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David Brooks: People are more generous than we may think

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

Are human beings fundamentally good or fundamentally bad? Are people mostly generous, or are they mostly selfish?Over the centuries, many of our leading lights have taken the view that people are basically selfish. Machiavelli argued that people are deceitful, ungrateful and covetous. Classical economics is based on the idea that people relentlessly pursue their self-interest. “The average human being is about 95% selfish in the narrow meaning of the term,” economist Gordon Tullock once wrote. In his book “The Selfish Gene,” evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins argued, “We are born selfish.” In the public at large, only 30% of Americans say they can trust the people around them, suggesting quite a grim view of human nature.But what if this dark view of our nature is not true?In a recent experiment led by psychologists Ryan Dwyer, William Brady and Elizabeth Dunn and TED curator Chris Anderson, 200 people in seven nations around the world were each given $10,000, free, and then rep...

'Margaritaville' singer, Jimmy Buffett, dies at 76

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- Jimmy Buffett passed away last night, September 1, according to a statement posted on his website. He was 76.The statement does not specify the place of death or the cause. In May, the singer had to reschedule his concerts due to health issues, which he had shared on social media, indicating his hospitalization.Jimmy Buffett is renowned for his music career, notably as a singer-songwriter celebrated for his laid-back, tropical-themed style. He is often linked to the 'Gulf and Western' or 'Trop Rock' subgenre, which blends elements of country, folk, rock, and Caribbean music. ‘Margaritaville’ singer Jimmy Buffett, who turned beach-bum life into an empire, dies at 76 His music frequently embraces a carefree, beachy lifestyle, with his most famous songs including "Margaritaville," "Cheeseburger in Paradise," and "Come Monday." Beyond his musical achievements, Buffett is recognized for his entrepreneurial ventures, such as the popular restaurant chain 'Margaritaville,' w...

After years of infighting, one Douglas County commissioner sues the other two over legal fees

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

The players are different, the county is different, but the question is the same: Should a local elected official be forced to pay her own legal costs to defend against actions taken by other elected officeholders in the same jurisdiction — even the same building?Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas sued her commissioner colleagues Aug. 29, the latest turn in more than two years of public bickering with George Teal and Abe Laydon over her conduct. It follows a recent vote by Teal and Laydon to censure her. Thomas wants to recover $5,715.50 in legal fees she racked up defending herself against county-launched investigations that ultimately found no wrongdoing on her part. Douglas County has refused to cut her a check.“I was elected by 129,000 people,” Thomas told The Denver Post in an interview Friday. “And the tyranny of the majority continues to marginalize my ability to govern. They need to pay my legal bills and we can all move on.”The situation ...

A move to cut drug prices in Colorado has patients with rare diseases worried

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

For people with cystic fibrosis, like Sabrina Walker, Trikafta has been a life-changer.Before the 37-year-old Erie mother started taking the drug, she would wind up in the hospital for weeks at a time until antibiotics could eliminate the infections in her lungs. Every day, she would wear a vest that shook her body to loosen the mucus buildup.One particularly bad flare-up, known as a pulmonary exacerbation, had her coughing up blood in 2019, so she was put on the newly approved breakthrough medication.Within a month, her lung function increased by 20%, she said, and her health improved. Before she started taking Trakafta, she could count on three to four hospitalizations a year. Over the four years on the medication, she has been hospitalized only once.“I was spending hours a day doing airway clearance and breathing treatments, and that has been significantly reduced,” Walker said. “I’ve gained hours back in my day.”Now she runs and hikes in the thin Colorado air and works a full-ti...

Emotional return: Mountain View plays in honor of mother who died

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

MOUNTAIN VIEW – With heavy hearts, the Mountain View High School football team played a game on Friday night, its first since an unthinkable tragedy left the program mourning the death of a player’s mother.On each helmet was the initials “LD” in honor of Lucinda Daniels, who collapsed with a brain injury at a game last week while tending to her seriously injured son, senior running back Dillon Daniels, and died Wednesday.The Spartans lost to Live Oak 20-14 in their emotional return to the field. But to Mountain View coach Tim Lugo, the scoreboard hardly mattered.“Like I told the kids, win or lose, you’re all winners for playing tonight,” Lugo said.Before kickoff, Mountain View held a moment of silence in tribute to Lucinda, a wife and mother of four whose death sparked an outpouring of support from the Mountain View community and beyond.The Mountain View High School football team bows their heads before their game, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, during a moment of silence in honor of Lucind...

Kurtenbach: Cal and Stanford are in the ACC and college football is officially dead

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

The “caretakers” of college football made the most serious mistake, and it killed their sport.They assumed the game was serious.No, what made college football great was the sheer chaos of it all. It was balkanized and provincial — a game filled with shady characters, open secrets, and preposterous contradictions.College football is dead. Its murder came long before Friday, when the Atlantic Coast Conference added Stanford and Cal — two schools that couldn’t be any further away from the Atlantic Coast. But the move perfectly encapsulates how this once great sport had everything that once made it great stripped away.The new college football is national and corporate — a billion-dollar industry dominated by the same cadre of schools that have made their business creating NFL players.The top schools all compete for the same top players. The conferences fight for the same (now dwindling) TV dollars.Everything serves those two purposes. There’s not much room for an...

Luke Baker’s strong first half leads San Ramon Valley to win over Acalanes

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

LAFAYETTE — San Ramon Valley didn’t play the prettiest game. But an efficient first half from senior quarterback Luke Baker gave the Wolves all they needed against Acalanes.The Wolves beat the home team Dons 44-21 on Friday night at Acalanes High School in Lafayette, improving their record to 2-0 on the season following a rout of St. Ignatius in the opening week. Acalanes moves to 0-2.Baker led a dominant first half in which the Wolves scored 34 points, including two passing touchdowns by Baker and a pair of rushing touchdowns. Senior running back John Pau Mendoza finished the game with two rushing touchdowns. Throughout the game and particularly in the second half, Baker found himself on the move, sometimes for big rushing gains.“He was efficient early,” head coach Aaron Becker said. “I think he’d tell you he can play better. I think our expectations of him are so high that when he misses a few passes in a row we think the sky is falling.”B...

Editorial: Newsom plan to bridge digital divide becoming a boondoggle

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

In the summer of 2021, more than a year into the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press event at a rural elementary school in Tulare County to tout his signing of a bill that he said would help close the digital divide.The COVID lockdown and school closures had laid bare the struggles of residents of the state’s rural regions and low-income urban neighborhoods to access high-speed internet service that has become critical to our daily lives.Now, two years later, his administration and the California Public Utilities Commission, whose leadership Newsom has appointed, have turned the governor’s promise of bridging digital inequality into a wasteful and reckless allocation of billions of dollars.Unless Newsom rights this ship quickly, it threatens to become another shameful California boondoggle piled on top of the state’s botched effort to bring its computerized budgeting system into the 21st century, dysfunctional unemployment agency, and wasteful bullet train program.Meanwhile, th...

High school football: Palo Alto uses big-play passing game to knock off Leland

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

SAN JOSE — Palo Alto’s big-play passing game got the best of Leland’s clock-controlling power ground attack Friday.Declan Packer completed only nine passes, but for 273 yards — 174 of it to Jason Auzenne —  as visiting Palo Alto came away with a 38-20 victory at Pat Tillman Stadium.Packer has thrown for over 400 yards with five touchdowns and zero interceptions over two games this season. It doesn’t hurt having Andrew Luck and Christoph Bono on the coaching staff.Luck, the former Stanford and Indianapolis Colts star, works mostly during the week with the freshman team at Palo Alto. But of course, passing along tips to Packer is a no-brainer.“It’s pretty cool having a former first-round NFL draft pick helping me out,” Packer said. “He’s taught me a lot.”Palo Alto’s Jason Auzenne(2) scores an 86-yard kickoff return touch down during the 1st half of the Palo Alto at Leland high school football game on Friday, September 1...

Kristof: Hungry mosquitoes, irritable bears and the glories of wilderness

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:48 GMT

One of the paradoxes of urban America is that millions of people speak reverently about wilderness but are much less eager to venture into it and risk real bites from actual mosquitoes.I’ve been musing about this while backpacking with family on the Pacific Northwest Trail, sometimes known as “America’s wildest trail,” on the Canada-U.S. border in Washington state. It’s stunning, mountainous country, right at timberline in the Pasayten Wilderness — yet we have it pretty much to ourselves (along with the bears, lynxes and mountain goats).Perhaps I’m running away from home, for this is a dispiriting time in America: A former president has not only been indicted four times but may actually also be reelected, our life expectancy is among the worst in the rich world, and large majorities of adults polled say our country is on the wrong track.Yet there’s something still spectacularly right about the United States: our wild spaces. Some 40% of America is public land — a credit ...