If the United Auto Workers strike declared against “the big three” auto companies is not on your mind, it should be. Initially the strike is shutting down three plants. It is doubtful the gap between what the Union is asking and what the companies are offering will be narrowed soon. The picketing is likely…
I am taking a course in Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The book was first published in Great Britain in 1954. I’ve read it once before and cannot be sure whether I was in high school, or college. Golding writes a parable, a deft assay of our human condition, of the trajectory…
Today stands to be full. A literature class is scheduled for the afternoon. Consideration of Lord of the Flies by William Golding. later in the afternoon, I am fortunate to participate in a exploration of Artistotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. The day begins at Starbucks, by reading the Taoist text composed by Zhuang Zhou, reported to have…
I obtained a copy of one of the great works of Asian literature to enlarge my appreciation of the Taoist sensibility of life and world. Nowadays, fragmentation, seemingly intractable polarization demands that common ground be found. Is any synthesis upon which enough of us can stand together possible? Drown if you must. Do not…
The air is cool, cleansed by a day of rain. I do not remember the last time of a full day of rain. Rain comes infrequently, as if nature is diffident, inattentive to the thirst of plants and creatures living on a thin crust of the earth. Another consequence of climate warming, perhaps? Heat…
Monday brings the prospect of rain. Weeks without precipitation and the grass is dormant, the shrubs appear thirsty and dull at the end of a growing season. Some trees are shedding leaves, without any retrograde movement of temperature thus far. Does anyone pray for rain? I know that my grandfather did. Granddad owned a…
In the after-dawn hour of 6AM I fell back to sleep. As sometime happens I dreamed a nightmare. The dream “experience” was real enough then. Upon waking what I dreamed seemed as if an extension of my life. I dreamed that a post, my comments on social media had provoked outrage from one person…
Gary Wright has died. On Monday September 4th Wright passed after some years struggle with illness. From 1976 do you remember The Dream Weaver? Here is what Billboard wrote about Wright: The Dream Weaver, released in the summer of 1975, peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 album charts in April 1976, with…
Unteregehen – going down, drowning, to perish It’s Friday, early September with a hint the Fall soon to come. Things in time reocurr, over and over. Time is infinite, an open ended flow. But “things” in time are bounded by circumstance, arise and come to be and then dissipate. You could become depressed if…
Paradise is a state of mind and heart. It’s engagement with no separation between the texture, aroma, touch, and echo of one’s passion — and you, the agent. Paradise is a time and place of sublime union with what you’ve learned to love. Paradise is temporary, a rare interlude, a magical concatenation… Paradise has…
