A question for the City of Akron: What about encryption?

Last week, on Friday, my city of Akron announced that a group called the Turkish Ajan gained access to databases containing taxpayer information.  In a press release issued on May 20th, the city said the following: “The attackers infiltrated the City of Akron’s computer network in spite of all of the efforts by the City to meet top national … Continue reading »

Dispatchers and the Public: Analyzing the Amanda Berry 911 calls

News of the discovery of three missing girls from my hometown this week has certainly raised many questions and prompted much criticism.  Some of this criticism involves the 911 calls made by Amanda Berry and her rescuer to Cleveland Police dispatchers.  As a dispatcher, news of these calls and the ensuing criticism is of particular … Continue reading »

The Exclusion of Atheists in Boston: An Open Letter

Last week, a call to action went out to atheists and other secularly-oriented individuals to collect responses to our exclusion from a memorial service observing the Boston Marathon bombing.  I wanted to take a moment to publicly share my response.  Also, I’d like to take a moment to applaud Greg Epstein, the Humanist Chaplain at … Continue reading »

The problem of restricted empathy, revisited

Recently, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, reversed his position on gay marriage.  He wrote, in an editorial in The Columbus Dispatch, that his son’s coming out to him was the primary motivation for his reversal.  From Portman’s editorial: “At the time, my position on marriage for same-sex couples was rooted in my faith tradition … Continue reading »

An excellent ReasonTV interview with Judge Alex Kozinski

I was unaware, until I first saw this video yesterday evening, that a Romanian immigrant is currently the Chief Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Much like my family, Kozinski immigrated to the United States from Romania before the Romanian Revolution of 1989.  He speaks candidly, though only briefly, … Continue reading »

Is debriefing after a traumatic event bad for PTSD survivors?

This short post is inspired by a post I made in response to a discussion thread about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on a LinkedIn group for emergency management professionals.  The prompt, by the first member who posted, was simple: “Let’s start a conversation about stress, PTSD and emergency services providers.”  Inspired in part by military … Continue reading »

Guns and Driving: A Case of the Weak Analogy

I promised myself that I wouldn’t write another post about gun control.  But then, I saw (yet again) another argument for gun laws that is based on fallacious reasoning.  Liberals are making an analogy between laws that currently restrict driving to those they propose to restrict gun ownership.  The problem is that the analogy they are making, … Continue reading »