A gentleman reigns as king of his castle, defender of his domain.  Since civilization’s birth, what does any proper citadel need?  A flag.  Flags mark territory.  They declare sovereignty or affiliation.  Through symbols, shapes and colors, a flag tells a story to outsiders about the land and its people.   To insiders, a flag emphasizes unifying values and shared aspirations. You may have a mortgage.  You may mow the grass biweekly.  You even may have replaced the kitchen backsplash.  But, you do not own a house until you fly a flag on it.  What flag, you ask. This is not Fifteenth-Century Scotland: you do not need a coat of arms.  Instead, select the flag of an organization with which you associate, e.g., a university, the Marine Corps, or an athletic team.  Or, patriotically hoist the American flag.  Do not, however, fly...

A British inventor created the light switch in 1884. Since then, technological innovation has exploded (sometimes literally). Mankind invented the television, the airplane, the laser and the computer. We went to the moon and cured polio. Yet, the light switch remains virtually the same. If you live in North America, up is on, down is off, and that’s just how things have always been. Some people may question the need for change. Why meddle with a good thing? Well, as Sam Seaborn on West Wing preached, “'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next.” So what...