I tend to cringe when strangers ask me where I’m from. In that split-second, my tongue turns into a spring mattress in bad need of oiling, creaking with strain as I get ready to answer.... Read More

No one wants to admit that they were bullied. It’s bad enough to be privately humiliated by the aggressions of someone else. To then talk about it, to release it from its cage, rarely serves... Read More

Reflecting on recent developments within the humanist movement while chatting with a friend, I was reminded of a single, short snippet among my fifty-plus years of existence on this planet that had a profound impact... Read More

Until I was nine, the church we attended was forty-five minutes away; we went twice every Sunday, so altogether that was three hours spent in a car. Those trips are vivid in my mind: passing... Read More

CHARLES DARWIN'S EVOLUTION, Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, and Albert Einstein’s relativity have all become fundamental concepts in modern science, but if you ask the person on the street to explain any of them (especially the latter)... Read More

THE SOFTCOVER BOOK, given to me at age thirteen, was called Ten Rungs by Martin Buber. The philosophical sayings were different from the philosophy books my dad used to read to me many evenings, yet... Read More

Our last combat mission was my worst experience of the war, but it taught me the most. We landed on the X, which basically means right on top of them. There were two objectives, so... Read More