Driving over Donner Pass Friday morning, we saw: clear skies, sun glittering on an expanse of deep-blue lake, rushing streams lined with red and gold reeds resembling the fur of an unknown animal, polished stones like giant mushrooms, ribbons of snow tucked beneath their rims. “I love California,” I told my husband, minutes before we …
The movers come tomorrow to take our worldly goods to Kansas City, the mere name of which launches a song in the jukebox of my brain. I hope to have a lovely and musical time exploring my new home, and not to be too daunted by the things KC denizens keep telling this Californian to …
My Canadian friends and I were huddled together in hope, glued to CNN, when, a few minutes after 8 pm Pacific Time, the results put Barack Obama over the line and into the presidency. I felt something lift off my shoulders: a weight of shame called George W. Bush that had been lodged there so …
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve seen me quote before from the Reverend James Lawson’s founding statement of principles for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee well over forty years ago. What SNCC was seeking, Lawson wrote, was “a social order or justice permeated by love.” This has become one of many mnemonics lodged in …
The difficulty I have wrapping my head around patriotism is one I sometimes share with other children of immigrants, those whose heritage, like mine, was stamped with the dark face of nationalism, the imprint of a patriotism that believed the country where our forebears were born would be purified by our absence. I feel deeply …
Judging from my friends’ reactions (and the level of unrest in the Blogosphere and Punditstan), Sarah Palin’s nomination has unleashed a tidal wave of fear and despair large enough to sweep defeat from the jaws of victory—unless we can master this reactivity and get on with winning the election.
California is in my blood. But—full disclosure—it got there by transfusion. I was born in New York City. Before I was two years old, the three generations of my family then living in this country made the pilgrimage out west in time to meet my father when he mustered out of the Navy, ready to …
In the Jewish calendar, this is the last of three solemn weeks in preparation for Tisha B’Av, the 9th of the month of Av, which is marked by mourning for the destruction of the first and second Temples (2500 and 2000 years ago, respectively) the expulsion from Spain half a millennium ago, and other tragedies …
I sometimes find the idea of progress in human civilization deeply confusing. Aspects seem unquestionable: penicillin, microwaves, countless other scientific and technological inventions that make possible things our ancestors never imagined, from easy cures for once-fatal diseases to push-button world destruction to light-speed communication at a distance. Yet our basic physical and mental equipment as …
One reason I keep feeling we have an opportunity to change course right now has less to do with politics than with the convergence of science and philosophy. Human beings have always been interested in our own motives, in how our minds work. Introspection helps, but research is teaching us a good deal more about …