The day after millions consumed beer, barbecue and pyrotechnics to honor the 229th anniversary of our nation’s hard-won liberation from the British Empire, I’d like make a modest proposal. It appears at the end of this essay, but be patient: first I’d like to tell you why. If you read to the end and agree …
I’m one of those people who has a pithy little quote appended to my email signature. Whether I do this to share what touches me or in the impudent hope of instructing the world, I leave it to you to decide. But for the longest time, this epigram from the filmmaker Jean Renoir appeared at …
This just in: it really ticks people off when you mess with whatever they perceive as holy. I’ve been reading about the demonstrations around the world against U.S. use of the Koran as an interrogation prop at Guantanamo. Newsweek published an article on May 9 charging that interrogators tried to psych out Muslim prisoners by …
Years ago, I read an extremely woo-woo book whose author, the late ethno-botanist and psychopharmacologist Terence McKenna, posited time as a spiral descending toward a point of convergence in December of 2012, when the nature of reality would be radically transformed in some way impossible to predict. His theories were based on the Mayan calendar, …
I’m part of a discussion elist for progressive Jews, and like a zillion other online groups, we’ve been posting messages about the Terry Schiavo case (may she rest in peace). Over the weeks of its unfolding, people have sent eloquent expositions of their own widely divergent views to the list, from those who feel the …
Since mid-January, I have been trying to practice what Martin Luther King preached, to love my opponents. It’s rough going, and I’m not doing all that well. But as is said in \Pirke Avot\ (“Sayings of the Fathers,” a compilation of ancient wisdom that appears in many Hebrew prayerbooks), “It is not given to you …
One of the strongest obstacles to positive change is narcissism: our proclivity to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, based on the feeling that nice people like ourselves couldn’t possibly be doing bad things. In the public arena, this is especially easy to see if you follow the way our leaders use the word …
The “ownership society” paradigm the Bush administration invokes in its campaign to dismantle Social Security scares me in a very old and deep place, chilling my soul. When I feel the shiver, an image shimmers in my mind, fleeting as a reflection on water: an old woman, wrapped in rags, sitting at the mouth of …
There were problems in our most recent presidential election that prevented some people from voting: poll slowdowns, registration glitches, dirty tricks, and much more. (I don’t mean to be dismissive: there are nearly 29,000 incidents reported in the Election Incident Reporting System database.) But what if, when our next election day rolls around, you and …
Superstitious me; I’m knocking wood as I write this, but: I feel the distinct rumble of a cultural shift gaining momentum. Really. Consider, for example, the notable news that all 8 of the Democratic Senators voting in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday opposed Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation as U.S. Attorney General. The 13 members of Congress …