The Way It Looked Fifty Years Ago
“The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us, who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction — all of…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
The Good Old Days before Trump (Peas in a Pod)
In November 2010 Ralph Nader wrote an imaginary letter penned by former president George W. Bush to his successor President Barack Obama. Here’s an excerpt… The Leftists are always trying to have your policies…
Oath of Disloyalty by Irwin Keller
Today I received the following in an email from Rabbi Lerner. I am a disloyal Jew. I am not loyal to a political party. Nor will I be loyal to dictators and mad kings. I…
Thinking for Oneself (and Then There’s the “More Sophisticated”)
The audience I try to reach, and to some limited extent do reach, is a different one: partly, activists of a less doctrinaire sort than the mainstream liberal intelligentsia and sectarian Marxists, partly the kind…
It Can Be So Appealing
Or let me tell you another story I heard about twenty years ago from a black civil rights activist who came up to study at Harvard Law School-it kind of illustrates some of the other…
Keep It Simple
If you are mindful, you can choose with wisdom how to respond. If you are not mindful, your life is run by reactivity. It’s up to you. –Munindra, teacher of Jospeh Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, &…
The Buddha Is Hanging with the Groundlings at the Globe Theatre
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At…
Recent Classes
Bob Dylan Approximately [Summer 2019] The Essential Edward Said [Summer 2019] An Introduction to Simone Weil: Concentration Is Consecration [Spring 2019] Ram Dass and Be Here Now: American Sadhana and the Search for the Real…
Reading Roth on Writing and Reading
George Searles, editor, Conversations with Philip Roth Literary Conversation Series University Press of Mississippi 1992 I settled in this morning with a collection of interviews with Philip Roth, from the bright beginning of his career…
“Surely, Thich Nhat Hanh Doesn’t Think that the Diamond Sutra Applies to Trump, ICE, and the Republicans!”
The Buddha said to Subhuti, “In a place where there is something that can be distinguished by signs, in that place there is deception. If you can see the signless nature of signs, then you…