I recall my high school biology teacher, Mr. Ricci, explaining the phrase "Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny", as much because his long, snagged teeth made saying it nearly impossible for him to say, an amusing moment for us sophomores, as for the sheer poetry of its sound.... Continue

Is the 2020 presidential election coming too soon or not soon enough? Still in the midst of recovering and adjusting to the realities of Trump, we now find ourselves already in the throes of an active primary season filling with Democratic candidates and murmurings of... Continue

The methods and strategies devised by ego to sustain itself are largely primitive and barbaric. They display themselves due to the ways we feel and imagine ourselves and others, and the behavior that flows from that. Ego does not conform well to others; a daemon... Continue

Put people together and you're sure to find trouble. Families, husbands and wives, siblings, cousins, politicians; no matter how you find them, people always have trouble getting along. Human society reflects just how terribly difficult it is; when large groups of people organize, it often... Continue

People like to take care of living things, like plants or pets. Watching plants or animals grow and change stimulates physical and emotional reactions only possible between living things. A pet rock may be attractive and a cute idea, but little more. I've grown exotic... Continue

As living beings we naturally gravitate to other animate things, like plants and pets that become companions in our homes and lives. The feelings we have for inanimate objects can become strong as well; possessions gain value--sentimental, economic, historic--and we protect and ensure their safety.... Continue

There seems to be a persistent impression that the City of Sonoma has run out of land for new housing. If we're talking about tens of acres of undeveloped land for tract housing, that's correct, but Sonoma decades-ago rejected construction of large-scale tract-housing development on... Continue

It's come to this; shopping, food preparation and cooking are so burdensome that corporate America has concluded a smart profit's to be made from a niche target market, namely, those adults who are unwilling to eat frozen dinners or have Grub Hub deliver restaurant take-out... Continue

Much is being made at present about the effects of screen time, particularly on children. Screen time, of course, refers to the time spent engaged with one's smart phone, iPad or laptop, which by all accounts has skyrocketed to epidemic proportions. Issues of attention deficits... Continue