The Narthex

4:00 PM, Wednesday, April 13, 2011, near Raton, NM  We’re approaching 9,000 feet as we climb to Raton. These are the first pine trees we have seen on this trip. I’m beginning to feel some shortness of breath climbing the steep stairs from the rest rooms. It’s an uncomfortable feeling,…

Portions of the U.S. have become like the “wild west,” and in many ways even worse than that. A CNN headline from earlier this year reads, “More US school-age children die from guns than on-duty US police or global military fatalities, study finds.” This blog post is not about being…

Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 11:10 AM, Albuquerque, NM As I deboard the train for exercise during our stopover, I notice an old man having great difficulty stepping down the coach stairs. There he stands wobbly on the platform, mustering the energy to walk hesitantly with a cane, struggling to pull…

A few days ago the Democratic National Committee announced that Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) will be the venue for the sixth Democratic candidates’ debate. Get ready, it’s set for Dec. 19. Before I say more, it’s time for full disclosure: I practiced my trade, philosophy, at LMU for 40…

In the 1960s I made a penniless pilgrimage cross country from Boston to California. In 2011 I went in the other direction, this time aboard an Amtrak train. Join me as my train leaves southern California into northern Arizona. I have selected a few poignant episodes to illustrate what occurred…

Societies in wealthier nations for several decades have been discussing the replacement of workers by robots and machines. It now seems quaint to recall, from perhaps 15 years ago, the shock expressed at those grocery chains who first adopted use of "self-checkouts." My local supermarket has recently installed another cluster…

On my evening walk, I spied a silver-bearded fellow sitting up like a marmot-in-surveillance between the wall and bushes of the Senior Center. I gave him a brief sidelong glance. His steady glare seemed threatening, but I could have imagined that, for it was hard to judge from a distance.…

The Pew Research Center has recently issued new data on the decline of Christianity in the U.S., a decline they say "continues at a rapid pace." Below is a link to the Pew survey results. A few highlights: - 65% of American adults now describe themselves as Christians, while those…

Are we made for fun or folly? I’d vote for fun over folly, and it would be folly to so sharply limit our options. Why not allow for both? Let me begin with fun. Penning a clerihew is fun. What’s a clerihew, you ask? Its inventor, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a…

Decades ago, to avoid social isolation, I took up ballroom dancing and within a month met an attractive woman who was my age. She could dance well and had a compatible personality, so we hit it off. We entered dance contests and won prizes. We dined out every week and…

I met Bill, a 92-year-old retired Hewlett Packard technician, while he was standing outside a packed pool room waiting his turn at a senior-center billiards tournament. He was wearing a Starved Rock, Illinois T-shirt. Such an unusual name got the better of me, so I asked. “It’s a national park,…

We’ve some sorting and distinguishing to do when it comes to the debate about nations and nationalism. If we shy away from the job, we’ll find ourselves dealing with nonsense and, to borrow from Bentham, nonsense on stilts. A first distinction is between nation and state. For over a hundred…

A Convention of the Right met in Paris a few weekends ago. In France as in much of the EU, conservative and traditional beliefs are called extreme by the media. So, you can bet journalists assigned to the convention had their ears out for trouble -- and did they get…

Late on a Sunday morning I walked into the nursing home to visit Della. I peeked into her double-occupancy room. Her bed was closest to the hall door, and she lay there with her eyes closed. But she somehow knew when to open them and look at me. Though her…

Global arms sales are booming, despite a multilateral Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) officially adopted in 2013. As of last month, 105 countries have ratified the ATT, including half the world’s top ten arms producers. The U.S. signed the treaty in 2013 but never ratified it. Critics of the treaty see…