I was working in a fairly large Engineering office in Portland when Thatcher was first elected in 1979. The Vice-President walked over to my drafting station with the chuckling remark –“Hey Scotty, I see you’ve finally got a good, REPUBLICAN prime Minister”! I’ll spare you my curt and expletive-laced response but use yer imaginations.
[Read More]
Little and Big: a story about a town
Once upon a time there was a little town by a big ocean. It was a wise little town. Long ago it had looked at its dunes and beaches, its big trees, its marsh where the red-wing blackbirds sang, its little streets and little grey shingle shops and houses, and said: This is all good.
America is in Moral Decline
If we are to truly measure morality, then we need to look at what we prize as a society. How do we spend our free time? What is our treasure? What motivates us? What do we value the most?
The answer isn’t very far away–it’s in our driveways, in the corners of our living rooms, in our hands, our ears and our pockets. It is money and everything money can buy. [Read More]
As society evolves, it becomes more moral
Some of my conservative friends that I’ve talked to recently think that America in particular and the world in general is in a moral decline. It is common for them to compare America with ancient Rome. “We’re heading the same way as Constantine,” a Republican colleague said to me a few weeks ago.
Cannon Beach honors the seer of Earthsea
“Our little house is a wonderful, quiet place to work. Also a very good house for dreams, many people who’ve slept there have told me that. Dreams and the kind of writing I do have some connection. One morning when I was waking up in our Cannon Beach bedroom, the whole idea of one of the “Earthsea” books came to me as the light grew. When I got up, it was daylight and I had a novel to write.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
[Read More]
The Scientist Stood
Closer and closer his little spaceship came
To the event horizon of the black hole.
This was his great adventure.
What he had studied all his life
Might today be proven true or false.
Or perhaps not proven at all.
Unclear Cuts 2: The Metaphysics of a Designer Forest
How can human beings, with our arrogance so many orders of magnitude greater than our understanding or our reverence, hope to recreate the intricacies of these familial relations between different types of trees, plants, fungi, and fauna?
The Sea as Soul-Maker
When I was a child, two sounds soothed me to sleep each night: the washing machine in the basement and the bell buoy in the bay. The liquid repetitiveness of the washing machine churning laundry in its gullet contrasted with the intermittent knelling of the bell as it warned ships away from the shoreline.
All for a Half Penny
Looking through a dormant coin collection I discovered a surprise. While I very seldom add to the collection or for that matter even look at it, it is decidedly pre-decimilazation British monarchs. Imagine my excitement when I discovered a Wellington half penny. What caught my eye was the date — 1816.
Ballad of a serial malcontent
As a final patriotic attempt by my dad to make the Germans run screaming from all remaining thoughts of invading Britain -or even seeking asylum there- and Scotland in particular, he had the RAF drop my first baby photos over anything that was left standing in Berlin and Dresden Germany.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- …
- 29
- Next Page »