thoughts on life

For many years, I thought the American vice (which most of my countrymen still call a virtue) of having things both ways sprang from the mind of Alexander Hamilton, not…

Lately I’ve been grappling with the distinction between necessity and need. What is the difference between them, and can one see the dissimilarity as need and necessity present themselves?

It’s summer in northern California. People cross the iron footbridge on bikes or foot on a hazy, warm Sunday afternoon. I sit about 75 meters upstream from the bridge, and…

Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock—solid and sharp-edged protrusions from some long-ago eruption of Lassen or some other volcano in the area.

The word ‘dialogue’ is so overused and misused that it is no longer useful. Too many people mean too many things by the term. I prefer the word enquiry (‘inquiry’…

It’s near dusk, and the parkland seems to be full of Cooper’s hawks. At one point on the path, a large, brown, stipple-winged hawk takes off from the path ahead…

With Iraq and the Middle East sliding into chaos, I feel it fitting to revisit the proximate cause of the present world disorder with a column I wrote less than…

Though the stream is rather chilly in the morning, I’m warm from the bike ride, so I wade in, sandals protecting my feet from the stones. Without a second thought…