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A Pox on Both Your Houses

A POX ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

Many, many years ago when I was the editorial advisor for my college’s student newspaper, I had the opportunity to interview Mark Perrineau.  He had just played Mercutio in Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Dane’s movie Romeo and Juliet.  Along with another actor from the movie whose name escapes me and with one of my students, we four gentlemen from Verona spent an hour talking.  We spoke in a spacious enclosed porch at a villa about the movie, acting in general, the imminent Hollywood strike...

S Little Time

SO LITTLE TIME

The holiday season is almost upon us.  Millions of Americans will be converging on airports around the country to fly home or to reach some other destination in time for Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Years (plus returning to their points of origin in time to resume work or classes the first week of January.)  Often, they are in a hurry, either to make a connecting flight or beat the rapidly approaching winter storm before the airport is socked in, or just to...

Steinbeck on human behavior

STEINBECK ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR

One of the three “giants” who influenced my life was John Steinbeck.  I was introduced to him in high school when we were assigned to read “Of Mice and Men,” but I was bitten by the bug and hungrily read every book he wrote (including “Travels with Charley: In Search of America“) over the next two years.  Every book, that is, but one. Somehow, his work “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” slipped through the cracks.  But before I go any further, let me explain...

A Night To Remember

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

There’s something about Madison Square Garden that draws attention.  I could not help but notice it several months ago when Deena and I were in NYC.  It is often the site of national political party conventions such as it was in 1976, 1980, 1992 and 2004, and it also serves as a sporting venue.  In 1971, the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was held in the Garden.  Today, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers keep the...

WONDERFULLY MADE

I was reading an interesting question on a discussion board the other night.  The board was a place where medical students and residents pose questions to each other. The question had to do with whether supplemental oxygen can address shortness of breath in cases when a patient has pump failure or COPD (assuming at the same time), the patient has adequate O2 arterial saturation.  In the event that some readers have wondered about this themselves, providing O2 per mask or cannula can not...

LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS

LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS

This afternoon I plopped on the couch while my wife Deena was watching a rally where former President Barak Obama was speaking. It was in Wisconsin, that he was just concluding his remarks. The repeated rounds of applause were positively thunderous. As he was about to introduce Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), Bruce Springsteen’s voice could be heard in the background singing “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Springsteen has always been a favorite musician of mine, at least since “The...

The Connecticut Shore

THE CONNECTICUT SHORE

Deena and I had an opportunity this past weekend to spend time on the Connecticut shore.  We stayed on the ocean’s edge in the Mercy by the Sea retreat center run by the Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic charity.  Deena and I are Protestants, but no one was checking ID’s.  It was a wonderful interlude where we could enjoy the peace of nature with the silent ambience of an organization that branched off centuries ago from the Carmelites.  This post is an account of our stay. THE...

Ties That Bind: The Meaning of Peace

TIES THAT BIND: THE MEANING OF PEACE

This post is a word study on the New Testament word for “peace.”  Given the polarized state of the nation in 2024, it is imperative that we all give the next President of the U.S. a chance, regardless of our personal opinions. In this sense the party out of power becomes part of what is known as the “loyal opposition.” The country needs a healing and this will not happen overnight. This post examines those ties that bind and the meaning...

Lord of the Flies

LORD OF THE FLIES

One of my favorite books growing up was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Possibly, some of you are not familiar with this work. Lord of the Flies was Golding’s first novel, and he would go on to eventually win a Nobel Prize for literature (in 1983.) I’d like to use Golding’s work and this post to illustrate how post-modern societies devolve into tribalism when sufficiently stressed, using the U.S. as a case study. In the instance of the U.S.,...

The MAGA evangelican and the dog-eating Haitian

THE MAGA EVANGELICAL AND THE DOG-EATING HAITIAN

Those of you who have read the New Testament even casually have likely heard the parable Jesus mentioned between the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisees (and the Sadducees) were the two main religious groups in Judea back then. Of the two, the Pharisees were the more conservative, taking the Law of Moses literally and representing the more rural parts of Israel. These are the ones who gave Jesus grief. The Sadducees were more liberal, because they tended to...

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