Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME

Bookmark and Share

Search for the term “criminal hubris” and chances are you won’t find anything (except, hopefully, this woeful column). We know what a criminal is. We know what hubris is. But there is no definition of “criminal hubris.”

Yet there is, and it’s staring at us right in the face. Metaphorically, it’s all around us. Cinematographically, it resides on the screens we watch. Its roots, however, lie within the body of literature – both philosophical and dramatic – we ought to be most familiar with.

Whether as a metaphor for real-life, a character in a story, or an actual crime, “criminal hubris” is easy to spot (if you’ve got a trained eye), hard to avoid (if you’re arrogant), and, best of all, wonderful to watch (because it hoists offenders with their own petard quite regularly).

Before I reveal the “7 Steps of Criminal Hubris” let’s explore the origins of “hubris” and Continue Reading “Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME

How Has Your Life Changed in the Past 30 Years?

Bookmark and Share

By Raphaël Thiémard from Belgique (Berlin 1989, Fall der Mauer, Chute du mur) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Where were you in 1989? Were you glued to the television watching the Berlin Wall come down, symbolizing the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the dawning of democracy in Western Europe? Perhaps, instead, you marveled at the picture of the one lone protestor in Tiananmen Square stare down a column of tanks as China decided it would not experience the same fate as its communist rival. Back on the brighter side, evil nemesis Ayatollah Khomeini died, although that didn’t seem to change much. Oh, yeah, and George H. W. Bush was sworn in what many expected to mark the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s “third” term.

Maybe, rather than the geopolitick, you preferred the here and now of the budding world of technology. You probably couldn’t believe this “486” chip just introduced by Intel could make “home” computers (that’s what they were called then) operate so fast. Little did you know you’d need that extra power to best use Microsoft’s new entry into the business software market with its product called “Office.” (And, if you were like most of us, you’d have thought only a fool would believe Excel could supplant Lotus’ 1-2-3.) Less interested in home computers? How about home video games? Nintendo releases something called a “Game Boy,” an 8-bit handheld system featuring interchangeable cartridges that revolutionized the industry.

High tech not your gig? No doubt you spent time waiting in line at the post office to buy a Continue Reading “How Has Your Life Changed in the Past 30 Years?”

You cannot copy content of this page

Skip to content