The casual observer would find me a bit odd when it comes to organization. For example, one could notice that my computer files are pretty orderly, but my emails are a mess. I have very organized closets, and fairly well organized file drawers, but my desk top is a disaster zone. Cufflinks that I wear…
For a while now I have been promising some friends that I would construct a hat that included a sort of wing or tag off to one side, a la Minnie Pearl. I envision this chapeau to be less flashy than La Pearl’s but following the same premise. The hat would have an appendage that…
It has become incredibly easy for me not to decide on things over the past 15 years. If you go to any website that addresses issues related to multiple sclerosis, you have to go way down on the list of issues to find anything about this problem, if you find it there at all. When…
Taking trains to get places is very instructive. The traveler gets to see firsthand decisions that were made, are being made, or are yet to be made at a pace and from a perspective that one doesn’t get while driving or walking. At the wheel of a car, one must pay attention. From the train,…
Communities emerge when people participate in common practices, depend on one another, make decisions together… For the past two weeks I have been posting about some of our common practices and depending on one another. I have noticed along the way that more often than not I draft my posts beginning with the antithesis of…
Yesterday I thrice commented on things I learned in two college courses in linguistics before I blurted to my friend and colleague Mischelle, “They may have been the most useful classes I ever took.” Together with Latin and English, these linguistics courses taught me ways of understanding the world through the use of language. My…
I lament the loss of civil discourse, though I fear at times I am involved in its painful demise. As I write this week about politics, I am struck by my longing for the language of protests of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Hell, I am hungry for something that approaches a good argument. To…
Aristotle coined the term political animal – politikon zoon – in his work Politics in which he puts forth his belief that citizens must actively participate in politics if we are to be happy. To Aristotle, we are creatures intended to live in community. He understood us to be social animals. Aristotle reasoned that humans…
This conflict is one thing I’ve been waiting for. I’m well and strong and young – young enough to go to the front. If I can’t be a soldier, I’ll help soldiers. — Clara Barton Last week I went to an evening discussion about race. That was how it was billed, at least. But in…
Try as I might, I cannot end a week of writing posts about sex without voicing my thoughts about this week’s public apology by the Land’s End Corporation to its customers and supposed customers from the so-called religious right. Last week I wrote about apologies and what passes for apologies. I wrote that some people are…
Creating Community for Everyone 