‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Peace House Community: June ’23
Which is Worse: A Viper, a Cobra, or an Adder? By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Decades ago, I heard my supervisor speaking with a friend about their respective marital troubles. They had very different challenges in their marriages, but they understood each other’s struggles. Being young, single, and stupid, I made some naïve comment that was meant to be helpful. My supervisor laughed at my ignorance and commented, “When it comes to our wives, it’s a question of whether you want to face a viper, a cobra, or an adder.” (Sorry for the implied sexism of that story. If I had a female supervisor, I’m sure it would have been a choice between a jackass, a mule, or a donkey.)My supervisor’s comment keeps coming back to me when I recognize a situation with no “good” options, just options that hopefully are less harmful than others. One such situation came up at the April City Council meeting when the City reported that it has spent between $5.5 and $7.5 million since [...]
Peace House Community: Wisdom in Unexpected Places
By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Occasionally, you come across wisdom in such an unexpected place that you don’t notice it until later. It’s like driving past something quickly and then thinking “Did I just see …?” I had this experience recently when I ran across one of the best commentaries I’ve ever heard about what matters in a relationship.Some of you will remember the television series MythBusters, where Adam Savage and his colleagues would test famous but questionable stories to see if they were scientifically possible. Since MythBusters went off the air, Adam has started a live podcast (complete with video feed) where he answers fans’ questions, many of which involve his time on MythBusters. The setup is pretty simple: Adam sits at a workbench and reads questions on his computer monitor as they come in, looks directly into the camera, and speaks to whoever asked the question. In one podcast, someone asked him if he imagines an actual person behind the camera [...]
PHC: The Simple Life
By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby During a recent discussion at Peace House Community regarding our favorite childhood board games, one of our volunteers brought up some experiments that showed that people who felt they were richer than those around them became less compassionate and less willing to help others. If you’re wondering about the connection between the two, one of the experiments involved a game of Monopoly where one player was given twice as much money as the other player, was allowed to roll two dice where the other could only roll one, and was generally given every advantage imaginable. Almost universally, the winners (those with all the advantages) claimed they won because of their superior strategy, and said almost nothing about the way the game was rigged in their favor. (If you want a summary of the experiments, which has some really funny moments, check out Paul Piff’s TED Talk “Does Money Make You Mean?” at [...]
