Zen Mind is described as a state of egolessness, devoid of self consciousness.   One can utilize this state of mind, Zen shows us, in archery, martial arts, and calligraphy.  Zen and the Art of Archery, by Eugene Herrigel, is the short classic story of a westerner’s attempt to achieve Zen Mind and become a skilled [...]

Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek,  and author of American Lion, Andrew Jackson in the White House, reviews Christianity, the First Three Thousand Years, by Diamond MacCulloch, in the New York Times Book Review, April 4, 2010.
Meacham tells us he is officially sympathetic to christianity.  ” I am an episcopalian who takes the faith of [...]

“Combat fog obscures your fate…and from that unknown is born a desperate bond between men”

In Sebastian Junger’s War, a book about a company of soldiers in the Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan, we experience war conceptually, and devoid of the cynicism of most war commentary.  Junger doesn’t speak to whether war is good or [...]

“The most incomprehensible aspect of the Universe is that it is comprehensible.” Albert Einstein.
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” Steven Weinberg.
Science seems to have the unspoken goal of finding explanations that have no arbitrary element.   Nothing can be a certain way, when it could as well be another [...]

On Deep History and the Brain, Daniel Lord Smail, 2008.
Does culture evolve  and if so, how?  This is a big question, for if culture evolves and we can change its course, then perhaps we can change our future.
Some see cultural history as showing a progression, a direction.  They see accumulation of knowledge as increasing in [...]

Legacy of Secrecy, The long shadow of the JFK assassination, Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann, 2009
Democracies are new to the world stage.  And the first, truly world wide power, the United States, is a democracy.  In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the United States had unprecedented world power and military dominance.  It could and did topple [...]

Karl Marx has convinced generations of western intellectuals that capitalism is evil.  He witnessed capitalism during its early and ugliest stage, in 19th century England, and made the case that capitalism was an unavoidably diabolical exploitation of the many by the few.   Ironically for Marx, alas, over the next 150 years capitalism lifted the material [...]