Power of Three
Many of us have heard the saying “bad things come in threes” or its preferred counterpart about good things. For some reason, we like to think in threes. There are countless three-worded phrases like mind, body and soul and slogans like Snap, Crackle, Pop. Stoplights have three colors-red, yellow and green. The Declaration of Independence declares three inalienable rights-life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The United States government created by the Constitution consists of three branches-executive, legislative and judicial. When you really start paying attention, you find the number three all over the place across pop culture, literature, sports, religion Read more…
Everyone Loves a Good Villain
When I was working at the Pentagon several years ago, I found out that a number of people were referring to me as Dr. Evil and not in jest. At the time, I was working for the Assistant Secretary of Defense who oversees the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a behemoth defense agency with over 2,000 employees and an annual budget of over $3 billion. It was my job to oversee several projects of interest to him and make sure they were running on time, not over spending and doing what they were intended to accomplish. That meant that I regularly Read more…
It’s Called a “Laser”
In the 1997 action-comedy film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil is trying to come up with an evil plan to blackmail the world. In his second attempt at a viable plan, he explains to his minions that he had developed a weather-changing machine in the 1960s, which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam he called a “laser”. He hand signs quotation marks to call out the term “laser” indicating that the technology was not well known at the time, and no one really should know what a “laser” is. Dr. Evil has just been de-thawed after being cryogenically Read more…
I am a Writer
Once upon a time, a national security expert decided to become a writer… For years, I’ve been telling people that I want to become a writer when I grow up–or rather when I grow up for the second time around. In my first adult life, I am an expert on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and teach at the National Defense University (NDU)–cue scary music. And now, I want to be a fiction writer and write political thrillers–cue record scratching music. In reality, I write all the time for my work. Writing is a part of my daily life. I’ve Read more…
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