Superficially this is a love song. By chance it was offered by the playlist here at Starbucks at the time I was contemplating what to say about Charlie Gard. The tune is far from pop entertainment. To my ear it enters at an existential level, speaking to the essential need for human connection. Our…
Aristotle wrote in his Ethics that the end purpose of philosophy is purposeful action. Disciplined thinking is essential to living well, deciding what action to take. And since to be human is to be a social creature, we make innumerable decisions that materially affect the lives of others. A group of us met last…
Tuesday morning, and I have nothing in particular to say. A few interesting stories are on the front page of the New York Times. None of that affects me, at least not yet. Up until quite recently, say the last one hundred years, nothing that occurred outside of your village had an impact on…
The boundaries of causation always exceed the boundaries of consideration. –Wes Jackson Mystery, the unknown, our ignorance always will be with us, to be dealt with. The farther we extend the radius of knowledge, the larger becomes the circumference of mystery. There is, a boundary that may move somewhat, but can never be removed,…
Verse—whether spoken or sung— appears to be deeply encoded in the human brain. Cursing, singing lyrics, and reciting poetry are understood as instances of automatic speech, as distinguished from propositional speech…. that constitutes most everyday conversation. –Oliver Sacks Today I attended the April Verch concert in Long Grove. The Long Grove Arts and Music…
Time for a musical interlude. “True” stories of life are veined with tragedy. Music is our “gift of the gods,” a respite from care. Whenever I hear this song I am haunted by the tune and lyric. The attraction between male and female gender is exciting and terrifying. Certainly hormones, the primal reproductive drive…
I’ve mentioned that on Wednesday in the early morning hours the suburbs north of Chicago were struck by a series of thunder storms and torrential rain. The towns of Mundelein, Gurnee and Libertyville received in excess of 6 inches of water within the span of 4 to 5 hours. Before light my sleep was…
How much is enough? The question arises often and in many forms. The time came for transition from employer based medical insurance coverage to Medicare. Transition has proven to be challenging, complex, with a fair amount of anxiety. After all who cannot be protective of physical health once the youthful stage of life has…
To think the thought of weaponized Nature is to entertain dissonance of heretofore contradictory ideas. Nature is conceived as the totality of a life supporting, living context that common sense tells us that we are a part. A weapon is a human artifact created for the purpose of taking life. For humans life is…
It is raining hard, a deluge for the past 20 minutes. At 6AM this morning upon waking there were signs that the downpour, with thunder and lightening of the early morning hours had passed. The sky was much lighter, and nothing was falling, the birds were singing. Standing in my driveway I encountered a…
