Nov 09
Sitting with a group of friends last night at a party that had been advertised as a celebration, we felt depressed, frustrated, infuriated, impotent. In short, we suffered. Why was that? Mental suffering, according to a Buddhist teaching, comes from a craving for gratification that is frustrated because it is rooted in ignorance about reality. …
Oct 23
Follow the money! That’s the basic rule for understanding what’s what and who’s who in the election business. It’s as true in a little town like Berkeley (my home town) as on the national stage. Here, four of the candidates on our City Council ballot are beneficiaries of so-called Independent Expenditures by the National Association …
Oct 01
Given the monstrous possibility of a Trump victory nationally, it may seem petty to worry about the decline of public ethics in this little town of Berkeley. But the local air has carried the stink of corruption for a while now. The city council majority has rubberstamped a string of high rise luxury housing projects, about the last …
Sep 26
I rarely watch television. It took a friend in Norway, of all places, to alert me to Jesse Williams’ great speech this past June at the BET awards in Los Angeles. Hats off to Mr. Williams. All that rubbing with celebs in tinseltown hasn’t dulled his edge. Here, in case you also missed it, is the YouTube …
Aug 22
Science Fiction Author Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars Trilogy) has an article in the current Scientific American issue devoted to “the future.” After discussing the various strategies that forecasters use to construct visions of the worlds ahead, he ventures his own prediction. “The inequality of our economic system, the destruction of our biosphere’s ability to support us, the …
Aug 20
That lawyers have a drinking problem hardly comes as a shock. Just go to Netflix and pull down any movie or TV serial about lawyers. In the entertainment world, the expression “drunk lawyer” is almost as redundant as “lying politician” or “cheating husband.” So it wasn’t a stop-press moment when Patrick Krill told an audience …
Aug 12
in a couple of weeks, Bernie Sanders will lay out specifics of his vision for “Our Revolution.” He has been clear that his campaign for progressive social change did not end with the Philadelphia convention and will not end with the November elections. He has not been clear about how that is to happen. “Our Revolution” at …
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