Sadly, there are fairly few people left who understand what the Hippies were really about. Mostly people remember the Hollywood version: pot-smoking, political protesting and clumsy dancing. The actual Hippies, especially the early Hippies, were a much different group. They were interesting and brave people: people very much worth remembering. Continue reading “The Wisdom Of The Hippies”
The Truth We Can’t Accept
There is a simple fact that people are unable to ingest. You can explain it carefully, with charts, graphs and solid documentation… and they may even like the sound of it… but after the explanation, it fades away and is forgotten.
The problem is simply that this truth is too foreign. It just doesn’t fit within our mental universe. Most of us don’t directly fight against it, but even so, we aren’t able to integrate it. Continue reading “The Truth We Can’t Accept”
6,000 Years On The Wheel
We can call this one an experiment..The West’s New Faith
Christianity, as people in their 60s and 70s have observed, was pushed off the public stages of the West over the past two generations. At this point, whoever speaks well of it in such places must be prepared to absorb blows.
Nonetheless, nature abhors a vacuum and just about everyone, including the most strident atheist, requires something to believe in. And so the exit of Christianity drew in new faiths, and one in particular, to replace it. Continue reading “The West’s New Faith”
Demolishing The Warren Report
One of my entertainments, from time to time, has been the Kennedy assassination… John Kennedy’s, that is. I’m not particularly a fan of mysteries, but once in a while one of them intrigues me.
What I’m going to show you today are two images from a CBS News Special Report from 1967, filmed and broadcast because so many people had failed to believe the Warren Report. I’m quite sure they didn’t realize they were making their esteemed report ridiculous, but they did just the same. Continue reading “Demolishing The Warren Report”
What Julian Assange Was Really Doing
Julian Assange is now free and recovering from his long, malicious ordeal. We wish him and his family all the very best. He is a hero, and paid a high price for it.
A lot of people know the what about Julian and WikiLeaks – that they published secret information – but they don’t know the why. And that’s unfortunate, because the thinking behind all the leaks is both brilliant and illuminating. Continue reading “What Julian Assange Was Really Doing”
Why “Love One Another” Is Easy To Say But Hard To Do
“Love one another.” You hear it all the time. But while it’s nice that it’s said, people don’t do it terribly well. It’s a hard thing for them to hold in mind. They can get serious about it from time to time (and again, a good thing), but doing it consistently eludes most everyone.
I think this deserves a moment of our time… if for nothing else than to work through some hypocrisy. Continue reading “Why “Love One Another” Is Easy To Say But Hard To Do”
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Recently a friend sent me a snippet of a conversation he saw in an online community. It read, Public school attendance is indoctrination in obedience. That’s a stark statement, but what struck me was not its bluntness, but that it has become common.
Not many decades ago, people dared not say such things, even if they thought them. Now there are probably millions of people who feel free to say this.
The times, they are a-changin’. Continue reading “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
Why Kindness Doesn’t Change The World
Everything we do changes the world, of course, and I remain a strong advocate for kindness. Nonetheless, we need to face the fact that the children’s book version of “be kind and change the world” hasn’t worked. Wars and crime proceed as they have since the Bronze Age, and long years of promoting “be kind” hasn’t changed that a bit.
And so we need to find out why kindness hasn’t worked beyond the personal and family level. If we don’t, our efforts to cultivate it will be empty dogmas that have no effect in the real world: Our preaching on kindness won’t go much farther than making children behave. Continue reading “Why Kindness Doesn’t Change The World”
The Wisdom of Bruce Lee
People remember Bruce Lee as a fighter or as a movie star. But as it happens, he was also a thoughtful man. Bruce had his gaps and flaws, of course, but he also left behind a lot of useful thoughts. And since so few people know about these ideas, I’ll cover them here. (I never knew Bruce, who died while I was a teenager, but a friend of mine did, and a friend of another friend knew him very well.) Continue reading “The Wisdom of Bruce Lee”