THE SCENE: LAST WEEK AT a medical office. It was a strictly routine matter, but one which involved removing my cabbie cap and disclosing my kippah. “How was your Chanukah?” the technician asked. “It was good,” I replied. “Lots of…
Category: Living
Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.
Fear of death is worse than death.”
— R. Yehudah de Modena
Five More Thoughts
1. ANOTHER SERVICE, ANOTHER ARMED GUARD. After making cordial introductions — as one of the service leaders, I was the first to arrive this morning — he informed me that an access-grate was askew below the sanctuary. One of our…
The Feeling
YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOONS ARE USUALLY the spacetime nexus where radical growth happens — and this year was no exception. Let’s set the stage. After an intense twenty-or-so hours of not eating or otherwise tending to physicality, continuous guided liturgical meditation,…
Five Thoughts
1. WE HAD A WELL-ARMED GUARD at our synagogue service this morning. (In the United States. IN SONOMA. Which, as you may imagine, made/makes me feel both glad and sad.) 2. When our rabbi asked those visiting for the first…
Why I Love: KSVY
IT’S SONOMA VALLEY’S HIDDEN JEWEL. It’s Bill Stallings’ “Tasty Nuggets,” a decades-spanning flashback every Friday morning. (It’s also his prog-rock “Rocks Files Radio” on Saturday nights and every-hourly :20 weather forecast.) It’s Tuesday night’s “Big Fish,” surveying and promoting the…
Pithyism#.02%
WHY IS IT ONLY — OR chiefly — our minorities who long for universal brotherhood?
Life 2023 Style
ALWAYS ASSUME A CAMERA.
Regarding ChatGPT (or, Cassandra’s Got Nothing On Me)
BE CAREFUL PLAYING WITH THE shiny new toy — the shiny new toy may decide to play with you.
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
— Thos. Jefferson
Clearly the best time to be alive is when you start out wondering and end up knowing. There is only one generation in the whole history of mankind in that position. Us.”
— Carl Sagan, June 1974
I am the greatest man in the world; indeed I am so great that I can afford great generosity: I encourage all others to adopt the delusion that they are as great as I. If they truly thought that they were themselves the greatest, they too would be as generous; and then we would all be able to humor each other, in peace, for none would feel threatened by the now-harmless delusions of everyone else.”
— Dr. Philo Drummond (Now go thou and do likewise.)