I’ve just completed James Lovelock’s recent book, “The Vanishing Face of Gaia”. Lovelock, now 90, is the scientist-inventor who popularlized the term “Gaia” in the 1970’s to define the earth as a single living organism – dynamic, self-regulating, and responsive to global and cosmic forces.... Continue

One of the great unsolved mysteries of existence is…existence. Given all the possible variations in the nature of time, space and physics, how is it that things exist as opposed to not existing? There is the issue of matter vs. antimatter, for example; when they... Continue

If marijuana is legalized in California the commercial floodgates will open. This is less a matter of good or bad than a simple matter of fact. The marketplace and its investors will swoop in and create an advertising juggernaut to capture customers, and the pot... Continue

For most of modern history, wars were fought between nations - France against Germany, Italy against Austria, England against France, Japan against China, America against Germany, Japan, North Vietnam, and so on. While the nature and character of each war differed, what they all had... Continue

Of four basic human emotions – mad, glad, sad and scared – mad is the most problematic. It is from anger that people are hit, stabbed, choked, murdered, abused, hurt, punished, cursed, castigated, blamed, and objectified. To this list we may add “thrown out of... Continue

I had a lunch date with a friend in San Francisco last week at Green’s in Ft. Mason. I hadn’t been there in years, and the entrance to Ft. Mason had been re-engineered, requiring me to find my way to the new entrance. As I... Continue

“Leaf blowers to right of them, leaf blowers to left of them – into the valley of death rode the six hundred!” With apologies to Tennyson, I must admit that there are few sounds more detestable than the gasoline-powered leaf blower. On Wednesday my southbound... Continue

Prior to 20th century physics, which established the dominance of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, the concept of an all-pervading invisible aether, the medium through which light, gravity and electromagnetism moved, was commonly accepted. Harkening back to ancient alchemy and natural philosophies dominant... Continue

My wife says I remind her of the story of the princess and the pea, the parable about making a big deal about nothing. It’s true I am a picky person, though I prefer to think of my self as discerning. That distinction notwithstanding, there... Continue