Details about Michael Jackson's passing are still fuzzy, but already people are drawing conclusions about the superstar's premature demise. One media thread has him using prescription medications in what may have been a troubling way http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-prescript_n_221178.html, railing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/a-tribute-to-my-friend-mi_b_221268.html against the so-called "enablers" who made sure he had access to them.

Imagine your last few moments on this mortal coil. Say, for the sake of discussion, that you step off the curb and are hit by a bus. As you lie on the street with your life seeping out, you hear people screaming and you see them pointing and you watch...

This morning I was awakened from a sound sleep by a rhythmic sound that might have been a neighbor sawing wood or someone trying desperately to start a car with an empty gas tank off in the distance. I followed the sound to the rear of the house and opened...

The Hollywood press and celebrity trackers everywhere are having a high time with the sad story of the late actor David Carradine's kung fu noir demise. There's speculation about suicide, what an ex-wife terms his "dark side," eccentric sexual practices, even murder. The family is reportedly suing a Thai tabloid...

Welcome to the last online installment of my new novel, Quiet Teacher. My next post will mark a return to health and wisdom topics.

If you've missed the first three installments, they are archived on my blog and only a click away. In reading this serialization, you are participating in...

Welcome to the third installment of my new novel, Quiet Teacher.

If you've missed the first two installments, they are archived on my blog and only a click away. In reading this serialization you are participating in an age-old yet brand new experiment. Writers as luminous as Charles Dickens...

Welcome back to the Next Big Thing!

This is the second installment in my serialization of my new novel, Quiet Teacher. It's the second book in a series about the lives, loves, and action adventures of Dr. Xenon Pearl, a South Florida neurosurgeon who saves lives in the operating room...

Welcome to The Next Big Thing!

My dog died this morning. He was a small, black, mixed-breed, part Chihuahua, perhaps part miniature pinscher. I adopted him five years ago after someone dropped him off at a pet shop in South Miami Beach. The owners gave him to their parents, who are my friends, and I fell...

Fifteen years ago I spent a good chunk of time writing a novel I've yet to publish. The title is Truckstop Earth, the subject is alien visitation, and the premise is that not only are we being visited, but we're being visited a lot. During the course of researching the...

I am such a passionate advocate of the benefits and beauty of tai chi practice, and so insistent on the ancient art's relevance to modern American culture, that people are often surprised to find that I emphasize the role of traditional weapons in the practice.

"You're a peaceful guy...

On April 6, the Miami Herald printed a piece revealing that South Florida, Broward County in particular, has become the painkiller capital of the United States, a "notorious home to a cottage industry of storefront pain clinics selling alarming numbers of narcotics and feeding a brazen black market...

In ground-breaking research earlier this century, Nobel laureate Dr. Wilder Penfield, attempted to "map" the connections between specific parts of the body and particular areas of the brain. He wanted to see, for example, where the "wires" from the hand led to, and where the connections to the feet ended...

A report in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology chronicles the adventures of a Santino, a chimp at Sweden's Furuvik Zoo. Apparently the 30-year-old chimp began evidencing some aggressive behavior eleven years ago when he was 19--about the time chimps, in their maturity, seek to establish dominance....

A couple of weeks ago, just before I took some vacation time, I was chatting with a student about my trip. He asked if I would send him some photos of flowing lava from the active Hawaiian volcano I planned to visit. I told him I would do so when...

I rang Lao Tze this morning to ask his help sorting through the befuddlement I'm suffering at the hands of the media and its endless stream of bad economic news. I told him I was confused about current events, didn't understand what was happening to the economy, and was half...

Folks have been asking lately why they continue to catch cold or come down with a flu now and then even when they're really doing their best to live properly. They watch their diet, get plenty of sleep and exercise regularly, monitor their stress levels, try not to worry too...

There's a lot of talk about China lately, but where in the recent past the subtopic might have been human rights, the Beijing Olympics, the high performance of Chinese students or the potential military threat of a strengthening nation, the East/West balance sheet seems to be the focus of the...

CNN recently ran a story about the devastating wildfires raging across southern Australia, a natural disaster that may have involved climate change, normal weather patterns, and even arson. 200 people have died so far and the loss of homes and property is stunning. The story included an interview with a...

Some women claim their ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously is confirmation of the obvious superiority of the female mind; some men respond that multi-tasking is simply a term for doing a bunch of things badly. Parents lament that computer games and Internet surfing is costing their kids their intelligence;...