I grow intestinal polyps as well as the wine country grows grapes. Such polyps, benign growths when small and young, can become pre-cancerous if allowed to mature; accordingly, every three years I have a colonoscopy and any polyps are removed. The worst part of having... Continue

The trees and shrubs lining our streets and filling front and back yards help form our primary urban landscape; their shade, varied forms, and range of colors add texture and movement to an otherwise concrete and asphalt tableau. Some call this an urban forest, but... Continue

America has always had reactionaries, people highly resistant to cultural change and determined to undermine the forces underlying such change. Such reactionaries currently appear under a variety of names: social conservative, pro-family, traditional values voter, new right, and now, anti-woke. What they all have in... Continue

I loved science fiction movies and books as a kid; I still do, although I don’t read much sci-fi these days. In 1958, at camp Androscoggin in Maine, Earth vs. Flying Saucers was shown one movie night, and visions of a disabled saucer crashing into... Continue

We live in an affirmative universe, the Universe of Yes. The presence of matter is itself evidence, as are all the other forces and fields we’ve discovered. The universe only says “yes,” even to our ability to say “no.” It doesn’t get more affirmative than... Continue

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an avid walker. I cross Broadway every day, sometimes several times as I go about my errands and appointments. Being a pedestrian crossing Broadway is not a casual event; I make eye contact with drivers to make sure... Continue

From the smallest animal to the largest, hunger, the first and strongest drive to assert itself, underlies the substance of animal behavior. Sensory functions - smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste - all support the search for food, and their humble origins may well lie... Continue

Truth can be elusive, so much so that the entirety of the scientific method may be seen as a systematic attempt to find it. Our scientific age, roughly 300 years old, was preceded by uncountable eons of magical thinking and mythology, variously employed to explain... Continue

Neither of my parents were observant Jews. Yes, we belonged to a reform temple and would attend services there for the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but other than that, we were mostly Jews in name only. We ate bagels, cream... Continue