This book, by Marc Lynch, is worth reading if you are looking, as I was, for a book that puts the whole post-Arab Spring thing into perspective. If any part of the world is misunderstood by Americans, surely it is the Middle East. It’s a very complex part of the world, made infinitely more complex…
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We have the extraordinary good fortune of living in the greatest period in human history. Most Americans would blithely dismiss that statement even without seeing it as untrue.  It’s like being healthy: you just wake up and do your thing.  Nobody but a survivor of a near-death experience thinks about waking up and thanking the universe for…
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Okay, allow me a little hyperbole. He’s not an abstraction. Bernie Sanders probably has a higher IQ than my cat, or me, for that matter. It’s just that he is gifted by nature with the appearance of a crazy professor, but he’s not been given a concomitant dose of professorial sense.  Here is his stance…
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Yep, you probably didn’t hear it here first: Ben Carson is nuts.  But this isn’t your web site, it’s MINE, and I can say what I want.  So there.  Ben Carson is nuts. He scares the shit out of me.  That slow delivery.  That oh-so-sure cadence.  You hear it and think, “Where have I heard that before? …
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Cuba has been nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in fighting Ebola in Africa along with its outstanding health care solidarity work around the world.  And with good reason! When most countries including our own stood aside as the epidemic raged in West Africa, Cuba without hesitation rushed to the side of…
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It just occurred to me: at the root of all human behavior is the desire to discover and to hold The Real Thing. It can be a god. It can be a can of soda. It can be an author. It can be a house. It can be an article in a magazine.  The Real Thing gives us…
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Yes indeed, life is too damn quick. I like this whole “waking up and living” thing.  After 56 years, I have gotten very used to it.  The prospect of having only 20 or 30 years left doesn’t thrill me, and I realize that many people turn to religion’s easy comfort so they can more easily spend those…
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A recent study by The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network indicates that the happiest countries in the world are: Switzerland Iceland Denmark Norway Canada Finland Netherlands Sweden New Zealand Australia Now, you may ask, what do all these countries have in common — except, perhaps the last one, with which I’ll deal a bit later on —…
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New Horizons is on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy dwarf planet and its moons in July 2015. Source: New Horizons | NASA

Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, NY) front page from January 28, 1994. Ever remember seeing something in a newspaper but you don’t remember the date? Not even sure of the wording, so it makes it hard to research? Yeah, me too. Well, I found it. Every winter, when people tell me how cold it is, I remind them that…
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