There’s the dictionary version, san·i·ty ˈsanədē/ noun the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner …and the legal litmus test of understanding the distinction between “right” and “wrong”. Then, there’s the complicated and manipulated nuance that blurs any clarity of the subject, including a never-ending debate…
It’s what moved us forward, right? That uniquely human ability to imagine what could be…and then, we could fly and walk on the moon and make chocolate melt in our mouths, not in our hands and build a means to our own annihilation. Our dreams were our salvation, bridges toward…
I’m writing this in a quiet, otherwise-unoccupied, darkened room which, metaphorically, is suited to unencumbered, truthful retrospection…a place where one might seize the opportunity to not buy into one’s own or anyone else’s bullshit. This is a somewhat complicated endeavor for me as I attempt to temper my black-or-white natural…
I do not claim to be an innocent glass-house-stone-thrower. Sadly, I don’t have to jar my memory very hard to recall instances of sexual misbehavior that, in hindsight, I would like to revisit with a better-calibrated moral compass. I won’t attempt to quantify my conduct in light of the wave…
I’m no memory expert, (at least, not to the best of my recollection), but I have wrestled with my own memory long enough to have a particular wisdom with regard to the illusive relationship we all have with our synaptic connections. Historically, attempts have been made, since the age of…
I attended an open, on-stage conversation with Paul Simon at Skidmore College a couple of nights ago. The nine hundred, or so, packed into Zankel Hall, were there for various reasons; he’s a bona fide celebrity, a musical legend, (I’d say genius), he’s nutty-professor whimsical, and he was more than…
For clarity, I’m reining in my bi-polar penchant for only seeing the black or the white, (mostly black, by the way), of this bold movement to express and expose distasteful, dangerous, too often illegal behavior. I am not a mere bystander, having been cajoled, harassed and physically and emotionally manipulated…
(An open letter to Trump supporters) To Whom It May Concern: Your choice to remain loyal to one of the most heinous human beings in history is fodder for the psychological annals of other historical cultish figures like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh. If you haven’t checked, ask…
com·pas·sion (kəm-păsh′ən) n. Deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it. It’s a word derived from Old English, with some French tweaking, that’s been around since the fifteenth century, but there is anthropological evidence that it has been part of the human condition for far longer. There is probably no genetic test for its existence or…
There is very little to be proud of when you observe the behavior of the United States of America. Our fledgling country, (compared to most nations on the planet), was founded on humane principals borrowed from the ‘best’ ideas of other nations’ long-suffering experiments in government. That foundation, as rhetorically…