As I age, I discover much that I missed during my 7-decades. For example, it is difficult to deal with conflicts whether globally, nationally, or locally. I have been a dreamer for much of my life. During the civil rights movement in the 60s, those in the movement all knew that we would change things in America even amid the chaos and killings.
However, I did not connect the dots until now. Saul Alinsky, a radical reformer and community organizer, wrote, "We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it."
I have wandered in darkness. I have danced with death a couple of times in the past several years. However, you and I need to believe and to move forward regardless of the problems that we face. Merely sitting and complaining means that darkness will continue to envelop us.
Others have observed what I discovered late in my life. Confucius said, "It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." Sir Isaac Newton said, "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." Pete Seeger wrote and sang, Quite Early Morning, which sums it all up musically. His song starts with this couplet:
Don't you know it's darkest before the dawn
And it's this thought keeps me moving on...
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Darkest Before Dawn A Logical Disconnect that Is True | 08/15/14 |
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The Pandas and My PoohAnd Other Followers of Gilgamesh | 02/03/21 |
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Who Is That Lady in Yellow?A 21st Century Eppie | 02/01/21 |
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Where’s the Proof?The New Me | 01/25/21 |
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There are Facts…And There are Fake Facts. | 01/20/21 |
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The Gilgamesh EpicThen and Now | 01/18/21 |
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The Answer to the Question…What’s It All About, Alfie? | 01/15/21 |
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Purposeful LivesOn Steroids | 01/13/21 |
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Donald, It Was a Bridge Too FarAnd You Lost, Again. | 01/11/21 |
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A Christmas Carol in 2020…It Is in Giving that We Get | 12/25/20 |
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Where Is a Martin Niemöller…When We Need an Honest Person? | 12/23/20 |
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A Secret About LifeHow To Be Successful | 12/21/20 |
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When Opportunity KnocksCarpe Diem | 12/18/20 |
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Your Meaning of Being…What Is It? | 12/14/20 |
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This Is a Teaching MomentAbout America | 12/07/20 |
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Remembering the PastSpring Follows Winter | 12/02/20 |
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Blue House Remodeled…With Drive and Determination | 11/30/20 |
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A Modafinil Moment…Revisited | 11/20/20 |
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Problems Are Catalysts for ChangeBut It Is Up to You | 11/18/20 |
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It’s Either/OrTrump Needs to Read Søren Kierkegaard | 11/16/20 |
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Emails Past and PresentA Reflection Upon Our World | 11/09/20 |
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Discerning the TruthA Means to Live Life | 11/04/20 |
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It Was Four Years AgoAnd What a Difference Four Years Makes | 11/02/20 |
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Ginger’s Birthday BashI Hope That She Has Many More | 10/30/20 |
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We Are Both Dancers…Ginger and I | 10/28/20 |
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The Importance of the Sound of Music…According to Nietzsche and Me | 10/26/20 |
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On Deciphering the Truth…By Thinking | 10/23/20 |
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The Giving and GettingBoth Parties Benefit | 10/21/20 |
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Bunker Time A Prediction | 10/14/20 |
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Damned If He Does, and Damned If He Doesn’t. On Being on the Horns of a Dilemma | 10/12/20 |
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The Devil Made Me Do It. A Presidential Duet | 10/09/20 |
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Amazing Grace Or More of the Same Insanity | 10/07/20 |
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My Two Worlds…Affect My Life | 10/05/20 |
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Bad KarmaSticks to People | 10/02/20 |
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Jainism or the JusticeThe Place of Women in the World | 09/28/20 |
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Dealing with RealityIn the Human and Canine World | 09/18/20 |
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Masks Matter…To Some | 09/16/20 |
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Coming Home to RoostKierkegaard, Mt. Lebanon, Dancing, and My Family | 09/04/20 |
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There Is More to Dreaming…Than Just Dreaming | 08/07/20 |
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Focusing My Stream of ConsciousnessBy Watching a Movie | 08/05/20 |
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Let Me Get This Straight…About the Trump Flu | 08/03/20 |
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Ginger and I Have Done the DanceAnd Are Alive | 07/22/20 |
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"Give Me a Place to Stand...And I Will Move the World.” | 07/20/20 |
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“We See No White-Winged Angels Now…”But We See Little Children | 07/01/20 |
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The Morphing Together of a Salt Lamp, Nero, and Cat StevensAn Insight for the Present Day | 06/29/20 |
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The Good, the Bad, and the UglyWe Can Do Better | 06/26/20 |
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Another of Santayana’s Teaching Moment Maybe We Will Learn This Time | 06/24/20 |
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Living in Two Worlds…Part 2The Utopian Time | 06/17/20 |
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Living in Two WorldsPart 1 | 06/15/20 |
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Reflections on My Journey Down the Yellow Brick RoadOur Clocks Are Ticking | 06/12/20 |
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An Open-Letter to the WorldTimes They Are a-Changin' | 06/05/20 |
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A New Memorial DayDue to the COVID-19 | 05/25/20 |
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Our Reason for BeingDiscover It | 05/18/20 |
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Thinking Outside the Box of COVID-19And How You Will Benefit | 05/08/20 |
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The World is Dancing…Dancing with Death | 04/24/20 |
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Why I Love Inle LakeTwo Reasons | 04/22/20 |
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The Week That WasDance on with Determination | 04/20/20 |
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“I Could Stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue….”You Are Standing on Main Streets in America and Shooting | 04/13/20 |
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The Brighter Side of LifeSomewhat Brighter | 04/10/20 |
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Plague DoctorThen and Now | 04/06/20 |
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Understanding Life as We Live ItSonata Pathétique | 04/03/20 |
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An Open Letter to Dr. FauciOne American’s Thank You | 04/01/20 |
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Another Miracle Drug…Maybe | 03/30/20 |
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Another Teaching MomentAbout Times Past | 03/27/20 |
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Regarding Dancing with CoronavirusCampbell’s Five Commandments | 03/25/20 |
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Let’s Make a DealThanks to Modafinil | 03/23/20 |
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The Cave vs Reality...That is the Question. | 03/20/20 |
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A Teaching MomentFor Today and the Future | 03/18/20 |
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Trump’s NemesisPresident Obama | 03/16/20 |
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I Don’t Like FailingModus Operandi | 03/13/20 |
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We Face Two PandemicsBoth Need Immediate Attention | 03/11/20 |
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Holy TerrorMy Nom De Guerre | 03/04/20 |
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How Playing Scrabble Changed My LifeWho Would Have Thought? | 02/28/20 |
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What Drives MeBack Then and Now | 02/19/20 |
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The Republican TrinitySessions, Bolton, and Roberts | 01/31/20 |
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Theseus and Me A Ball of String or Modafinil | 10/02/19 |
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Icarus and Trump On Flying Too Low | 09/30/19 |
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Autotelic Vincent, Me, and Modafinil | 09/27/19 |
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Plagiarism Sharpie-Gate | 09/11/19 |
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It’s All About Legacy “There Ain't No Way To Hide Your Lyin' Eyes” | 08/30/19 |
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Starry, Starry Night…. What Do You See? | 08/12/19 |
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Trump and White Supremacy The Torch Has Been Passed to a New Generation | 08/09/19 |
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Ginger, King of the Mountain Taught Me a Lesson | 07/24/19 |
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Quisling Then and Now Repeating History | 07/22/19 |
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Ginger’s Vet My Shrink | 07/19/19 |
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The Dog Days of Summer Without Air Conditioning | 07/17/19 |
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And the Winner Is…. Who Will Get the Nobel Prize for Peace? | 07/15/19 |
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In the Game of Life… It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again | 07/10/19 |
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Another Déjà Vu In the Arts and Philosophy | 06/07/19 |
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Cowards Die Many Times Before Their Death... In Rome and In Washington. | 06/05/19 |
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Nietzsche and Ginger Übermensch or ÜberGinger | 05/27/19 |
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The Climate Change Debate Evolved from the Scopes Monkey Trial | 05/24/19 |
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Prometheus, Galileo, and Nietzsche Verses Zeus, God, and Nihilism | 05/22/19 |
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Alabama and Abortion… And Sexism | 05/20/19 |
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Nietzsche Apparently Read Thoreau But I Have Read Much of Both | 05/17/19 |
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Nietzsche, Pathétique, and No Pain, No Gain Part Two of One-Liners | 05/15/19 |
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Nietzsche Wanted Two Things in Life: Music and a Dancing God | 05/13/19 |
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Purpose of Our Being What’s It All About, Alfie | 05/10/19 |
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Pathétique A Way to Live Life | 05/03/19 |
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Hanging My Problem on My Lantern Jacob Soboroff | 04/15/19 |
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Hanging My Problem on My Lantern Contacting Clarence Page | 04/12/19 |
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Hanging My Problem on My Lantern Contacting Rod Stewart | 04/10/19 |
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One Moment in Time Carpe Diem | 03/04/19 |
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Before Trump’s America And After Trump’s America | 03/01/19 |
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NiC and Narcissus There Is a Better Alternative. | 02/27/19 |
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Inferiority Complex Womb Envy vs. Penis Envy | 02/25/19 |
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Tintern Abbey Viewed by Wordsworth and Turner | 02/18/19 |
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The Value of Pain Can Produce Ultimate Bliss | 02/04/19 |
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A Very Brief History of Sexism in Science It All Started with a Blinking Neutron Star | 02/01/19 |
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Reflections | 01/09/19 |
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Krampus, the Bad Santa… Is Coming to Get You | 12/21/18 |
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Another Dinner and Date with Ginger On Election Night | 11/09/18 |
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Keep Calm And Things Seem to Work Out | 10/24/18 |
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The Relevance of Religion In the World | 10/15/18 |
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What White Old Men Need to Understand From a White Old Man | 10/10/18 |
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Sexism in Society Especially in Washington | 10/05/18 |
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Teaching Students And Learning as a Teacher | 09/24/18 |
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A Noble Person… Meets Another Noble Person | 09/17/18 |
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The Pearl of Death Or the Lesson of Life | 09/05/18 |
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Admiral McRaven and St. Francis Two Similar Minds | 08/29/18 |
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What Goes Around Comes Around…Again and Again | 08/17/18 |
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The Meaning of Being Or Why Am I Here? | 08/13/18 |
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Be a Dreamer.... And Never Quit Dreaming. | 08/10/18 |
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It Is In Giving That We Get Being Like Bobby | 08/03/18 |
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The Ripple Effect… “…Can Sweep Down the Mightiest Walls.” | 07/23/18 |
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Eppie… Then and Now | 07/20/18 |
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It’s All Begins with Making My Bed— Which Ginger Unmakes | 07/13/18 |
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If I Fail… I Will While Daring Greatly | 07/06/18 |
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Forrester and Jamal You and I | 05/11/18 |
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A Wrinkle in Time Thinking Outside the Box | 04/25/18 |
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Frederick Douglass A Better Man Than I | 04/13/18 |
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My Heart Issues—Part II The One That’s Pumping Blood | 03/14/18 |
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Sherlock Holmes Faces Death The Times They Are Changin’ | 03/07/18 |
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An Emerging Nation On Its Way to a Developed Nation | 02/19/18 |
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Another Breakfast with My Shrink Dealing with Dreaming | 01/01/18 |
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Doing the Dance... Fathoming the Unfathomable | 12/11/17 |
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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... Then and Now | 11/20/17 |
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The Balfour Declaration One Explanation for the Mess in the Middle East | 11/01/17 |
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Live in the Moment... Plan for the Future | 10/20/17 |
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Ginger and Santayana Remember the Past | 10/09/17 |
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The Double-Axe A Symbol of My Identity | 09/15/17 |
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Essay with No Words But Look At My Eyes | 08/21/17 |
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“Better Angels of Our Nature” In America, Mexico, and Burma | 08/19/17 |
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Macbeth... Guilt Spills Itself for Fear of Being Spilt | 08/02/17 |
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Oppie The Scientist and the Philosopher | 07/17/17 |
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Impeachment of Trump And the Tower of Babel | 06/30/17 |
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My Solution to Healthcare Reform... Single-Payer | 06/26/17 |
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What Were You Doing on D-Day? Being What You Might Have Been | 06/05/17 |
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Breaking News from Ginger About Trump Colluding with the Russians and Putin | 06/02/17 |
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Frobisher’s Quests The Northwest Passage and Gold | 05/31/17 |
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HMS Terror, HMS Erebus, Global Warming… Or Nonsense from Those Godless Chinese Communists | 05/26/17 |
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To Become… What You Might Have Been | 04/28/17 |
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The Help Déjá Vu | 04/17/17 |
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Life Is a Bowl of Cherries Or the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men | 04/14/17 |
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The Efforts of the Lady vs. The Efforts of Donald the Dumb | 04/12/17 |
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Chick Magnet And the Hauntings | 03/31/17 |
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Shrimp Can Whistle "I dream things that never were and say, why not." | 03/08/17 |
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Invictus Thank You, Mrs. Davis | 03/06/17 |
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What Donald the Dumb is Missing in Life? Eppie | 03/01/17 |
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Robert the Bruce I'll Drink to Him! | 02/17/17 |
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How Will I Live to My 100th Birthday? Answer: Ikigai | 01/20/17 |
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Step Beyond the Impossible Wall Learning from the Mongols | 12/28/16 |
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Accomplishing Things in Life... Even Long Shots | 12/16/16 |
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Coping with Butterflies Getting Organized | 12/07/16 |
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Moh Moh's Email Big Dreams Never Run Smooth | 12/02/16 |
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The Lady And the Peacock | 11/04/16 |
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Sexism and Trump Religious or Societal | 10/26/16 |
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Resurrecting Dashed Dreams By Continuing to Dream | 10/17/16 |
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Why Do I Care? More to the Point, Why Doesn't Everyone Care? | 09/16/16 |
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Return to Myanmar Dream Big | 09/02/16 |
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The Meaning Behind the Man The Man of La Mancha | 08/29/16 |
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One Great Value of Education... Equality | 08/22/16 |
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Listening to My Mentors And Dreaming Impossible Dreams | 08/19/16 |
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The Terrorism Trifecta Three More Dances with Death | 08/12/16 |
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The Kiss From Life to Death | 08/08/16 |
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The Value of Giving Gifts... To Young Children | 08/01/16 |
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Bobby Kennedy Still Reaches Out to Us. | 07/29/16 |
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My Love Letters They Must Be Written | 07/22/16 |
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We Shall Overcome A Belief Amid Darkness | 07/18/16 |
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Dealing with Dreams that Could Have Been... But Aren't | 07/15/16 |
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"I Come in a World of Iron... To Make a World of Gold." | 06/27/16 |
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Bloody Hands and No Backbone What a Legacy | 06/20/16 |
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The Angel Spoke... And I Listened. | 06/10/16 |
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Mr. Turner The Dualism of Feelings | 05/06/16 |
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An Anniversary Has Arrived.... The Fifth Anniversary. | 05/02/16 |
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Morphing of the Flu with Polio A Strange Juxtaposition | 04/29/16 |
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I am Don Quixote But I Am Not from La Mancha | 04/15/16 |
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Christopher Reeve Another Dancer Who Could Also Fly | 04/08/16 |
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What Drives Me? And the Answer Is.... | 03/07/16 |
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On Seeing the Light Chuck, Paul, and Me | 03/04/16 |
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The Art of Beating the Grim Reaper Follow Randy Pausch's Example | 02/24/16 |
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Grave or No Grave That is the Question | 02/22/16 |
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Best of Times, Worst of Times It Is Your Choice; Choose Wisely | 02/19/16 |
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I Am Looking for Another Dancer The Ultimate Partner | 02/17/16 |
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Buddha's Strange Parable... Which We Need to Understand | 02/15/16 |
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The Value of Dreaming About My List of Dulcineas | 02/12/16 |
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Somewhere in Time The Importance of Memories | 02/04/16 |
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The Drinkable Book I Wish I Had One While in Indochina | 02/03/16 |
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Another Dancer David Hume | 02/01/16 |
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Dreams will come to you.... If You Are True to Your Quest | 01/22/16 |
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Miguel Cervantes As Don Quixote | 01/18/16 |
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"I'm Dying, and I'm Having Fun." Randy Pausch is Correct | 01/15/16 |
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The Gift of an Angel It is More About My Feelings | 01/06/16 |
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Don Quixote and Confucius Told Me To Get Off My Arse | 12/18/15 |
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Going to Hell in a Handbasket And the Tibetan Mask | 12/14/15 |
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Doing the Dance Again How to Address Both New Dances | 12/11/15 |
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I Know Who I Am... And Have Found Two People Who Understand Me | 12/04/15 |
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Take Your Passion and Make It Happen Flashdance Follow-up | 11/27/15 |
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Responses to Paris Both Are Vital | 11/25/15 |
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What a Feeling And It Is a Great Feeling | 11/20/15 |
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Pandora Provides Hope... Don Quixote Provides Determination | 11/09/15 |
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Doubling Down... To Make Dreams Come True | 10/19/15 |
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It's Confession Time... And It Isn't Sunday | 10/09/15 |
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Squirt's Observations of Her Papa A Modern Day Eppie's Reflection | 10/02/15 |
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The Tulip Pitcher A Picture of Springtime | 09/16/15 |
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Songs Can Make the World Go Around... Peacefully. | 09/11/15 |
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The Felt Picture A Picture of Hopefulness | 09/09/15 |
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Agnes Majors in the Minors A Big Fish in a Drying Up Small Pond | 09/04/15 |
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A Man with a Mission... Sinking a German U-boat | 08/12/15 |
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Dinner with GiGi The Socratic Method of an Older Woman | 07/17/15 |
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What I Learned About Life... From Facing Down the Dragon | 06/29/15 |
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The Benefit of Problems Or the Only Means to Success | 06/08/15 |
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It Has Been Seven Years Since I Fell... And Cracked My Head | 05/18/15 |
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Steve Jobs and Charles Dickens How to Avoid the Ghosts | 05/08/15 |
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Nepal Then And Now | 05/03/15 |
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"We Get Old Too Soon... And Wise Too Late" | 04/27/15 |
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How Do We Learn? The Lessons in Learning | 04/13/15 |
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Ode to Joy In the Midst of Pain | 03/27/15 |
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Think about the Legacy that You Leave Will Your Relatives Be Proud of You? | 03/19/15 |
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Reliving Many Bloody Sundays Rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement | 03/07/15 |
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"All Mankind is Divided Into Three Classes..." Some Aren't Buried Until They Are Seventy-five | 02/23/15 |
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Obama's Golden Opportunity On Leaving a Legacy | 02/13/15 |
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The Most Dangerous Woman in America Mother Jones and Her Boys | 01/16/15 |
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"Every Child is an Artist." The Question is What Remains in Adulthood? | 01/12/15 |
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Ozone to Ferguson A Journey That Never Seems To End | 01/05/15 |
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It Was the Best of Times It Was the Worst of Times.... | 01/01/15 |
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A Hand Is Put Into Theirs... And the Hand May Be a Little Child's | 12/29/14 |
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Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream The Disconnect Between Dreaming and Reality | 12/26/14 |
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What Einstein Taught Me About Riding a Bike ...Keep Moving | 12/22/14 |
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Serendipity... Finding Without Looking | 12/12/14 |
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Joe Hill Died November 19, 1915 "I Never Died," Says He. | 11/19/14 |
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Death is the Best Invention of Life Breathing Is Not Living | 11/14/14 |
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Seeing When You Think You See... The Difference is Dazzling. | 10/31/14 |
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"The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men... Often Go Awry" | 10/27/14 |
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A Lesson of Life from Alexander the Great "Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal." | 10/17/14 |
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My Dots in Life Get Connected With the Singing of Pete Seeger | 10/06/14 |
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Nothing is Secure Which is a Great Blessing | 10/03/14 |
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Christopher Robin is Correct... However, You Must Believe It Before It Is. | 09/29/14 |
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Wolverton Mountain The Place Where Dreams Occur | 09/26/14 |
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Pushing Oneself... What I Learned from T. S. Eliot | 09/14/14 |
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It is in Giving that We Get... Especially in Restaurants in Valparaiso. | 09/05/14 |