Vouchers

Is it possible that the only reason anyone has ever listened to Betsy DeVos is that she is a billionaire? I can’t imagine and certainly don’t know of any solid reason to listen to her about education. Her qualifications as Secretary of Education are almost wholly a function of her political activity in giving money…




Amy Klobuchar

I don’t know if Senator Klobuchar should be President – yet – but I do believe that someone with her intellect and values should replace the demagogue that now holds the office. Joe Biden has the combination of experience, values and knowledge that would enable a productive and successful presidency, but his age is a…




Caring Bytes

Determinism is an ages old debate in philosophy involving deep elements of freewill and morality. Now Artificial Intelligence has raised the debate to a different, if not a new, level. While we struggle to understand the human mind and the brain-body functions of ourselves and our domestic and laboratory animals, what is being done with…




Water Revisited

Water is everywhere. It is not hard to understand why water is so taken for granted. That is until there is not enough water to sustain life. Then every drop is precious.




These Perilous Times

A strategy of doing is a planetary imperative because each human being is contributing to changes in earth’s physical and political ecology. Too much of what we are doing, individually and collectively, is not sustainable. We are part of a community and that is our ecology; the place where we interact with ever changing relationships….




Your New Year!

Years end and years begin. Eternity is always just around the corner. But the exciting element of existence is that there is always another corner with new expectations. I hope that 2019 will be better for you than all the rest. The future awaits and will emerge. May it meet all of your expectations. I…



Civic Responsibility

The following post  was first posted: Friday, September 19th, 2014 – Volume 10; Number 39 Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. Theodore Roosevelt Civic Responsibility “The Roosevelts” aired on PBS this past week providing fascinating insights about a family that looked past its great wealth and accepted civic responsibility…



Synthetic Biology

Genetic engineering has been with humanity for longer than anyone can imagine. What is now becoming increasingly clear is that engineering new life forms will require more than mere manipulation of what we think we know about genes and the proteins they make. Life is never simple at any level from molecules to ecosystems. A…



Thoughts for a Preface

June and July have seen an effort to complete a draft of a book on education. Hence no essays posted to this blog since May. The draft was put to bed on July 31. My intent for the month of August is to make an intense effort to revise the draft. The paragraphs below tell…



Paulo Freire

This morning I began reading a long known but neglected book about education. My beginnings have included the book’s introductions by scholars and contemporary friends of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian intellectual giant who died in 1997 after writing from experience or Praxis of teaching in South America and being both jailed and ostracized. Not many…