Without meaning we are all just brutes. By “meaning” I’m referring to a broad set of mythologies and shared cultural values that collectively drive both individuals and their nations. Societies with shared cultural reference points, like Japan, (family honor, fear of shame, thriftiness, self-denial, bravery) tend to be the kind that can turn a mountain..
Think About It.. According to one source, California has $1.5 TRILLION in unfunded pension liability. “Unfunded pension liability” represents that portion of the state’s pension obligation not covered by agency and employee contributions. Another way of putting it is this: “in order to keep paying your pensions, we need to come up with about $1.5..
Don’t Cry For Me, Santa Barbara I approach festivals — any community festival heavily managed by institutional types worried about their ESG/DEI ratings — with deep suspicion, since you never know when a congregational response will be required of you. (Priest: “May climate change worry be with you.” Worshippers: “And also with you!”) So I..
Oh, Zion! Dear Zion! I have a lush novel planned–full of carnivals and music and beautiful girls slow dancing with their young men on moonlit patios. In the broader landscape described here, kindly old men will give sing-song sermons full of teary-eyed spiritual assurance. It will all be set to a big, swelling chorus, and..
..and mistaking them for people.. A “cog,” they tell us, is a motion-transferring wheel with sprockets along its edge. A collection of them, engineered and assembled, as in a Swiss watch, can be so beautiful to behold that some designers have taken to leaving the whole assembly visible to the eye. It’s reassuring to ponder..
As gentle as serpents and as wise as Dodo birds.. So imagine, just for the sake of the depressing mental challenge it represents, a fraternity of world leaders in positions of extraordinary power. These lions of state and corporate power share an ancient, superstitious fear: the world is too just too small and delicate for..
How Bad Does It Have to Get? If you aren’t at least a little troubled by Steve Kirsch’s most recent inventory of Covid absurdities or Dr. Pierre Kory’s frontline report indicating an increase in cardiac “crash cart” inventory along with a very disturbing tweet about increased demand for child sized caskets, then I’m guessing you, like most people,..
Pure Misinformation The white-hot, laser-bright line between abject fear and totalitarianism was hugely on display, yesterday, in the Supreme Court’s hearing of a case calling into question the Biden administration’s OSHA vaccine mandate. I’m not a lawyer, nor even a student of the court, but I’ve read enough court transcripts to register, with high alarm,..
Dazed and Confused Since the outbreak of Covid in March of 2020 — twenty-two months now — I continue to make this sad confession: “I still have no idea what is going on.” I am not, of course, talking about the obvious contours of the crisis. A dangerous virus is getting people sick and killing..
A Cloud of Sadness One of the most “centered” people I know — a winsome young lady whose good cheer promised better times when our entire extended family was feuding — confessed to being bewildered by a cloud of sadness descending on the world. She’s not alone. The Weinsteins, on their DarkHorse Podcast, recently wondered which author..
