Is it a stretch to suggest that American public schools are being attacked by a hideous and somewhat amorphous monster? If not (and clearly I believe it is not), then is it a stretch to compare the decapitation of the Statue of Liberty in the 2008 film "Cloverfield" with the decapitation… Read full post »

In the beginning was an epic struggle. Apparently I've done everything the hard way from Day One, so was a breach birth. In 1945, in the hands of a doctor who was famous as the godfather of what would one day become laparascopic surgery (by adapting a victorian buttonhook to accomplish… Read full post »

There is an interesting pattern I have noticed in the way sea changes occur in my life, and they didn't begin to happen until Al Gore or the NSA or Teilhard de Chardin or God or somebody invented the internet. Prior to that, things just kind of happened, with no real,… Read full post »

Recently a Facebook friend asked me how I manage to avoid burnout in nursing, and how is it that I am able to say "I love all my patients, even the ones I can't stand."

An interesting thing happened the day I was planning to write this: I got sick. I… Read full post »

It is clearly time to sort through our lexicon of sociopolitical terms and pejorative usages.

As we approach the End of Times according to those who believe the Mayans didn't simply run out of enthusiam or energy, and to those who live for the mad dream of immanentizing the Chritian… Read full post »

It is not news that Trayvon Martin is dead and that despite the lack of witnesses and few (but extremely salient) facts there was just cause to arrest and prosecute George Zimmerman, who clearly was acting outside the bounds of legal authority (unless one accepts wholecloth the "stand your ground" do… Read full post »

Sometimes I forget why I bother. I've been an activist for so long, a troublemaker, a protester, a volunteer for head-bustings and other inconveniences, one of those who run into places when everyone with any sense is running out, and sometimes I get tired of trying. Then someone will say something… Read full post »

It started because of nice weather. Spring is the season for flat squirrels in the road and cats bearing dead mice, of mating or at least hooking up, and of taking stock - in this case, taking stock of a problematic centennial white oak that's way too close to my modest… Read full post »

No, really, I do. Even people I hate. And every thing, too. As Brother Dave Gardner once said, "I even love hate. The other day I grabbed me a handful of it and I said 'I got'cha!' But the damndest thing happened: It died in my hand." 

A funny thing happened on Facebook… Read full post »

As is so often the case, I remember exactly where I was and what happened the day that Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. I do not remember the day he was born, because I myself had not yet been born, but the day he died was the day he became… Read full post »

The word "occupy" has been so overused of late that it's been included in Michigan's Lake Superior University's annual List of Overused Words. I am inclined to agree, because the more loosely a word is used, the faster it loses any concrete meaning. "Occupy" has now become virtually meaningless. Howe… Read full post »

^{I first posted this in August of 2009. I thought it might have some new meaning now, as it expresses as well as anything I could currently write, my feelings on the passing of Christopher Hitchens.}

              ^&nbs… Read full post »

Recently, in response to one of my Facebook "friends" who is a devout conspiracy theorist, I posted a quote from the website of a fellow Mason, Bro. Gary Frazier, a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason, attorney, and holder of degrees in theology and apologetics. Bro. Frazier posed the question: "… Read full post »

(Some very special thanks are in order to some very special people for this story: Nikki Stern for badgering me to write it, and Dorinda D. for her encouragement, support and belief in what I'm doing. I love you both.) 

Thank god it's...Monday?

Yes.

What on earth is wrong with me?… Read full post »

Because we live in a time that has no faith in legends, we live in a time that has no faith. - from Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Recently I posted on my wall on Facebook a link to a photo and story claiming to be both authentic and "true," involving a… Read full post »

The onslaught is inescapable, the media feeding frenzy over the tenth anniversary of the outrage of 9/11/2001 is in full swing, so yes, I remember exactly where I was, I remember every god-awful detail, I remember knowing what was going to happen after the second plane hit, I remember what it… Read full post »

I knew her from work. In fact she always said I'd taken her job, that she wouldn't have all the time on her hands if I hadn't come along and knocked her out of her postion of 20 years. She teased me with this, even though it was, in a way,… Read full post »

This is the story of a story. The story was lived, repressed, remembered, then written, then novelized, and during that time a number of bizarre things happened to it and to the process. The story has been in the process of being rewritten off and on for twenty years. I think… Read full post »

We Have Entered Deserted
He Has Gazed From My Windows
As If All That Replaced Us
Could Still End In Me.

-Scott Walker, Sleepwalker's Woman, from Climate of Hunter
 

 The thirteen years spent in the old Silver Spring bungalow with my second wife and our daughter often show up in memo… Read full post »

It is, perhaps, time to reassess what we are to celebrate on this date, one which has been shrouded in confusion anyway, for far too long.

Independence Day, aka: the 4th of July, has been notable for its fireworks, almost invariably accompanied by ear-shattering renditions of Francis S… Read full post »

What's in a word? Sometimes far more than Mister Webster or the damned Dictionary dot com ever imagined. What's in a mirror? Pride? Well then, we're on to something now, because while vanity is not only not listed as a sin, pride is a cardinal sin. At least according to the… Read full post »

A couple months ago I wrote here about the artful use of profanity and expletives in writing and speech. The same source that inspired that essay also inspired this one.

 This is about a single word, the most versatile word perhaps in the English language. It is also considered by many… Read full post »

First, since it's that day again, Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Second, and as always, I need something. It's always been that way and I'm only realizing what a needy son I've always been, how you realized it even when I didn't, when I loathed the fact you could see my… Read full post »

It is that time again. Spring has dragged the bloated corpse of winter out of the yard and summer is making her belated appearance. The cold is gone and the light is back again.

The mimosa has erupted into bloom, lightning bugs grace the night, a vast array of birds… Read full post »