Hilton Head Monthly Voice Voice of the Lowcountry 
What happens if you fill a room with highly educated and intellectually curious people? Does the combined IQ coefficient cancel itself out or does it elevate the discussions to a higher level?
After attending three days packed with presentations, storytelling and conversations, to me the answer is clear: It seems to lift everybody up a notch. Suddenly I felt smarter, more knowledgeable, more inspired and more empowered than before I entered the room.
While planning for my family’s future, I looked up aging tables and I took two different “life expectancy calculator” tests. The results were both good news and shocking at the same time. The general life expectancy has continually been moving up and, as a result, we have to plan for a longer life than the old common wisdom suggested, with all the consequences that come along with it positive, hopeful and scary, depending on your own level of confidence in what aging might mean.
LOCATION: ZURICH, SWITZERLAND IN THE HEART OF THE OLD TOWN
A white light wakes me up in the morning; its color is uniform, making it difficult to guess the actual time. I get up and peak out the window, looking at two large church towers each bearing a grandiose clock on their walls, confirming it is 6:27 a.m. Soon the bells will ring.
On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I heard a satirical stand-up comedian say the following (and I’m paraphrasing here): “There are so many different terrorist groups now that we don’t know who to fight any longer. We should let them quarrel among themselves like a knockout round and then fight the winner.”
I have been asked to give a speech Jan. 20 on the “Risks and Opportunities for the Next Decade for an Island Community,” as part of a speaker series organized by the Heritage Library and Coastal Discovery Museum entitled “Hilton Head in the Modern Era.” (See the ad on page 142).
David Bennett will be the new mayor of Hilton Head Island. With a 2-to-1 margin, this is not a victory, but a mandate.
It was not a coincidence to discover that many of the most respected community leaders representing the most diverse backgrounds one can think of were supporting Bennett’s quest to become mayor. How diverse you ask? How about people in the fields of architecture, arts, banking, business, land development, education, hospitality, media, nonprofits, politics, real estate, religion, sustainability, volunteer groups and world affairs, just to name a few?
I had an opportunity to meet with neurosurgeon Rudy Kachmann recently. After an interesting discussion about the effects of living an unhealthy lifestyle, I invited him to write a column on the topic in place of my regular “Last Call.” I hope you find his information as useful as I did. — Marc Frey
Good lifestyle choices could eliminate most common illnesses.
By Dr. Rudy Kachmann
An estimated 80 or 90 percent of the time our cars are standing idle in the garage, at work or some other place. This is a huge amount of underutilized capital and physical mass.
In all likelihood, the future of personal transportation will challenge not one but two models we take for granted today: personal possession and human beings behind the wheel.
Over 40,000 people die in road accidents each year in the U.S. and human error, not mechanical failure, causes almost all of them.
Advanced technology will soon make it possible for us to enter a vehicle and punch in the destination, then sit back and watch as the car of the future will take off and safely deliver us at the desired arrival point.
With Marc Frey out of the country, this month’s Last Call has transformed into the … LANCE CALL
Last month we asked our readers a question: How can traffic to Hilton Head Island be improved?
The choices were:
As a first generation European immigrant, I’m compelled to compare the Old World with the New World.
One of the essential things that attracted me to the U.S. is American optimism — the will to focus on the positive instead of bemoaning the negative, believing that things will look up and we will always find or invent a way to make things better. Isn’t that the soul of America, the spirit which fueled the development of our country in the first place?
