In contrast to most of human history, present day western culture does not like to think seriously about death. This is not to say we aren't fascinated by it; the proliferation of films, books and television programs dealing with serial killers, zombies, and the apocalypse... Continue
Public Citizen
The Pieces: Dirty cups, bowls, plates, platters, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons; an assortment of shapes of varying sizes that need to fill the rack space of the dishwasher. The Goal: Fit as many dirty dishes and utensils as possible in a fixed amount of... Continue
Is the self physical or metaphysical? That is the question. The nature of self is hotly debated. Buddhist non-materialists consider the self to be a sustained hallucination, an opinion supported by some current-day neurologists who, despite all their attempts, cannot find a source of the... Continue
Think about how strange yet ordinary are space and time, here and now. Neither can be held, or for that matter seen or heard, and yet both play an undeniably important role in everyday existence. In order to experience and use them, we’ve created tangible... Continue
There are as many ways of dying as there are of living. Often, they are the same. My father Norman, for example, was an anxious man. He wanted to be in control always. We’d go out to eat dinner as a family and he’d make... Continue
Life’s diversity numbers in the many millions, and yet no two living things are exactly alike; all are heterogeneous. This is as true of oak trees and squirrels as it is of people, but the heterogeneous minds of people, particularly, generate many differing opinions. Among... Continue
The world is tumultuous by nature, a whirligig of happenings only a tiny portion of which any of us knows about, not including the bubbling froth of thoughts and feelings in individual hearts and minds. With its endless storms and earthshaking, as if the vicissitudes... Continue
I started writing for The Sun in 2005, while I was Mayor of Sonoma. I’d write a “Mayor’s” column once a month, and thereafter continued to write monthly. I offered to write a weekly column and have been writing a column for every edition since... Continue
Call it a demiurge, cosmic force, or God; for hundreds of generations humankind has believed in a prime mover of the universe, a cosmic hand upon the wheel. The alternate idea, that the universe and life began accidentally or spontaneously without the intercession of a... Continue
I’ve been thinking about the French Revolution, how it led to the bloody Reign of Terror that killed tens of thousands and eventually to the tyranny of Napoleon. Some view such revolutions through the lens of class struggle: the inevitable revolt of an oppressed and... Continue