Category Archives: Uncategorized

It is 26 November 2020, Thanksgiving day in the US. Many people write how thankful they are on this day. It gives me pause to think about it, i guess and amongst many traditions, this one is pretty good. The holiday itself is meant to remember when the pilgrims sat down with the Indians forContinue reading “Is it obligatory to be thankful?”

Today I had the privilege of speaking with Bishop Frank Caggiano from the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport (Ct). I am not Catholic, and in fact am not much of a church-goer, but this gentleman is wonderful to speak with and I always learn something about the importance of faith to him and so many others.Continue reading “Community”

I don’t often write about politics. I have done so, but not very often, because I respect that a variety of opinions are not just valid, but important to mix in to the messy system of democracy. However….these are the things I think about as I prepare to rock up and vote next week, forContinue reading “Vote”

I have to confess, I love London. I have had the rare opportunity to work here (i am visiting this week) for a number of years, and now have a ‘flat’ in central London where my daughter lives and we can visit. Here’s what Henry James had to say- “It is difficult to speak adequatelyContinue reading “London”

I listened to an interesting podcast (Sway) whereby a rap star named Killer Mike was interviewed. I’m not much of a rap fan, but this is an interesting guy. He was angry after George Floyd was murdered by that police officer. Many people were angry and had a right to be of course; it wasContinue reading “Magneto v Professor X”

As a follow up to my “how can I help” post, I’d like to double back on one of the books I mentioned. I have just recently finished reading Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson wrote The Warmth of Other Suns, which I read back when it came out, and gave 5* on Goodreads. Caste justContinue reading “Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson – a review”

This seems to be a reasonable question and a common one. If the context is structural racism and the Black Lives Matter movement, the question takes on some currency and for some people some urgency. Let’s assume you are not black (if you are black, you probably know how you can help and don’t needContinue reading “How can I help?”

Seems like a really dumb question, ya? We watch our current buffoon of a president lie all the time and I assume that most of us think it’s a shame. Yet many people – millions of them, if the news is to believed – really don’t care if he tells the truth or not. SomeContinue reading “How Important is Telling the Truth?”

I had an idea once. It may have been my best idea. ever. Oh, and I stole it (modified it) from someone I sat next to on a plane. Here it is… When we moved to Australia, my kids were 8, 6, 4 and 6 months old, as indicated in my last entry. As IContinue reading “the “16 trips””

In many of the interesting and important books being written about racism, structural racism, white fragility and the like an important point is made about bias. We all have some baked-in bias, based on who we are, where we were born, where we are on the socio-economic scale of whichever country we are in. There’sContinue reading “Travel fights ignorance”