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Come gather ’round peopleWherever you roamAnd admit that the watersAround you have grownAnd accept it that soonYou’ll be drenched to the boneIf your time to you is worth savin’And you better start swimmin’Or you’ll sink like a stoneFor the times they are a-changin’ Bobby Dylan In 1988, I spent a couple of weeks investigating the health and safety infrastructure in China because my employer at the time, Northern Telecom, was working with the Government of Read More

“Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer.  I feel stronger for confession.”  Mahatma Gandhi In a recent Krista Tippett interview with Elaine Pagels, Krista asked Elaine what great books she had recently read.  One of them was A Confession by Tolstoy.  I immediately purchased it on Kindle for $.99.   It was the best buck I’ve spent in a long time.  As a relevant Read More

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.”  Victor Hugo   “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”  Fidel Castro   “Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.”  Alice Walker   Given all the disinformation proliferating in the world, it seems to me that we should be more concerned with convolution than revolution.  Are we living in the midst of the next Read More

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendrix “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” Albert Einstein “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Mahatma Gandhi “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf “We can never obtain peace Read More

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today.  No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.  This means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fiction way of thinking.”  Isaac Asimov “Man is something that shall be overcome.  Man is a rope, tied between beast Read More

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  Oscar Wilde “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”  Yogi Berra “I believe that two people are connected at the heart, and it doesn’t matter what you do, or who you are or where you live; there are no boundaries or barriers if two people are destined to be together.”  Julia Roberts “A healthy social life is found Read More

“The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least try not to defy them.” Paul Hawken “When the soil disappears, the soul disappears.”  Ymber Delecto “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”  R. Buckminster Fuller “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a minor reflection of what we are doing Read More

“This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make.”  —Christopher Alexander “There is an immense, painful longing for a Read More

Dear Annie and Ezra, You are almost 11 years old now, and you are citizens of several communities:  your synagogue, your school, your teams, your town, your state, your country, and the world.  You have responsibilities to all of those communities. A citizen is someone who has rights and responsibilities in a defined group.  Those rights are at risk when we don’t act responsibly.  In your Jewish community, your responsibilities are to learn the Torah, Read More

“We always belonged to this mystery, and maybe we can begin to find our way back, even if it means following an almost hidden path.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee I just completed a 60 day course entitled “Harmonizing All with All” conducted by Artie Vipperla, a Harvard trained polymath and Ph.D. psychologist who happens to be a Vietnam buddy of mine. The course consisted of two cycles – the first to present and give people an experience Read More

“The authoritarians tell a simple story about how to restore order — it comes from cultural homogeneity and the iron fist of the strongman. Democrats have a harder challenge — to show how order can be woven amid diversity, openness and the full flowering of individuals. But Democrats need to name the moral values and practices that will restore social order.”  David Brooks Practices and behaviors are simply manifest values.  That’s true on an individual Read More

I’m really worried about minority rule – especially when that means the republicans are in charge.  In all of the articles I have read recently, two factors stand out for predicting a republican vote – education and identification.  It appears that less educated and more identified people tend to vote republican.  I think there are several related factors that predict republican voters.  Conveniently and characteristically, they all start with the letter R. Rich:  63% of Read More

My small, hometown community recently sponsored an event called “What Unites Us.”  The event started with free sundaes in the park and concluded with a drum dance on the beach.  People in the community made signs indicating what they believed unified us, and we used those signs to make a pathway from the park to the beach.  Drums (green buckets) and drumsticks were placed in a circle with hula hoops in the middle.  Everyone was Read More

In our little town in Northern Michigan, a neighbor put up a sign that read “NO WOKE ZONE”  (code for “I hate liberal, establishment elites’).  At first, I thought it said “NO WORK ZONE,” but the message is the same in either case – “I am willfully ignorant and refuse to do the work to find the truth.”  Yes, being woke can go too far, but to me, it simply means “I’m open to uncomfortable Read More

I’m reeling from violence I’m kneeling in silence I’m healing my damaged soul I’ve been reeling from a sense of loss I’ve seen kneeling for the Southern cross So many are healing from a toxic boss I’ve been thrown off balance from low blows I’ve seen submission before turned up noses We all need healing from hate and hoses I’ve staggered badly from drunken days I’ve seen kneeling to maleficent ways I’ve known healing from Read More

In 1984, my wife, my first daughter, and I drove to JFK Airport to pick up our second daughter – Jang Hee JInn – fresh off a flight from Seoul Korea.   She was a 3 month old bundle of wonder.  I dropped the camera in my eagerness to welcome this new child from the Korean caretaker who had nurtured her lovingly for the long flight.  We named her Emily Jane.  I’m writing this post to Read More