'…a major destabilizing influence'
I have a friend who had a big dream recently that was full of apocalyptic symbolism. In her dream there were catamounts prowling the city streets. It was very ominous because nobody could be sure where they were going to appear next. They would manifest on a crosswalk and vanish just as they do …
Continue reading “How living under the pandemic has changed me as a writer”
Fishs Eddy, NY — Driving from Philadelphia to our summer home in the Catskill Mountains region of upstate New York, my wife and I normally leave Interstate I-81 at the old coal-mining and railway center of Scranton, and head off on a meandering route on secondary roads through hill country passing farms, woods and …
Last night, a 1.5-inch writing spider, in the short span of three hours, managed to construct a web bridging a 12-foot open span of our back porch, including a huge sticky 3′ X 2′ web net of closely parallel strands designed for catching even small flying insects. I nearly face-planted right on the middle where …
Continue reading “Sometimes We Need a Little Reminder from Nature”
Covid-19 Global Solidarity Coalition (CGSC) held two online conference launchings May23-4. Nearly two hundred people participated from several countries. They discussed the coalition’s manifesto written last month by around 50 people from a score of countries. Conference participants enthusiastically expressed agreement with the manifesto, signed by ca. 3000 people. They shared ideas for growth, connecting …
Continue reading “Coalition for Universal Peace and Sustainable Life is Launched”
The Earth is our beloved grandmother Lying mortally ill in a nursing home (Did you think that she was my grandmother? For surely I thought she was yours) Or is she in a hospital ICU? I’m telling you we have lost her She is everyone’s Grandmother Struggling to breathe When Covid-19 slowed us down (Her …
Contributed to ThisCantBeHappening! by Rip Rense It’s lurking. It’s salivating. It’s breathless, waiting in the pandemic quiet. And at first opportunity, it will step out, roaring, spitting fire, devouring free will yet again as it commands you, you, you, and you to consume, consume, consume. All in the name of “returning to normal.” Well, I …
Two hugely important people were taken down by COVID-19 this past week. Both have left a legacy, the importance of which cannot be ignored. John Prine The first struck down last week is one of the greatest modern songwriters of my lifetime, John Prine. One of my favorite musicians, Prine was a humble, funny …
Continue reading “Honoring Two Men Just Brought Down by the Coronavirus Pandemic”
Gentle reader, I am afraid cannot bring myself to offer you the expected “Happy New Year” greeting at the start of this decade. The traditional phrase for today sticks in my craw. It just seems too ridiculous and inappropriate to our reality to be uttered with any sincerity. 2020 and the decade that it …
Continue reading “Hard Times are Coming in 2020 and in the Decade Ahead”
As I set out to fly home from the UK on Monday following a short film project in Cambridge, I found my boarding pass, which I had been blocked from obtaining online the night before, carrying a bold-faced SSSS stamp in the lower right corner. Asking about it I was told by the British employee …
Continue reading “US is a Classic Empire and Is Becoming a Repressive Police State at Home”
I was talking yesterday with a woman at HealthGuard, a water testing firm we’ve used in the past to test the water in our artesian well for contaminants. We hadn’t done it in five years because the last test showed it to be free of anything nasty, from coliform bacteria to pesticide traces and heavy …