“Tufts and Tenen saw themselves as guardians of the cave. They were extremely concerned that their discovery could be looted and destroyed, as had happened to other caves in southern Arizona. They were determined to preserve its pristine quality. They became obsessed with secrecy, and hired a lawyer to write out a legally binding secrecy document that they insisted that anyone whom they had any reason to tell about the cave must sign. Tenen even made his future wife sign a secrecy document on their second date!”

This article is filed under Travel, Nature, Interviews.

“At Wynn Las Vegas, for instance, there is a special and very luxurious entrance for guests who pay, or are invited to stay in the “Tower Suites”—hotel rooms that are no larger or different than the rest of the hotel other than that they have this special entrance and more intimate front desk. The swimming pool for these suites is literally above and overlooking the pool for regular folk—so Tower Suite guests can look down on the hoi polloi. In fact, the whole resort has been designed to allow these patrons to move around in their own private sphere.”

This article is filed under Business, Interviews.

“Around the entire world what I see is Europe and China investing into and buying greater shares of foreign economies—and thus gaining significant political and even military leverage over them—at our expense. Power has to be a fair balance among a range of tools, including the military, in order to be used effectively. We’re not doing that now, and I don’t see a good strategy coming out of Washington as to how to do it better.”

This article is filed under China, Japan, Africa, Russia, India, Politics, Economics, Interviews.

“In waking we tend to think The Dream vanishes, evaporates in daylight like morning dew on grass. But it doesn’t. The unsettling Matrix-esque truth here is that we all live in world-simulations, pretty much all of the time. The brain isn’t out in the world; it’s locked in a dark box in your head. Patterns of information ting against our senses and get routed into the brain for model assembly. One of the core insights of the science of perception is our models of the world are heavily interpreted—our own expectations and cultural mores and personal history shape “The Real,” so that in some ways our personal little submarines move through an ocean of our own making.”

This article is filed under Mythology, Psychology, Interviews.

“If I had to pick a single overall theme in the book, I would say it’s to rectify the misunderstanding of what fascism is and to highlight the deep historical, ideological and emotional ties between progressivism (now called liberalism) and fascism.”

This article is filed under Politics, History, Interviews.

“The man lifted his arm and fired a single shot in Danny’s back. Danny was able to turn and fire one return shot at Abu-Jamal that hit him in the abdomen. Danny then fell onto the sidewalk. Mumia Abu-Jamal approached him as he lay unarmed and wounded on the ground and pointed his 5 shot Charter Arms revolver at Danny. He fired three more shots at him; two pierced his jacket but did not hit him. Jamal then moved closer, bent down and placed his gun to within 6 inches of Danny’s face. He fired his final shot into Danny’s forehead and the bullet came to rest in his brain.”

This article is filed under True Crime, Politics, Interviews.

“But at that point most of the expeditionaries perished as a result of Indian attacks, illness, and starvation. In fact, several expedition members resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Eventually, out of three hundred men comprising the original land contingent, only four survived. These four castaways remained as slaves of the coastal Indians of Texas for six years until they finally made their escape into what is now northeast Mexico.”

This article is filed under Native American, History, Interviews.

“People too content with their lot make lousy protagonists. (laughs) There has to be a source of drama, a source of conflict. You can start with a character that’s out of tune with his time or his life or some aspect of his life. And then if it’s a Hollywood movie with a Hollywood happy ending it’s the story of redemption, the story of how you get from that discontent position to your own perfect space. The first Back to the Future movie is kind of archetypal in that respect. You start by showing all the things that are crappy about the kid’s life and then he comes back to this sort of paradise at the end. My characters don’t tend to find paradise, but they do sometimes find themselves.”

This article is filed under Graphic Novels, Horror, Interviews.

“Tensions often arise between secular teachings and Biblical beliefs. Many students are reading, say Kant and Nietzsche for the first time. They may be alarmed, but they also may find those writers intoxicating.”

This article is filed under Religion, Politics, Education, Interviews.

“The part of me that walks around and does interviews is incapable of doing very much in the way of writing a novel. My unconscious is what I’m after and my unconscious is not very reliable. It doesn’t pay taxes and it won’t turn up every day to sit in the chair and type for me. I have to turn up and sit in the chair every day and type and occasionally it does turn up.”

This article is filed under Science Fiction, Writers, Interviews.