The first poem of Sharon Olds’s I ever read came from my brother Tim. It was a pretty blow-you-away, killer kind of poem called “I Go Back to May 1937.” You can read it here. It’s one of the great and damning poems read during Sean Penn’s movie Into the Wild. Of course I acquired […]
The Power of Now, Part 2
I keep arguing with this book as I’m reading it, but Tolle makes some good points. Things to think about. I agree that we only have the now, the present moment. If you believe in God and eternity, you have that, too, but you can’t live that part of your life now. You can only […]
Sad Puppy & The Power of Now
So, Liliana and I are flipping through magazines that I haven’t read yet, and she comes upon an old Marie Claire that’s left over from traveling to the Ukraine. All of a sudden, she’s by my side, her head bent over the glossy page, her face inches from it, and she’s pointing to the picture […]
The Samaritan’s Dilemma, Part 3
Is giving ingrained in us? Do we have to do it? Just because we know it’s right? A couple of stories from The Samaritan’s Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor. Here, the author Deborah Stone, quotes the “Metropolitan Diary” of the New York Times: “Ned Helfand was walking past Madison Square Garden recently when a […]
The Samaritan’s Dilemma, Part 2
Is there such a thing as altruism? True altruism? I’m a little farther along in The Samaritan’s Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor? by Deborah Stone. The chapter I’m reading now is about altruism–does it really exist? Thomas Hobbes (1651) felt that every act of kindness is really just a form of caring for one’s […]