As I finish this, dock workers have paused their strike in the East and Gulf Coast. Workers have won a bigger cut of the massive profits of the shipping industry. But they are still demanding a total ban on the automation of cranes, gates and container-moving trucks used for loading and unloading freight. Two years […]
One of my favorite poems is by a woman named Susan Marr Spalding. It’s called “Fate,” and is in two parts, each of nine lines. It contrasts the different ways life could have turned out for two presumably imaginary couples. In the first part, the man and woman lead lives which make it extremely unlikely […]
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There are days when the most exciting things my wife and I do are Wordle… “Got it in four.” Ha! I got it in three.” Well, just wait until tomorrow.” Dispense boxes of cereal into their new “ant-proof” plastic vaults… “Raisin Bran done.” “Check.” “Special K done.” “Check.” “Cheerios… ah, dang. Broom.” “Check.” And maybe […]
By 1973 I had a red Panasonic ball radio parked in the darkened little hutch that was built into the headboard of my bed, and was discovering both the inchoate power of music, and words like ‘inchoate’. I’d bought my first LP with my own money, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, played McCartneys’ RAM album till […]
My life story nearly had an early ending when, at the age of 18, I was in Israel, traveling on my own and often visiting ancient ruins. One was of a Crusader castle, many of which were built during the centuries after the First Crusade, which had succeeded in capturing, or re-capturing Jerusalem from the […]
Only recently have I been introduced to a well-established genre of music, and particularly of singing, called “Country.” It seems somehow to be peculiarly American, particularly “Southern,” and “Western,” and apparently derives from what used to be called a “Hillbilly” sound. I would say it’s the opposite of sophisticated, embodying the social outlook of people […]
Our friends were out of town and had graciously loaned us their home while ours was being bombed for termites—a species we’ve completely conquered in the Darwinian Race To the Top®, except for the poison-filled circus tents we’re occasionally obliged to flee with our belongings. On the third day the tent was removed and that night […]
What is it that makes us not want to be alone – at least, not all the time? The poet William Cowper put the question this way some 300 years ago: How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!But grant me still a friend in my retreat,Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet. Not that there is […]
What makes a person a hero? In our culture we regard heroic deeds as those which involve courage and self-sacrifice for a worthy goal, such as rescuing another person or even an animal. It usually requires modesty. He or she did not intend to gain any reward, nor any other kind of glory. “I couldn’t […]
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In its attempt to reconcile General Relativity with the quantum mechanical environment, supergravity places an upper limit on the number of dimensions at 11. Crazy sounding? You betcha. What we really want to avoid, though, is that not-uncommon confusion that believes Supergravity has some meaningful intersection with the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Yeah, as IF. […]
When people hear that I have created and copyrighted ten thousand epigrams, none of which is longer than seventeen words, they often ask me which was Number One. Of course, I can and do tell them – but when I wrote it, I had no idea of what it was going to be the First […]
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it.” This menacing threat came from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. This is in reference to their Project 2025. Last year I wrote “Conspiracy Theories Not What They Used to Be?” contrasting real conspiracies with muddled paranoid […]
There are many ways of dealing with an obstacle in your path. You can try to get around it, under it, or even through it. If worse comes to worst, you may have to negotiate with it. But the option our culture seems to prefer is to get over it. The trouble, in this welter […]
Watching the Paris Olympics has really inspired me, especially the swimming and diving events. “O-M-G! Are you wearing a Speedo?” my wife asked, a small hunk of baguette falling from the corner of her mouth. “Cool huh? Got it from the ‘Old Dudes Rule’ website. It’s a limited edition.” “Very limited. And, I hate to […]
