Why do we write about 9/11? I’ll brook no denials of thqt phenomenon; ubiquitous remembrances prevail this week. We do it because we care and remember the caring of that time. Why add to the mass of recollections and reminiscence? Because we were part of something terrible that seems wrong to forget while also wishful of recapturing the unexpected graces arising from those horrors. The […]
Tag: hope
TESTING ASSUMPTIONS: Our Problems With Authority
Part I of III Part IA: AUTHORITY — Missing Person or Murder Case? The end of the world as we know it bleeds endlessly through my screens and newspapers. The ‘times’ in end times is plural, so fixing one particular day as the finale is tricky and there might yet be a rescue, but some cliffhangers do result in the heroes […]
Testing Assumptions: Meritocracy
My dear friend Zeineb Mahzouz sent me an article that drills into a subject that surfaces again and again in my stew of concerns: meritocracy.
Come back, Shame
A Philosophy of Shame by Frederic Gros Matches the Moment — Mostly Growing up in the 1950s, the local NYC area television stations like Channels 9 (WOR) and 11 (WPIX) showed a lot of Westerns. Shane from 1953 proved a favorite for young boys. Bad guys, nice decent father, beautiful mother, gunslinger hero, Shane, hero-worshiping […]
Old Friends
Old friends can be countries as well as people, and we do well to realize the value of such relationships.
Prophecy Made Easy; Answers Remain Elusive
Nex-Gen Bureaucratization Is Doing The Damage Predicted: Now What? The entry in my mother-in-law JoAnn Kocher’s 1946 edition of Smith’s Smaller Classical Dictionary on Cassandra points out that the beauty of this future sister-in-law of Helen of Troy was so powerful as to persuade “Apollo to confer upon her the gift of prophecy, upon her […]
Nothing to be done?
Wondering about authority in the aftermath of 11/06/2024 (and my personal prequel ‘Summer of Confusion’), I wandered thorough a few posts mainly as a reaction to all the pundits telling me why millions of people voted for a self-admitted sexual abuser also a convicted felon with a plan (Project 2025, which he glibly and unconvincingly […]
Last Will & Testament A Memoir In Poetry And Prose
This isn’t just about a book, it’s also about someone I think is extraordinary: the Reverend R Cameron Miller. I know Cam, but we haven’t met in person or even shared a phone conversation in forty years. We first met in 1976 when I was the alcoholism counselor for Saratoga County at the foothills of […]
Taking the Straight job to Pursue the Creator’s Arc
What an inspiring obituary of Frank Auerbach, the great British painter! His art invites powerful perceptions, but the patience of his life also animates strong feelings in me this morning as I keep rewriting the latest play and consider other projects.
Bad Attitudes in the Knowledge Economy
I have never felt more of a minority in this country than today. Not alone, but palpably aware that most of the attitudes of most of my fellow citizens are not anyway like mine.