I am reading a book by Omar El Akkad. He is a journalist. He was born in Cairo Egypt and grew up in Doha, Qatar. He has filed dispatches from the NATO led war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt and the Black Lives Matter movement…
Yesterday I was a guest for a tenth birthday celebration. The party was a glorious event. The family affair was held in honor of Myles’s tenth birthday. Josh and Cassie were host to a house full of family and close friends. The feasting, story telling, the presents, the cake, everything was perfect to say…
In his essay on “How to Raise a Boy” Michael Kimmel offers these answers to the question: “What does it mean to be a good man?” This list of attributes were offered by several thousand young men around the world to Kimmel’s question. Integrity Honor Being Responsible Being a good provider, protector Doing the…
What? Sounds like a obscure cult? Do Panpsychists have a holy text? Could the condition be a recently diagnosed disease, for which a new wonder drug is being pitched on TV? I doubt you’d think any of those things. You’d be sensitive to the components of the word, pan and psyche. Likely you’d know…
If you are like me, you despair of finding a reliable source for “news.” In the old days, there was one source for everyone, the newspaper. The newspaper published daily, was delivered by a neighborhood kid, and you’d find your copy lying at the end of the driveway. Television news was a informative summary,…
I have spent a fair amount of time in Louisville, Ky. My daughter and her partner live there. While visiting I always grab a copy of the Leo. The Leo is an alternative weekly newspaper. The paper has an editorial policy that fearlessly takes the measure of the political and social scene in Kentucky. …
Visited a neighborhood bar last night in Chicago. The Duke of Perth is on Clark Street in the Lakeview neighborhood. I had never tasted Scotch until several weeks ago. A friend knowledgeable about the libation brought a bottle of his favorite malt to open an evening of philosophy discussion with a Scotch tasting. I…
“Everything flows” said old Heraclitus. Heraclitus of Ephesus, otherwise known as Heraclitus the Obscure lived about 500 BC. Heraclitus famous saying is pronounced, “panta rhea, ouden manei.” The literal meaning is: everything changes and nothing remains. Given this brief snippet of information, the most essential knowledge about this world and our life has been…
Just finished reading Ed O’Keefe’s Washington Post story on the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda honoring Billy Graham. The only statement in the report to be understood with simplicity, as a young child would think —that Graham died on February 21 at his home in Montreat North Carolina. The rest is surface for layers…
It is gray and raining today, with perhaps a visitation of wet snow later in the morning. Weather extremes herald the approach of spring. The tilt of the earth provides incremental warming to us in the northern hemisphere–the slide begins to the awaited growing season. Natures rhythm is beneficent, a solace that we depend…
