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 »

First, the holding, before the embrace, and the fear--the insuperable burden of a past you did not understand--full of madness.  Speak of those moments when you didn't know if you would survive--if there would be a future.  When innocence ended and the separation from your soul began.&… Read full post »

The build-up was tremendous.  Fellini had already shown that movies could be literature, but could they also be truly surreal, and inspired by an itsy-bitsy piece of obscure literature written by Petronius in ancient Rome that made almost no sense at all?

I read about it in TIME magazine drooped… Read full post »

 There is no lens both wider or more sharply focused than that used to examine the sexes.  People have many differences.  We have different colors, sizes, faiths, languages, histories, diseases, height and weight, diets, and prefer boxers to briefs, but there are only two sex… Read full post »

I watched most of the Ted Haggard documentary.   I'll admit, "emotionally" he won some respect and his wife won more.  If I'm going to err as a sentimentalist, this is the kind of case where I'm most vulnerable.

He obviously isn't a very "bright" man, but definitely personable, and you… Read full post »

Nobody is a villain in their own eyes.

                                           &nbs… Read full post »

Everybody has a shadow.  It's the part of ourselves we cannot see.  It appears behind us as we move into the light and follows us around without our even knowing it most of the time.  It's dark and often scary.  We would rather it not be there, but have no choice in… Read full post »

I met the legendary Candida Donadio at a conference at the New School in NYC.  I was introduced by Hayes Jacobs, the head of the Writing Program at the school for many years. Hayes was my teacher for eight of them--without credit of course.  He was the best non-fiction and fiction… Read full post »

I attended the first meeting of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) at my campus, though not exactly.  At the gathering of roughly a dozen people, we decided to be called Students for Social Involvement (SSI) so we wouldn't be confused with the SDS boys down the road… Read full post »

I met Stumpf the summer I worked for the Charles F. Irish Landscaping Co. located on the Eastern perimeter of the city of Detroit.  It was the summer I wasn't going to work in the factories.

Stumpf and Stanley were old timers, having escaped the confines of the factories years before… Read full post »

I had a summer job on the line at GM in Pontiac, Mi.  They gave the worst job in the factory to the "college pussies," and then sat back and laughed when you failed at it.

I was assigned to the sanding shed.  The trucks came down the line after receiving a coat of… Read full post »

The first time I had an inkling I'm a subversive was in college.  I applied for the job as editor of the school newspaper.  It was the beginning of the anti-war movement.  I didn't know enough to conceal my sympathies.  My competitor promised to be a "team player."  You know… Read full post »

1)  Have you ever hurt someone you love, and when it was pointed out to you still couldn't stop? 

2)  Have you ever been hurt by someone and realized they can't help themselves--and become their victim in some way they have been victimized? 

3)  Have you ever felt… Read full post »

I have little patience for those who are now excoriating Obama for bringing Hillary in as Secretary of State.  I think it's naive. 

The first law as far as I'm concerned is never blame a politician for being a politician, appreciate them for it. The alternative is the old boys, ideologists,… Read full post »

In Hastings, New York After Service with Mary and Brnya

The fascination with what we think is known is despicable.

We speak of "old myths" as if they're no longer believed, as if "we" are superior to them, know something not based on them, as if Hester and Apollo ha… Read full post »

I'm sorry to inform some of you of this.  I know how hard it can be to relinquish your illusions when they are so widespread.

The excess of testosterone in a man's system is what burns out the hair follicles.  It's a matter of hormones; some men have more than others and… Read full post »

I feel like we've been through a battle together, in the same regiment, defending the same borders.

I was especially riveted to my "post" when you came under attack from the early Obama supporters, many of whom became rude, nasty, and intolerant.  They held you somehow accountable in ways t… Read full post »

Yesterday at my polling place a senile woman was being escorted across the room.  It was the lobby or her apartment building.  Every time her home care worker got close, the old woman screamed at her in terror, "go away," "don't touch me," "help, I'm being molested."

The care giver… Read full post »

I don't know how many saw them, but there were a number of posts by bloggers who refused to vote.  That's how they to got our attention.  The candidates lost their confidence because they fought each other, or  it is one's prerogative not to vote just as it is to vote--and it's… Read full post »

It's been over three years now.  I started out as a letter writer at Salon.com and transferred over after OS opened up.

It's almost become obsessive at times.  I'm at 600 or 700 hundred posts, (for both sites)  without counting comments.  I know there are folks with a hell of… Read full post »

Obama is elected.  There will always be the archetypal need for power, order, and control.  But the continuum can shift more to the other side.

It's most obvious in the candidates ages.  McCain is old enough to be Obama's father.  The replacement of the father by the son isn't hig… Read full post »

The demographics explaining Obama's rise are now in.  (See Salon, "Why Barack Obama is Now Electable" by Walter Shapiro.)

Interestingly, not much of it is particularly new if you've been following the election from an intuitive standpoint. If you don't know Obama's initial appeal was to the "mil… Read full post »

Finally, the last debate is over, and Obama won by a nearly unanimous decision, but the question is whether many so-called liberals will now go back to sleep.

Obama faced a far more formidable opponent when he faced Hillary, and at a time when he was still earning his chops. He's… Read full post »