…here’s a book that fell into my hands which is one long “boyhood memory.” Hillbilly Elegy by J.D.Vance looks back on a deeply disturbed childhood growing up in the hillbilly country of the Appalachian mountains. Remarkable is the fact that he survived it, despite the odds…
Money in Politics
I understand the need. I really do. But is it not sad that the wheels of politics have to be greased so constantly with money. I had expected, foolishly, to get some reprieve after the election. Some hope! It seems to have gotten worse. And it’s true, the need is now…
Decompensation
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Did you attend the Republican conference in Philadelphia? I’m guessing you did. I wasn’t there of course and did not hear the president’s speech, but the reports I heard and read about its tone and content were sufficient to add to my alarm. Did you not feel the slightest concern about
Listen
Those planning to rush ahead with plans to “repeal and replace” (“replace”? really?)) the Affordable Care Act owe it to their constituents to listen to what they want—in some cases, not what they say they want, but what they really want, which is often clearly different: there is plenty of evidence to show that many Americans don’t realize…
Intensity
I just read the text of the Tr*mp inaugural address. I had promised myself not to actually listen to it, but then, in the car, on the way to a medical appointment, the radio happened to have remained switched on from yesterday, so I found myself listening to about…
Ill Will
I’m with John Lewis. I plan to boycott the Tr*mp inaugural. Not in the flesh, of course, but at least on television. I’ll not watch it. I’m in agreement with the Congressman that the Tr*mp presidency is not legitimate. There are just too many indications that the election was not…
Panic Attack, Revisited
I had an interesting exchange yesterday on my Facebook page when a reader responded to my entry expressing fear about the coming Tr*mp inauguration. Noting that one of my blogs is called “The Buddha Diaries,” he wrote, I could “obviously” not have been practicing meditation if I was experiencing the feelings I expressed…
Panic Attack
I cannot remember ever having been so riddled with anxiety about the future of our country and the world. There has never been a comparable situation before this. We are on the eve of inaugurating a “president” of the United States […] whose unpreparedness for the office is monumental
The Deal
I find myself shuddering every time I hear that word, these days: the “deal.” Everything, it seems, in Tr*mpworld, is reduced to the deal, no matter whether it has to do with trade, where it seems appropriate, or health care, education, foreign relations… where it isn’t…
Film Review: Art in Heaven
In the opening scene in Jessica Elisa Boyd Art in Heaven, we find her protagonist, William, an Anglican priest, in a life-or-death crisis at the edge of a large body of water. At the end of the scene, in which we are invited to share his inner conflict in the vast and inscrutable context of nature itself, he reluctantly chooses…