I have to admit that Chris Hedges had not floated into the sphere of my awareness prior to yestereve when I caught up with Book TV's In Depth for January 2012. I was, somewhat against my will, impressed. His bona fides are pretty - well - bona fide. He's been places, done things. I like that he argued with Hitchens and Dawkins. Read more about TruthDig and Beauty

"Still the same, baby things are still the same,
Some things never change..."

The old Bob Seger tune comes to mind this morning.

Yesterday afternoon, as the Christmas Day discussion drifted into ideas about religion and culture, someone made reference to cultural evolution, as in "we've evolved more than that." I can't remember the exact reference, but it implied that humans have "evolved" culturally. That is, our understanding of each other and the world around us has become broader, more tolerant, more accepting of others. Read more about Still the Same

Christmas Week. Which every year brings a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth over how to greet people - not to mention the whole idea of giving gifts, receiving gifts, and shopping for gifts - and leaving aside the entire issue of home decor. And rumbling in the basement, at the foundations, you might say, of the entire enterprise and bringing the general confusion to a boil - religion. Read more about 'Tis Christmas

I don't like free stuff. I don't trust it.

Buy one, get one free. Why? What's wrong with it? If I only want one, do I have to take two? What if I don't want two? Should I take two and give one to the homeless guy outside the door? What message do I send to the world when I say, no thank you? I don't need two. I can afford to spend money that would buy me two, but I only need to take one. So look, everybody, how rich I am. Look and be grateful. That because I threw away my money on one, you may now have two. Read more about Free Stuff

I ain't lyin'! I'm actually a very bad liar. But that doesn't mean I'm a bastion of absolute veracity either. Read more about I don't tell the truth!

"She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead"

From Paul Simon's Graceland.

Something about that lyric tugs at my heart. Read more about A Little Love

It's Thankful Week.

There's lots of talk going around these days about American Exceptionalism. I agree we are exceptional. So is everyone else. The tiny list below betrays my own limitations - I have no idea of what makes Azerbaijan exceptional - but I do know that American Exceptionalism is composed of bits and pieces of all of these and more:

Shakespeare=English exceptionalism
Brie=French exceptionalism
Curry=Indian exceptionalism
Bach=German exceptionalism
Tango=Argentinian exceptionalism
Vodka=Russian exceptionalism
Fireworks=Chinese exceptionalism Read more about Exceptional

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." That is the iconic opening sentence in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' . Read more about Diversity on Ice

Monday morning. My backyard is filling up with leaves. Behind me, a desk and table are piled high with stuff en route from the old backroom, now Caroline's bedroom, to the bookshelves in my bedroom, where I've piled all the books en route to new homes.

Somewhere in this machine is a nearly completed, but still unfinished - or is that nearly finished, but still incomplete? - novel.

My back - oh, we really will not go there. Read more about Getting On With It

... noooooooo. Not going there.

I am not a zombie fan. The first time I tried to watch Night of the Living Dead was on a Halloween night 20 umpteen years ago. My boyfriend was busy tending to something that could be characterized as "illegal" and I was trying my best to be seasonally festive. Alone. I couldn't watch the end. Read more about Night of the ...