I make it a rule not to write reviews of books I haven’t read. I also do my best to avoid pontificating about them. But I’m also a Quaker, who follows this rule about rules by the Elders of Balby, which they appended to a long list of rules for Quakers in 1656: Dearly beloved … Continue reading Bush & His Book: Some Truths In Review
Chris Hedges has been there. A war correspondent for many years, he carries a burden of closely-observed horror for which the term PTSD pales. You can see it in the hollows around his eyes. Chris Hedges has also been through hell with religion. He’s not “religious” now in any conventional sense. Yet he’s not “anti-religious” … Continue reading Dog Days Weekend Read: Hear The War Prophet: Chris Hedges
“Sedition Watch.” This feature brings up “dots” of data that come onto my radar screen, which I’m working to connect. The implications of the potential connections are unsettling, and I hope the authorities are watching. The elements here are straightforward: there are a lot of upset people, mostly guys, with guns out there, and with … Continue reading Sedition Watch: Signs of the Times
Originally posted in July, 2009 In the current health-care melee, we hear much alarmist talk and Canada-bashing, aimed at their single-payer health system. A few days back, I had an unexpected chance to observe the Canadian system up close. What I saw was very instructive. Here’s what happened: on the last evening of a Toronto … Continue reading Dog Days Flashback: Enlightenment In A Canadian Emergency Room
The 1989 Friends Ministers Conference was the fourth in a series that were held every five years. The event had started out as the Friends Pastors Conference, but this was changed for the 1984 gathering in a bow to traditional Quaker nomenclature, and to accommodate the sensibilities of the handful of attenders who came from … Continue reading Fleecing The Faithful – Prelude: Down the Garden Path & Opening Pandora’s Box