Jayson Blair

I had a spring in my step this morning that had been absent for so long that it took me a moment to recognize that light, blissful feeling I felt. As I walked down our long driveway to pick up my copy of the Sunday New York Times , I literally took in the smell of the cherry blossom petals that lined my path as I marveled with them with my eyes.  The afternoon before it was raining outside. That rain was just as responsible for petals on my path as the wind that was still blowing. As the rain came down the day before, I was 48 miles to the east, at a funeral only a few blocks from the Potomac River. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy; then a sorrow; now a sin; then a generous brave action." Life is a journey in contrasts. Just like my weekend. _____ A few hours after taking in the beauty of my driveway, I was at our local grocery store. As I rounded the corner into the dairy aisl...

I was thumbing through the internet one recent evening, participating in one of an introvert’s favorite pastimes, as I aimlessly wandered from idea-to-idea, transversing what, to me is not the greatest productivity tool of modern time, and, instead, is simply the the world’s biggest library. I came across an image that had the fictional character from Star Trek: The Next Generation , Seven-of-Nine, juxtaposed with the character Data from the sister-show, Star Trek: Voyager . They are both an outgrowth of the character Spock from the original series, designed to give a third-person view of human condition. In as many ways as they are similar, they contrast. Seven was born Annika Hansen, the daughter of maverick space-traveling exobiologists who were searching for a species called the Borg. The hunters became the hunted, and that was quickly all she wrote as they were assimilated into the Borg’s interconnected cybernetic collective, where free will took at back seat to robotic di...