In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled that any action which can be defined as “material support” to an organization deemed “terrorist” is a federal crime. Material support, says the court, includes discussion and/or consultation about non-violence or peace,... Continue
Public Citizen
In the 1974 book Lives of a Cell, author Lewis Thomas paints a disarmingly sweet portrait of a single cell that all but imparts a charming personality upon a living thing so small it’s microscopic. The life of a single cell, one of 40 trillion... Continue
I attended a lecture today. The topic was Jews in the 21st Century, but it covered the 20th century as well. All told, it was not a bad talk, if a bit too long and somewhat repetitive. As it pertained to Israel, I found no... Continue
The handwriting is not on the wall; it’s on the computer, the cell phone, the tablet, Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In and Skype. Technology is rapidly making the mailman obsolete. Reflecting on this brings up memories of Al Zooks, the mailman of my suburban youth. As I... Continue
The answer is…more stuff! The continuity of existence is existence itself - an unbroken timeless non-event in which nothing is actually ever the same, and thus never changes. In essence, nothing happens continuously. This conundrum notwithstanding, from time to time most of us would like... Continue
Dogs Howl. A pink twilight speaks of rain. The ground, dear one, Is always shaking. My wife’s sister and our niece were the first to join us a decade ago, moving to town four blocks northwest of us. It turns out she and her daughter... Continue
Last year American men spent over a third of a billion dollars on shaving cream. Until recently, I numbered myself among them. I have nothing against shaving cream per se; however, it does consume a vast amount of environmentally wasteful packaging materials and is supported... Continue
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the distribution of films or videos depicting actual animal cruelty is a protected form of free speech. The case at issue was prompted in part by a video showing a sexy model wearing pointy high heeled shoes walking... Continue
Visible matter, the objects we can see and the sources of energy that emit radio waves, comprise but 5% of all the matter in the universe. There is so little visible matter, in fact, that astrophysicists explain that the gravity that holds galaxies together is... Continue
Now that we are in the midst of an election year, our political foibles are on great display. Not a week goes by that the lies or deceptions of one candidate or another hit the airwaves, and we voters are subjected to yet another round... Continue