Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

I did an NPR Talk of the Nation segment today about what people take with them when they evacuate. The wildfires sweeping southern California have made the question urgent for thousands of people. But every year, for people all over America, evacuation has become a semi-annual ritual. Interestingly, people don’t usually pack very well on the first try. By the 2nd or 3rd disaster, though, they are experts in what to take and what to leave behind.

It got me thinking, and I figured it might be fun to make a short list of the less-obvious essentials--all things that people have said they wished they had taken or were most grateful they had remembered.

My own pillow
Play Station
Crossword puzzles
Kids’ immunization records
Battery-powered TVs
Cat litter (for use by humans)
Ear plugs
Ziploc bags!
The wine we were saving for special occasions

Special thanks to the New Orleans Times-Picayune for collecting some of the above must-haves.

Got any of your own to add?

What makes Warren Buffett’s brain different?

I just got done talking to Greg Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University Medical Center. Fascinating guy, and he has a new book out called Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently. Worth a look. And by the way, when are we going to get some neuroeconomists working for the government--or for cable TV? These people understand how the brain makes decisions in times of anxiety. Turns out to be very different from what we might expect… More on that coming soon.

Good news! The Unthinkable comes out in paperback on June 16, 2009. Still working on the new cover, but it should be out just in time for Father’s Day. 

I never fail to be amazed at how much attitude matters. It sounds so squishy and lame, and yet… Again and again, research and real life prove that attitude is the single biggest determinant of almost everything.

I saw it in researching THE UNTHINKABLE (in studies and stories showing that people with a healthy attitude recover more fully from trauma), and you can see it again today in the New York Times. In a study mentioned on the front page, people who a positive attitude about aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer (a bigger increase than those associated with exercising or not smoking).

One problem: we know way more about how to quit smoking than we do about how to change your attitude. Which is harder, for example? I don’t know. I am guessing quitting smoking.

This all reminds me of a fantastic quote by the theologian Charles Swindoll. I first learned of this quote when I was working on a story about 9/11. A man told me his wife had slipped this quote under the door to his home office the night before she left on a business trip. She died on one of the hijacked planes.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

Here’s a story I wrote for Time.com about one reason why American voters did not back a bailout with the same fervor as American leaders. Putting aside the more important (and much harder) question of whether the bailout was a good idea, this is a case study in how we perceive risk.

Note to European politicians: If you want people to support a dubious legislative bailout, you have to get very specific and personal with the public.