• Puns, symbols, attitudes

    Today I found a scrap of paper containing three definitions I made up. The paper is dated November 13, 1999, long enough that I had forgotten it. I found it interesting; perhaps you will as well: A pun is a way to go from one logical chain to another logical chain without establishing a logical…

  • Revelation

    For more than three dozen years, my life has been deeply influenced by the benign example of Henry David Thoreau. If someone ever puts together a calendar of American saints (not a bad idea) he will surely be among them. If you have never read his journals, which were first published in 1917 for the…

  • Fear

    Some years ago I had to decline to publish Mark Kimmel’s fascinating first novel, Trillion, strictly for financial reasons. Since then I have remained on his newsletter, information for which I include at the end of this post. The following is his most recent. The Cosmic Paradigm Newsletter by Mark Kimmel October 31, 2007 Fear…

  • TGU on choice

    A friend emailed me, “I would love to hear TGU’s take on the matter.” I replied, “The difference between me and TGU isn’t very great these days. But I will give them the keyboard and see if they have anything to say that I have not:” What follows is TGU on choice. The one thing…

  • Death and life and death of a great man

    The Charlottesville newspaper’s obituary for George Gordon Ritchie Jr. M.D., 84, of Irvington, Virginia, who died Monday, October 29, 2007, among other things says this: He was a physician, speaker and author and a graduate of the University of Richmond, Medical College of Virginia and served his residency in Psychiatry at the University of Virginia.…

  • A war on hatred

    I hope this doesn’t come out too preachy. It’s been on my mind for a while now. Against my wishes, I hear a certain amount of the on-going political campaign, which may be summarized, as usual, thus: “It’s us against them, and this year they’re better financed than ever. We need your help to save…

  • Thoreau’s world

    “My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated even with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.”  — Henry Thoreau in his journal, February 9,…

  • A Change of Heart

    By way of the PEERS network. This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/071106heartmathchanges “HeartMath’s research shows that emotions work much faster, and are more powerful, than thoughts. And that-when it comes to the human body-the heart is much more important than the brain to overall health and well-being-even cognitive function-than anyone but poets believed. Briefly…

  • Aanenson’s sacrifice

    Did you watch the Ken Burns film series on PBS called “The War”? If not, probably you should. This series doesn’t glorify war, or glamorize it, or paint our soldiers as angels and the soldiers on the opposite side as devils. It doesn’t pretend that war is good for children or other living things. Nor…

  • Betrayal

    On this Veteran’s Day, a somber note. I asked a friend who is a decorated Vietnam War vet what he thought of my blog entry, “Aanenson’s Sacrifice,” knowing him as a lifetime soldier who speaks from experience, and a good enough friend that he would tell me what he really thinks. I have to agree…