MORE THAN ONCE UPON A time, in a land surprisingly near, lived two distinct peoples. Both were composed of friendly, industrious individuals with a long tradition of respectful coexistence in all matters save one: One group took every Monday off;…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those writing-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pencil. He is unafraid of adverbs, and lives with an animal companion and eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Minute Mitzvah: Free At Last
FOR THOSE INTERESTED, WE AT Metaphorager.Net present another Monday Mitzvah (and its backstory). Today: Tell the Exodus story on Passover. “Remember that you were slaves in the Land of Egypt” is Torah’s most-repeated commandment. But if we get hung up…
Pithyism #10
CIVILIZATION IS NOT BASED ON agriculture, technology or finance — but solely on its members’ unspoken agreement to behave sensibly. Take that away …
Minute Mitzvah: You Are How You Eat
TUESDAY’S NOT TOO LATE FOR a Monday Mitzvah, unless you’d rather read something else. Today: Don’t eat what’s not kosher (literally, “proper, fit”). Let’s correct two misconceptions: 1. Kosher is hygenic. 2. Kosher is rational. The basic rules from Leviticus…
How To Write
SUCCINCTLY.
Journalism As Art Imitating Life
CAN WRITERS REPORT? THAT QUESTION nets a “yes” according to Daniel Elstrin in the June 19 Forward, reporting on the day Haaretz (think Israeli NYT) swapped its staff for 31 leading authors and poets: “Among those articles were gems like…
Minute Mitzvah: Watch Your Tongue
It’s Monday Mitzvah! If you’re not hip to Jewish ethnospirituality, feel free to pass. Today: Don’t oppress anyone with words. Like many of the mannerly mitzvot, this one seems easy — until you begin to ponder the meaning of “oppress.”…
… And It’s Still Unbroken
WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS SAN FRANCISCO and the Jellyfish Gallery, a cozy industrial space where 50 or so practical idealists gathered to talk about saving the world one action at a time. The event was a local “spore” of the international…
Silent Revolution
PROPOSAL: EVERYONE-BE-QUIET DAY. The Idea: Ann fretting about leafblowers disturbing the local birds, and me wondering what the world would sound like were all the machines to be turned off for a while… The Action: On January 1, 2010, between…
Happy Bloomsday!
105 YEARS AGO TODAY, LEO Bloom took his famous fictive walk through Dublin seeing the same places and eating the same foods as his latterday followers did, will do or have done today. (Me, I’ll be sitting on the floor…
Minute Mitzvah: Divine Assumption
And now, another Monday Mitzvah! If you’re not hip to things eth(n)ospiritual, feel free to skip. Today: Know, if even arguendo, that God is. TO A THEIST, THE IDEA of a Universe without God is a no-brainer; to an atheist,…
School’s Out
TODAY IS THE WORST DAY (or one of the worst days) in any given year: it’s the last day I’ll be teaching religious school, which means I won’t see “my kids” any more — and I’ll be slightly stupider without…