meditation

There are two completely different meanings to death. The first springs from fear, the primal fear in humans stemming from the knowledge of death, which is as old as man.…

Reflecting on the unlikely concatenation that produced the Russian Revolution, Simon Sebag Montefiore says, “Without the Russian Revolution of 1917…the tournaments of power would likely have been just as vicious—just…

The notion that thinking together implies conformity and groupthink is as wrongheaded as the idea that conflict, argumentation and resistance are the wellspring of creativity.

Other than a downpour during the night a couple weeks ago, it was the first rain of the year. Living in a land where it doesn’t rain for four or…

A collision between the partisan hopes of the left and the nationalistic delusions of the right is intensifying in the United States. Which will prevail, the Constitution, or authoritarianism?

When I lived in San Francisco I knew an Argentinean fellow who, as a student, had been swept up in Guerra Sucia, the “Dirty War”—a period of extreme repression from…

Ignoring the culture that gave rise to Trump and Trumpism, and ignoring the fact that Americans just don’t like each other anymore, mavens of the media drop chestnuts like this:…

Arriving by bike at the little creek at the edge of town, I find that the recent rains have turned it into a small torrent. Sitting under a cobalt sky,…