Our Book’s Website is now Live

My wife Dorothie and I have developed a website devoted to our soon-to-be-released book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, which just went live. The deep connection between the book and this site’s theme of Defusing the Nuclear Threat is explained in my March 1 post here: The Turing Award, Nuclear Risk, and Recapturing True Love. Please sign up for updates on that effort. People on that list will get notices about the book’s release, discounts that might be available, and most importantly, how to participate in this effort. Thanks very much.

A New Map for Relationships: Chapters 7, 8 & 9

The first of these three chapters describes a recent incident that easily could have blown up into an argument, but that was kept under control by Dorothie and me following “our new map for relationships.” Tearing up our old relationship map and piecing together a new one took years, but resulted in a marriage where we haven’t had a single fight or argument in well over 10 years.  That’s something I didn’t think was possible, and I have to give Dorothie full credit for that vision. The second chapter is aptly titled, “Our Quest,” and the third explains how the seemingly impossible can become a reality by thinking in terms of a process, rather than a discontinuous jump.

A New Map for Relationships: Chapters 4, 5 & 6

For reasons explained in my March 1 blog post, I’m posting draft chapters of my forthcoming book with my wife Dorothie: A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. We felt pressed to maintain the interest created by the ACM Turing Award announcement (mentioned in that March 1 post), so these are from a draft manuscript, and the final version will hopefully be even better. That post also has links to earlier chapters, and will be updated with links as new chapters are added.

A New Map for Relationships: Chapters 2 & 3

For reasons explained in my March 1 blog post, I’m posting draft chapters of my forthcoming book with my wife Dorothie: A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. My last post of chapter 1 had me mistreat Dorothie in a way that caused her to storm out of our car and, when she returned, rip up the map I was holding. The story has a happy ending, with the two of us breaking into laughter at the insanity of our actions, and then working to piece together the jig saw puzzle that our map had become – producing yet more laughter.

This time I’m posting chapters 2 and 3, on personal and international relationship maps. I felt it was important to get to chapter 3 so that readers will see the connections between improving one’s marriage or other personal relationship and ending global threats, particularly environmental degradation and nuclear war.

A New Map for Relationships: Chapter 1

My last blog post announced that my wife Dorothie and I will be using my half of the $1 million ACM Turing Award to further our work on building a more peaceful, sustainable world. Our initial thrust will be to bring attention to a new approach described in our forthcoming book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. That approach combines a concern for global issues with improving one’s marriage or other intimate relationship. It worked wonders for us, while nothing else had dented our cycle of seemingly endless fights. We also found that working on both the personal and global dimensions simultaneously accelerated our progress on each of them. We hope to have the book ready in time for the formal conferral of the ACM Turing Award in June, and in the meantime hope to excite interest by posting some chapters of the book here. Chapter 1 is immediately below, and watch here for additional installments that will link this very personal story to global issues such as war and peace. 

The Turing Award, Nuclear Risk, and Recapturing True Love

It has just been announced at 10 AM this morning that my colleague Whitfield Diffie and I will be receiving this year’s ACM Turing Award and the $1,000,000 that comes with it – one reason it’s sometimes called “the Nobel Prize of computing.” But what does my former life in cybersecurity, which is the reason for the award, have to do with defusing the nuclear threat – the theme of this blog? And what does either of those have to do with recapturing true love – the last part of this post’s title? This and my next few blog posts will explain, so stay tuned.

Responding to North Korea’s Fourth Nuclear Test

Tonight’s PBS Newshour covered North Korea’s fourth nuclear test that occurred earlier today. Wendy Sherman, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and advisor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, called for further sanctions “to ensure that we not allow North Korea to blackmail the international community, but that we take resolute action to tell them, this is not acceptable.” The only problem with her call to action is that it is more of the same that has gotten us nowhere good over the last thirteen years.

Five Things America Needs to Learn

Harvard Prof. Stephen M. Walt has an excellent article in Foreign Policy that I highly recommend. Although its title is “The Top 5 Things the Next American President Needs to Know About Foreign Policy,” ordinary Americans need to learn these as well because, until enough of us do, the president will be unable to act on them out of fear of the political consequences. Key excerpts from Prof. Walt’s article appear directly under my signature line.

Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet: Part 3

My last blog post recommended amending Article V of the NATO Charter so that only unprovoked attacks on one NATO nation would be considered an attack on them all. If it turns out that Turkey’s shooting down a Russian jet on November 24 was unwarranted, do we really want to start World War III should Russia shoot down a Turkish fighter in a future such encounter?

Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet: Part 2

Yesterday’s post noted that none of the seven major news outlets I had looked at regarding Turkey’s shooting down a Russian fighter mentioned the nuclear dimension to the risk. Today’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal coverage bring the number to nine. They also provide some important details that help explain what happened.