In November 2018 fire ripped through the wild lands around my town, eventually burning almost 100,000 acres of my beloved Santa Monica mountains. A few weeks later I ventured out to a hill where I often run. Seeing the charred hills and valleys, I felt I was picking up some kind of message from the […]
My daughter has a check-up today. The pediatrician’s office is a short walk up a hill from Borderline Bar & Grill, where a dozen people were murdered last night. Pretty close to home. How does a society fail to vaccinate against the disease of gun violence? How do people continue to allow themselves to be […]
I just realized something about immigration. Most people, when faced with even the direst of circumstances, are too afraid to break out of their set patterns and known surroundings. “Better the devil you know” is a powerful psychological motivator. So that means people who have come here, to America (or any other country that looks […]
I had a talk with my 90-year-old mother yesterday about Charlottesville. Her mother, born in Texas, was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. I asked my mom what she thought grandma’s views were on the South, and on racism. Grandma Del was by all accounts a proud Southern woman born in 1893, but […]
So our great nation wants to pull out of Paris Agreement. Fortunately states and corporations are picking up some of the slack. Individual Americans and families can pick up some slack too by getting serious about electric cars. Of course electric cars don’t yet match gas-powered vehicles in their range and refueling convenience. But by […]
I often have mixed feelings on Memorial Day. My father was a mechanic in the Navy in World War II. He did not die while serving. He died many years later at the age of 73, of cancer. I wondered whether his cancer could have possibly been caused by his exposure to toxins or radiation […]
For a decade or so, I haven’t really enjoyed or wanted to see movies that are thrillers or heavy dramas. Since that time I have thought it was my desire to live a life more connected to spirit that made me shy away from that kind of entertainment. Recently I watched a couple of episodes […]
Reading recently about prison rates in the United States I got to thinking about crime and punishment. Why is it exactly that we put people in prison? I’m not even going to talk about capital punishment, which is a ridiculous vestige from a barbaric past. As far as I can tell there are four reasons […]
Mainstream medicine is not at it’s best with chronic health issues. One problem is an symptoms-oriented approach, where drugs are designed to reduce the outward signs, or the immediately measurable biochemical signs of the disorder. This approach can mask the underlying cause of the disorder allowing it to remain unchanged, or to become worse. Another […]
