George and Ira Gershwin, in 1937, wrote a song called “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” about a couple with irreconcilable differences, driving them apart. Like so many marriages going off the rails or on the rocks, the differences seem minor, but no one is …

“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a …

   Every day now I roll out of bed and go right to the high-performance morality gym. I have to. The multiple existential threats we face require moral dexterity, and as a Boomer I’ve gotten flabby. At the gym I train my mind, heart, body …

Is it too weird to say that, as bad as the first half of 2020 has been, it’s been a relief? A tiny virus has achieved what decades of activism could not: stop us in our self-destructive tracks. She essentially sent us to our rooms …

   Think of it. I was born a mere 80 years after the end of the Civil War. My great grandmother, who I knew, was alive then. She took my great grandfather out to the territories to treat his tuberculosis. I used to think with …

   You are in for a rare treat. In partnership with the Post Carbon Institute I’ve recorded a dozen interviews with cultural scouts on one question for this time of social, environmental, economic upheaval: What could possibly go right? I posted the introduction below on …

 Western civilization seems to be thrashing about like a feverish patient. Will it recover from civilizational decline, or is this the end of the road? Even with the best interventions by the money doctors, it might not return to its old self, patched up and …

  It wasn’t the kind of romantic love that will cause a baby boom in early 2021. Nor was it the cranky love of too much time with your mate of 30 years. It was accidental-quarantine-housemate love, and I’ll bet there will be many stories …