It is one thing, Rep. Kennedy, if you believe the Catholic Church has the right to determine whether an individual can decide to have an abortion, or whether you think the individual themselves has that right.  It is also one thing if you so believe in the institution that you cannot j… Read full post »

Consider all the leaders you trust failing you.  The people you care about forgetting you.  The memories that give you strength turning out to be fabrications invented to protect you from the truth.

Say you are depressed and disillusioned at the way things are going?

What if the maxims you'… Read full post »

Open your mouth, take in all the air you can.  Hold it in until it wants to go out.

Feel your chest rise and fall--more than once.  It is all chests as they rise and fall.

Stretch your arms, legs and abdomen slowly, imperfectly.  Get 'em out there in the light. … Read full post »

My mother's father lost everything in the great depression.

He was an immigrant from a small village in Abruzzi, Italy, who became a pharmacist in Detroit and owned a string of pharmacies.  He did very well, owning an eight bedroom house on Boston Blvd., which was then one of the most… Read full post »

"What we are unconscious of shows up in our life as fate."  C.G. Jung 

Dad knew what he was supposed to believe and thought he understood what everybody else was supposed to believe too.

His job was to work hard and support the family the woman he married gave him.  He had li… Read full post »

(The blog following the first year is titled: On My Wife, Joan)

"You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now.  No one can advise or help you, no one.  There is only one thing you should do.  Go into yourself."

RAINER MARIA RILKE, Letter to… Read full post »

During the 60's, I'm not sure you could have met anyone who was more idealistic than I was.

I was a "charter" member of the generation and so was my wife. I was a leader in the anti-war movement and paid a terrible price for it.  We moved and lived where… Read full post »

I've lived two lives all of my life.

On the one hand, I've lived "normally."  I've been a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a student, an employee, a business owner, an employer,  a volunteer, a voter, and yes, dear friends--a tax payer.

But I've also lived a separate life with… Read full post »

It is my mother's 87th summer.

I spent the last three weeks of it with her at her home in Northwestern Michigan.  It is a magical, austerely beautiful land of lakes and soft rolling hills when the weather is right--and it was on this trip about half the time, which an old Michigander… Read full post »

When I was a boy I looked upon the future as a succession of endless tomorrows. 

I first learned about death when my uncle Howard died when I was sixteen.  It was from prostate cancer.  My tender mind figured I'd make sure it wouldn't happen to me so I didn't… Read full post »

I'm not sure any public life in the later half of the 20Th century is more worthy of study than that of Robert McNamara.

He started out as so many Americans during WWII--a believer in the axioms of logic, progress, and "America" as it was defined by the nation's "greatest" generation--the land… Read full post »

This 4th of July, I am proud "we" got those mother fuckers out of office and they are still licking their wounds.  Congratulations America for living up to the promise. Read full post »

To give you a squeeze...

At the start of the day, you couldn't find your phone charger. I wonder if you left it at the motel?

Then, it was hard to get out of bed.  The body felt like dried celery--no juices left.

Then, you realized it was already Tuesday and you missed… Read full post »

Dad was short and pudgy. 

I was as tall as him by twelve and skinny as a blade of Kentucky blue grass.  If we stood in a room of twenty or thirty we'd be the last you'd think were related.  So much for genetics.

Dad was a whiz at numbers. … Read full post »

An OS member wrote me this week to ask why she hasn't seen any posts from me lately.  I've been commenting, but not posting.  She's inspired me to say something.  Thank you DoloresF.

The reason is I've started to write a new novel, my first in more years than I wish to r… Read full post »

1)  Ben Sen is NOT the Japanese word for a small hard rock.

Thank you to all my visitors, raters and contributors.  I hope you felt you learned something new. 

Hugs, Ben Sen  (this is a demonstration of my compassionate side.) 

P.S.  Who are you folks who… Read full post »

1)  Ben Sen is the Japanese word for "small hard rock."

2)  Ben Sen is the Japanese word for diligence.

3)  Ben Sen is the name of a lay Buddhist monk. Read full post »

The current movement toward atheism does not surprise me.  In many ways, I applaud it.  After all, as a subversive, it is exciting to see any position that challenges the status quo.  I'll fight to the death their right to be atheists, but whether or not I agree is another matter.… Read full post »

This weeks event at the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York City could well signal a new era of appreciation for the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy who died in 1933 at the age of 70ty.

The event was attended by the literati of this most literary of American cities… Read full post »

It was all those "other women" who did you in.  The ones you forgot.

Any asshole understands a pattern when they see it.  Even jurors in the US of A.  You were a nerd from the Bronx who hit it big.  Even you knew it.  You plugged into the circuit.  You offered… Read full post »

In the old Catholic school system in Detroit you were in the same class with the same kids from the first to the twelfth grade.  They were more like siblings than fellow students.

We were in the seventh grade when it was our turn to have Sister Francis.  She was a tall,… Read full post »

for the apartment on the first day of spring.  

I always bought and cared for the flowers.

My wife bought none.

It was my job, not hers, like taking out the garbage.

Now she's gone and doesn't see the flowers any more.

It's supposed to be that simple.

I bought all yellow… Read full post »

My wife and I were travelling with friends in Central Asia.  We'd spent the day on a rickety bus travelling through the fabled Kiber Pass that connects Pakistan with Afghanistan.  We'd transversed the pass covered in red dust, lined as it was by the graves off all those who dared… Read full post »

I'm tired of the man bashing--sick and tired of it.  I'm especially tired of how unconscious it is in many women--as if it's a god-given right that only a woman can understand.  Everybody knows, if you scratch a misogynist, you'll usually find a man who was either dominated or rej… Read full post »