Girl in Lockdown Peace to everyone. Special Greetings and Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim and Arab Friends. May 30 is one of the most important of Muslim Holidays—the Eid at the end of Ramadan. May 15th was also “Nakba Day,” the anniversary of the start of the catastrophe that still leaves five generations of... Continue Reading →
Larger Pandemic Lessons
Family Under Lockdown I don’t want to minimize the human suffering caused by the pandemic. Rather, I think taking a bigger view of it might help us alleviate a much wider occurrence of human suffering in the future. Step back a moment and consider the pandemic as a huge scientific experiment. Maybe it’s nature’s way... Continue Reading →
On Radicalism, “Civil Disobedience,” and the “Anti-lockdown” Extremists
A Silent Howl of Dismay (Raku ceramic) Every linguist knows that the meaning of words tends to change over time. What Jane Austen called “nice” in her time isn’t anything we consider “nice” today. That said, there are some words that are worth keeping in perspective. To my mind, the word “radical” is one... Continue Reading →
A Poem: Monkeys Fall
The following poem was inspired by a 1990 trip through East Africa with my old friend Kyle Foster. It is about evolution, survival of the fittest, the imperfections of nature, human error, global warming, and politics. A contributing incident happened while I was sitting in my woodland home in the Pacific Northwest and watching a... Continue Reading →
Book and Movie Picks
A Quiet Moment with a Good Book I was thinking about good books to read during this dreadful time. Some find a deep dive into the reality of it somehow cathartic. Good books about the Black Death in the Middle Ages are Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror and Hermann Hesse’s novel Narcissus and Goldmund. A... Continue Reading →
Trump’s Wuhan—Boo Hoo, Hoo, Hoo! Double Talk on China and the Dangers of “American Exceptionalism”
Trump’s double talk on the Covid-19/China connection is so transparent it literally takes the breath away. Transparency is not what one has come to expect from this administration. I guess I don’t mean real transparency, but the sheer obvious clumsiness of Trump’s lies and blaming. Consider the Trump argument: China knew about the... Continue Reading →
Sanders, The Democrats, and the Phony “Socialist” Bogeyman
Detail of "We are Here, We are Many, We are One" by Drake Deknatel In my view, any of the Democratic candidates would have been preferable to Trump. I am particularly troubled though, that Senator Sanders has drawn the kind of criticism he has. The resistance to him shows how little the average American... Continue Reading →
Mission
An Introductory Note to Readers: This current corona-virus pandemic, though it will eventually pass, will also completely transform our world. That change could be very positive—if we choose to make it so. A long or severe illness can often result in a serious re-evaluation of our personal life and values. There is a... Continue Reading →
America’s Crossroad Ahead: Civilization or Carnage?
April 24, 2020 Times of crisis reveal what societies are really made of. We are at a crossroads. Our collective response to this pandemic will tell us whether America is a real civilization or merely a commercial enterprise. Do we truly value human lives or simply worship the ‘Golden Calf’ of the economy? Civilization is... Continue Reading →
Corona Virus, Healthcare and Our Community
As a nation, we are now getting a clear lesson about the importance of national healthcare. We need to get that lesson in clear focus. For years the debate has been confused by a simple, deep contradiction: as a nation, we are obsessed with healthcare as an individual choice—NOT a public health issue. The difference... Continue Reading →
Mind-Cast 