• Thoughts

    What Do You Stand For?

    As I near the end of The Rape of the Mind, I look at the world I live in and think back over the past three years—and even over the last century—and I feel gratitude for the people in the…

  • Poetry

    A Story Told from Sanborn to Zusak

    (Bookcase Inspiration) Fools Crow about how they’re Educated, and it’swithin The Art of Possibility, but I wonder ifthey’ve merely been indoctrinated at The Devil’s Pleasure Palace.Might we be dealing with A Confederacy of Dunces, whosuspend Rules of Civility and build…

  • Thoughts

    Watch Your Language

    One of these days, I’ll get to It’s Not About Food by Carol Normandie and Laurelee Roark. It’s there on my shelf. If I stand up and take a few steps, I can have it in my hot little hand before you…

  • Thoughts

    Origins and Ends

    The golf lovers around here spent much of the weekend, when they weren’t out on one of the courses that just opened for the season, watching The Masters. Since they no longer have to put up with CBS Sports and…

  • Thoughts

    Sharing an Apple

    Poet Jane Hirshfield is new to me. Robert Bly is the one who introduced us, in his book, Looking for Dragon Smoke, and although I knew Bly’s name, I had paid it no attention (perhaps because none of my college…

  • Thoughts

    It Was Never a Fair Game

    Once again, it is International Women’s Day. We ladies get thrown the annual bone: “Here you go, girls. Satisfy yourselves with that,” and we’re supposed to be somehow grateful. I don’t know, maybe we should enjoy it while it lasts.…

  • Thoughts

    Earth and Sky

    Ray Bradbury published (according to the Internet search I just did) more than 30 books, 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. There is simply no doubt that the man was a writer and knew what he was…

  • Thoughts

    Farber Knows Fauci

    I never considered myself a journalist. After graduating from college, I worked for about seven months as a reporter for the weekly newspaper in my hometown in Maine. About five years later, I began a year-and-a-half stint as staff writer…

  • Thoughts

    Those Damn Questions

    I realized today that questions make people uncomfortable, and the askers of those questions are not so great, either. I don’t know, however, if I should call it a breakthrough. Maybe it’d be better characterized as a memory. Do you…