“It wasn’t a mutiny. It was the bone-weary ship’s crew selecting – by voice vote – a new captain, one whose brusque nature and laudable transparency in speech gave them hope of precisely the rigorous captainhood the increasing stormy seas obliged. There were trifling misgivings. “The gentleman had been captain once before and had acquitted […]
When I challenge myself to start a donation pile, I lament over how many items I can’t imagine parting with; but really, it takes me five minutes to separate out my true valuables. My olive-green electric guitar, a bank box of 20 journals dating back to 2012, and enough clothes to stave me over for […]
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Sometimes, when asked if I have any goal in life, I answer that I want to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. That may seem a less lofty aim, now that Bob Dylan has won it. But so far, the closest I myself have come – and in fact the only time I ever […]
“The Federal Government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.” My least favorite president in history, Reagan, made this “joke” in his 1988 State of the Union speech. In 1992 candidate Bill Clinton promised “a plan to end welfare as we know it.” Has poverty won? Is “welfare” a failure? First off, there is no […]
Most of us these days, by the time we may be considered grown up, have lived in more than one place – sometimes in several different places, even in different countries. In a way, this can give a different meaning to what we call “Home” – despite the once popular notion that there is no […]
Often I think my poor oldheartHas given up for goodAnd then I see a brave new face,I glimpse some new neighborhood..– Mancini/Mercer And here we are again. Another …. New Year?! This is a reportedly cyclical occurrence, begat by an explosion that, for reasons I’ve stopped trying to grasp, gave birth to both Time itself […]
It shouldn’t be necessary to do this, but I feel the time has come when somebody needs to say something against grief and grieving. Lately these topics have been getting a very positive consideration in the relevant journals. The word has gone out far and wide from highly qualified experts that, at least in certain […]
As a secular humanist, I don’t do Christmas. But I enjoy the end of year ritual of sending “holiday” cards. A few dozen people get real cards, and a larger circle get emails. Some of these people are close friends. But some are family and friends with whom I rarely have contact. Sometimes for years […]
The recent murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson raises several Big Questions. Under his leadership, UnitedHealthcare’s profits increased from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023. At the time of his death, the company was the largest health insurer in the United States. One way their profits soared? Denial of payment for lack […]
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Christmas day of ‘68 began like most days; with a guy bellowing singsong prayers in the dark from a mosque somewhere just off base. The mounted lo-fi bullhorn gave the already mysterioso liturgy a surreal 1930s radio feel – think “Libyan Rudy Vallee” if that helps. If that doesn’t help, I get it. Though we’d […]
One of my favorite stories is about an antiques expert who, one day, while driving down a country road, stops at junky-looking store. Before going in, he notices, in the entrance-way, a cat drinking from a saucer. The cat doesn’t interest him – but what does is the saucer, which, he can tell immediately is […]
The “Holidays” show up every year. If Life seems cyclical that could be – in part – because we live on a spinning ball, if you can imagine. So it’s December. Again. The year-end hullabaloo (to generalize) always gets me thinking about the throngs of people, the millions of hidden lives, the unsurfaced stories that […]
One of the songs I learned at some campfire gathering seemed to me to have profound significance – but I’m still not sure what it was. It’s about “Bill Grogan’s Goat” who, when “feeling fine, ate three red shirts, right off the line.” Bill Grogan was so outraged at this that he not only gave […]
I recently participated in an all-day conference on prisons and recovery, co-sponsored by the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara. One recurring theme? The ACE score: Adverse Childhood Experiences. Here is a simplified list of ten such adverse childhood experiences: Physical abuseEmotional abusePhysical neglectEmotional neglectSexual abuseViolence toward motherSubstance abuse in householdHousehold mental illnessHousehold member incarceratedParental separation […]
