In one of his massively watched Ted Talks, management guru Simon Sinek explains why good leaders inspire confidence, and why we feel safe when we have someone in charge of an organization who doesn’t demand trust but inspires it. He takes it back to the nature of humanity as a social species. How when we […]
Nice Surprise Home delivery?! Now, the calm and comfort we feel from living in a small and caring community is complete. What a surprise to find the MJ in the driveway this morning along with the Times and WSJ. From a distance, I assumed we’d received some junk publication, but instead I found our more-valuable-than-ever […]
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A Westmont College-hosted talk in February by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman spoke to the increasing awareness of behavioral economics. Kahneman won the prize in 2002 for his creation of the prospect theory: the concept that investors feel the pain of losses much more than the joy of gains. This echoed a similar sentiment from […]
A shout out of gratitude to Realtor Dusty Baker for sponsoring this week’s Montecito Journal home delivery. Hemingway famously said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter… and bleed.” Which certainly has been true for me on occasion. But on the positive side of the ledger, writing has […]
For the first time in memory, there is momentum in California to usher in the clean, decentralized energy future that a growing number of Californians believe is necessary to combat climate change and improve community resiliency. It begins with reimagining how electric utilities conduct business. After the 2019 fire season, Public Safety Power Shutoffs resulted […]
For a smart species, humans can also have bizarre gaps in their logic. For example, the wheel was invented around 3500 BC… but wasn’t affixed to the bottom of luggage till 1970. In a similar brain fart of civilization, people have been duking it out over toilet paper at Costco, when, a few aisles over, […]
My immigrant wife Merlie is mystified by our complex voting system. She wonders what these “primaries” are all about. “Why don’t you just vote for your choice among all of the presidential candidates at once and be done with it?” I am going to break Godwin’s Law and invoke the following example. Suppose we had […]
At Home in the Age of Corona, March 19, 2020 I am looking out my window at a grey and dripping sky, reflecting upon our new reality. Like millions of people everywhere in the world, I am at home. I am lucky to be in a nice warm house, and to have my wife and […]
I was talking to a young friend on Friday. She grew up in Montecito and is in her sophomore year of college in Santa Barbara. We were commiserating about her school, and my daughters’ local schools, all coming to such an abruptly surreal halt when my friend looked at me and said, “Same thing happened […]
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Gwyn Lurie sits in the back office of the Montecito Journal. Mock-ups of issues are fanned to one side as she types on her laptop at her long wooden desk. A large-scale photograph by Alan Kozlowski is propped on the wall behind her screen, waiting to be hung. The image titled “The Lake of Turquoise […]
The Future of Santa Barbara Your Editorial and article “The Long now of Santa Barbara” (March 5, 2020) provide a great service to our community. You’ve touched on all the hot-button issues that will determine how we grow and adapt to a changing world: density, cars, parking, building height, views, retail, community. I loved the […]
Last week, when Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar suspended their presidential campaigns, you could hear a coast-to-coast collective sigh of female frustration. “Are we ever going to see a woman be elected president of the United States?” I strongly believe we will. But not until (we) women make it so. As Elizabeth Warren said, […]
By far, the hottest topic in Montecito this week is the fear of the coronavirus and its rapid spread around the world. Anxiety is high because we are all being warned by the media that the coronavirus has not yet peaked. Social Distancing Wherever cases are reported, the cry escalates for “social distancing,” which means […]
The California Primary is finally over and our sincere congratulations go to Das Williams for the win. Now let’s get to some serious bridge-building – something we’re all too familiar with in Montecito. Hopefully these bridges will take less time to build than the one at Parra Grande. Am I pushing for a Kumbaya moment? […]
