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Michael Dobie

Michael Dobie

Newsday

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Path of totality is locus of obsession

A phrase making the rounds these days is wonderful in its fluidity: The path of totality. It sounds like a description of the damage field caused by a...

07.04.2024 8

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Call for help from the long tail of COVID

You scan the photos and smile. She's a little girl making funny faces. Sitting on your daughter's shoulders in a chicken fight. On the field in...

31.03.2024 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Unhappy report for our young people

When we were kids, it seemed like we were always outdoors. There was a band of boys my age and we had a routine. One would go the back door of...

24.03.2024 20

Newsday

Michael Dobie

An altered photo betrays trust in reality

A photo sits on a shelf. Or hangs on a wall. Or nestles in a scrapbook with a collection that tells the story of a life. You study them for...

17.03.2024 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Mammoth mistake to recreate the past

I remember the picture books, the broad pages and sweeping landscapes, the colorful depictions of Earth thousands of years ago, the rocks and ice...

10.03.2024 3

Newsday

Michael Dobie

What's the legacy of Mitch McConnell?

A great many things came to mind for a great many people this past week when Mitch McConnell announced he would be stepping down this fall as leader...

03.03.2024 3

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Space exploration is having a moment

Even admitting all the difficulty we humans have recognizing when something is having a moment, and acknowledging all the times we get it wrong, it...

25.02.2024 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Navalny offers a lesson in toughness

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first human to stand atop the tallest spot on Earth when he stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953,...

18.02.2024 2

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Learning about life from Joni Mitchell

The first notes were not perfect, a touch flat, off the familiar line of melody. But as the chair in which the singer sat swiveled to face the...

11.02.2024 5

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Seeking Earhart, pushing limits

Ingenuity died in the heavens this week. On Mars, specifically. This is not some grasp at celestial metaphor. Ingenuity, the little helicopter that...

04.02.2024 4

Newsday

Michael Dobie

A lesson in the fight to save a species

Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions. Often, these challenges elicit the best from us humans. Such certainly has been the case...

28.01.2024 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

A remarkable moment after 22 years

Something remarkable happened this week. More than 22 years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, New York City officials said they had...

21.01.2024 9

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Eras end and begin, what era are we in?

Sometimes the end of an era smacks you in the face. Sometimes it just slips away, so quietly that it takes us time to realize that it's over. Eras are...

14.01.2024 3

Newsday

Michael Dobie

A doorway beckons, offering warmth

It’s just a doorway to a house. Over the years, one of many doorways to many houses. It beckons, as doorways do. But whatever the doorway in...

24.12.2023 2

Newsday

Michael Dobie

2023: The year that was in a puzzle

20.12.2023 4

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Welcome the ghosts that come to visit

I'm looking forward to welcoming my ghosts again. They always come this time of year. They're not the haunting kind, except in the sense of how much I...

17.12.2023 5

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Gaining perspective on birthrate crisis

I held my two newest grandchildren this week. It was exhilarating. And soothing. And nourishing. And instructive. When you hold a newborn, nothing...

11.12.2023 3

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Word of the year is a little befuddling

Obsolescence creeps in on little cat feet. One watches for signs. A creak in the body here. A memory escaped there. A fluidity of movement...

11.12.2023 3

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Numbers change, a gardener wonders

There is a pond not far from my house. It sits sandwiched between a group of homes and some thick woods along a road. In the dead of winter, the pond...

26.11.2023 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

It's the awful shorthand of our lives

The attack on Israel by Hamas last month was gruesome and shocking, bloody and vicious. We saw and heard the testimony of survivors, in some cases...

19.11.2023 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Flaco flees and our dreams fly with him

Flaco has flown the coop again. You do remember Flaco, right? He's the spectacular Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped the Central Park Zoo in...

12.11.2023 30

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Excruciating math of the war in Gaza

Longtime readers know that I’m a math guy. I love math, always have. I love the power and beauty inherent in numbers, their capacity for both...

05.11.2023 2

Newsday

Michael Dobie

A new Beatles song leads us to imagine

And now for some good news: The Beatles are releasing a new song this week. Just writing those words creates a little shiver, the good kind, the...

29.10.2023 20

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Whither nation after ominous week

I’ve never been much of a prognosticator. None of us are, if we’re being honest. We remember we got it right, and wipe our memory banks clean of...

22.10.2023 6

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Endless search for our collective soul

NASA quietly launched a probe into deep space Friday — as quietly as one can launch a probe that costs about $850 million and will take six years...

15.10.2023 4

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Trying to persuade on climate change

One great perplexity of our times is the inability of scientists, experts and other leaders to persuade large swaths of the country, and the world in...

08.10.2023 10

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Seeking the sun in our politics of rain

I've always liked a rainy day. It's a tap from Mother Nature, a replenishing of our life force. It's the energy of ions bristling in the air, the...

01.10.2023 2

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Bus crash reminds us nothing is certain

The dark side of serendipity lies just beneath the surface of our daily lives. We know it's there. We know that bad luck, catastrophically bad luck,...

24.09.2023 7

Newsday

Michael Dobie

Mitt Romney makes a principled exit

A journalistic lifetime ago, I crossed paths with Mitt Romney. I had the good fortune to be assigned to cover the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake...

17.09.2023 7

Newsday

Michael Dobie

We have to learn how to trust again

I was driving on Little East Neck Road in Babylon Town the other day. It's like so many Long Island roads, like so many roads everywhere. One lane...

10.09.2023 7

Newsday

Michael Dobie

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