The Beginning of the End, or?

Or is it the end of the beginning? Maybe it’s just the end of the first phase of our Covid-19 pandemic: the scramble to identify the virus’ strong and weak points, to develop vaccines, to realize it’s a global problem, to stumble as we learn a thing or two about delivery and care, to disentangle…

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Pieces of New

Below is a draft of  the beginning of a book I’m working on. What’s it about? That’s part of the problem–it’s about too much: traveling, COVID-19, getting old, seeing too many contradictions between happy travels and refugee travels, between our green living world and the firestorms of the future.  But here’s the start. Tell me…

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Been Traveling

Been traveling. South America is pretty much a mystery to me. We’ve traveled very little here, don’t speak Spanish, and are woefully ignorant about its land or its people. Although we have been to Machu Picchu and the surrounding Sacred Valley—all amazing, but another story—that’s just a tiny slice of our southern neighbors’ continent. Peter…

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Parochial: “limited or narrow outlook”

One of the interesting aspects of traveling outside the US is to look at our country from a distance, through others’ eyes. Here is a thought-provoking example from London written by Terry Eagleton in his review of two books, The Madness of Crowds and The Problem of Everything.  “Because the US is a deeply parochial society, not much…

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