about us. And Google has magnitudes more data about us, though the Cambridge Analytica scandal is like a bright shiny object distracting us from that bigger picture. The real crux is that we believe we are individuals, but on an aggregate, big data basis, it turns out that we are massively predictable. Captain Fox was out and about with his friend, Billy the goat, he of the extra-tall rack of horns. Billy couldn’t see past the end of his nose. The Captain had a Master’s Degree in tricksterism. Their parched throats obliged them to climb down into a well. There they slaked their thirst. After both had drunk their fill, the fox said to…

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If you never compare yourself to someone else, you can stop reading. For the rest of us, how many times do we need to hear that hackneyed phrase — compare and despair? Psychology Today called this The Comparison Trap in a recent article. Finding the balance between admiring and envying another, between being inspired by someone else’s success and being resentful, aspiring or self-defeating — this is the work of a lifetime for many of us. The Peacock was complaining to Juno, Goddess, the peacock said, it’s not without reason I’m complaining. Yes, I’m muttering. The song you gave me displeases all in nature. Compared to the nightingale, that scrawny weakling, whose sounds are as sweet as they are resonant; to him alone falls the…

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The NRA has perpetrated a fraud on the Second Amendment. So former Supreme Court Justice Stevens reminds us in a New York Times Op-Ed calling for that amendment’s repeal. Let’s go further. However we interpret the Second Amendment, it enshrines a gluttony for violence that is contrary to all that democracy aspires to be. Wolves eat like gluttons. A certain wolf at an amusement park ate so much with such haste, they say, that he thought he might die. A bone was stuck in his throat. The wolf, who couldn’t even cry out, was in luck; a stork passed nearby. The wolf signaled the bird. She came running. Here is our operator at the task in a flash. She pulls out the…

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There’s a whirlwind of staff turnover in the Trump administration. How much does he instigate with his sow-utmost-confusion management style? Who is whispering in Trump’s ear? What perceived insults come to his attention, and how? What is clear — infighting is a prime blood sport Trump enjoys. A decrepit lion, gouty and near his end, wanted to find a remedy for old age. Try telling a king that something is impossible; you’re sure to be abused. This is so across every species. So call the doctors, there’s every kind. Doctors came from far and wide for the lion. From every side, there were those offering recipes. Amidst all this visiting, the fox did not come. He kept quiet and to himself. The…

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Most of us have gotten complacent. Until recently, in North America and Europe, stable governments brushed a Goldilocks-just-right veneer over the surface of many of our lives. The lion, terror of the forests, weighed down by the years and regretting his past prowess, was at last attacked by his own subjects, grown strong with his weakness. The horse approached and gave him a kick; the wolf, a bite; the bull, a stab with his horn. The unhappy lion, languishing, sad and morose, could barely roar he was so crippled by age. He awaited his destiny, without complaint. Then he saw the donkey come running toward his den. Oh! That’s too much, he said. Now I really want to die. It’s dying twice to…

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership is inked. The US isn’t part of it, of course. Instead the government took the opportunity on the same day to impose new steel tariffs. No one benefits when the US refuses to cooperate with its trade partners. One day two wanderers on the sand encountered an oyster the water had washed up. They gorged on the oyster with their eyes. Pointed it out to each other. But, when it came to the eating, well that was contested. One was already reaching down to pick up the prey, when the other pushed him and said, It’s best to know which of us will have the joy of consuming. The first who saw the oyster should be the swallower.…

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Once upon a time the NRA was about marksmanship, a pursuit often associated with old-fashioned notions of honour and excellence. In that story of bygone times, the Second Amendment slumbered in peaceful obscurity on the banks of the Potomac. Then in the 60s and 70s, their paths began to converge. So that when, in the early 90s, there was talk of moving the NRA to Colorado Springs, to be closer to the Olympic training facilities — remember that sporting spirit? — the proposed initiative precipitated an NRA leadership coup. A breeding dog near her term, not knowing where to put down her imminent burden; was so convincing that in the end her companion consented to lend the pregnant dog her hut. Where the dog shut…

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More than a decade ago we renovated our bathroom, during which the light switch migrated from left of the door as we entered to right. To this day, my hand will sometimes reach the wrong way. Habits are great, until … well, until habit slips into an inescapable groove. The light switch is a simple example. A reminder of how hard it is to break a habit. Other habits are harder to notice and harder still to break. For myself, I’m thinking of mental habits in particular. The way I’ll default to the weird comfort of familiar negative self-talk, instead of exploring the nuances of a situation that didn’t turn out the way I hoped or wanted. Everyone has faults they fall back…

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