I have a well-established habit of greeting passers-by. When I take my walk by the Bay, I like to smile or say hi to everyone I pass. I feel good when people cooperate. I sense a local lightening of the atmosphere, an infinitesimal exchange of positive energy. When people stare straight ahead or keep their …
The trip to London from which I’ve just returned was the first time I had visited that country since 1987, twenty years. I’d seen some of my English friends at international meetings or on visits to the U.S., but until this month, we hadn’t sat together for long, convivial chats, taking stock. I learned a …
Did you miss me? I missed you: I’ve been traveling pretty much nonstop since the beginning of July, and am glad to be home (in body at least—my spirit needs to complete the journey through nine time zones). I had speaking engagements in Barcelona and London, and in between, vast conversations about culture and politics. …
A small gray bird lives in a palm tree in my back yard. Every few minutes for the past several weeks, the bird flies straight toward a high window, then pecks at it with vigor and determination. So far the window holds. A friend asked me to write here about the immigration issue. Every time …
What do you suppose the most compassionate person in Iraq thought when the killings at Virginia Tech made headlines last week? Here’s how I imagine it: “What a terrible thing! May their souls rest in peace. Forgive me for saying so, but perhaps the Americans will now begin to understand how we feel when our …
This morning’s New York Times reports protests from members of Congress over the FBI’s repeated abuses of the Patriot Act to spy illegally on citizens. Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general of the Justice Department, reported that the use of “national security letters,” authorizing warrentless spying, had escalated: There were 8,500 in 2000, the year …
On the Gregorian calendar, today is the yahrtzeit (the anniversary) of the passing in 1976 of Rene Cassin, a French human rights activist and an author of the UN’s masterpiece, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That noble document contains a single line articulating the right to culture:
More and more, the things I care about seem to turn on a single question: can we human beings choose our actions, or are we in some very real sense controlled by other forces (whether our own brain chemicals or the commands of those in authority)? The oft-cited behavorial studies of Stanley Milgram in the …
Words are my treasure and my pleasure, so it is surprising to find myself newly amazed at the power which can be packed into a single word. Case in point: “Apartheid.” Supporters of Israel’s current policies are up in arms over Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. They find it too critical of …
When I was an unhappy girl, I tried complaining to my mother (may she rest in peace). I only tried a few times, enough to realize her answer would invariably be the same. “Happy, schmappy!” she’d shrug, “Who’s happy?” If you’re listening, Mom, I’ve got an answer.