Meditations

Do children need to be conditioned? Human conditioning is taken as a given, unquestioned as much as the sun rising in the morning. But conditioning is enslavement, not an immutable…

Following a meditation under the massive old sycamore, I drop down the short, steep bank to the shallow stream. Standing under and little way away from the tree, I see…

One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is how to generate diversity and cohesiveness in a global society beset by the flattening of globalization, the dead-end of Western multiculturalism/pluralism,…

As Aeschylus said in the 5th century BC, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” The new book by Robert M. Gates, “Duty,” which my local Barnes and Noble librarian…

On one hand, most neuroscientists now say, “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” On the other, they say, “But we make our own purposes, and they’re real.” They…

‘A plague on both your houses’ is a phrase from Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo And Juliet’ that’s commonly applied to criticize warring factions whose rivalry brings ruin to others. The dead-end argument…

Singing the praises of a “creative brand explosion” in niche “hotels, sneakers, iced tea, even ice cream,” an obtuse cheerleader for the status quo in the global mass media exclaims:…

I sometimes liken the process of dialogue to a group of people playfully pushing a boulder up a gentle incline until the unseen top is reached, at which point things…