This speech, originally delivered to the graduating class of Southampton College on June 7, 1981, is excerpted from If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? The Graduation Speeches and Other Words to Live By, (Much) Expanded... Read More

On Sunday, April 3, 2016, the fourth annual Dr. Irving & Annabel Wolfson Lecture was held at the UU Church of Worcester in Worcester, Massachusetts. Funded by a gift from the estate of Irving Wolfson,... Read More

“Fundamental reform to expand and deepen our democracy, we know from America’s history, follows from one thing only: mass movements.”  —Robert Weissman, Public Citizen News, January/February 2016 SERIOUS VIEWING of the televised campaign to select... Read More

FOR AMERICANS, Mark Twain is something akin to gravity, a massive and foundational force whose magnificence has worn off through familiarity. We all read Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince and the Pauper in... Read More

ONLINE DATING is challenging, to say the least. I don’t know any online dater who hasn’t experienced at least a couple of awkward encounters, mixed signals, or creepy vibes before finding who they’re looking for... Read More

SCIENCE AND RELIGION have had a long, rich history of conflict, most famously with the case of Galileo, who was found guilty of heresy for discovering one of the basic truths of our solar system.... Read More

THE RISING TIDE OF NONRELIGIOUS people in the United States is accompanied by an intense focus on the “New Atheism,” which, rightly or wrongly, is critiqued as being not vocal enough or downright anti-progressive when... Read More