"Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a drop of electricity could light up a mouse...."

I am spending my holiday with my family and friends in the mountains of Idaho in our log cabin, and after a lovely Christmas Eve pizza party, when we arrived...

Warning: graphic images.

Made ya look, didn't I?

WTFIGO (is going on)?

I am shocked and saddened by the seemingly insurmountable amount of visual carnage that is being pushed as news. With the advent of the internet and 3G and 4G technology, images and streaming video of gruesome accidents,...

When I was on a double family RV trip to Big Sur this last Spring Break, when we arrived at our campground, a young man who was helping us set up the two large rigs dropped his campground manifesto on me, "There are two kinds of people. One who wakes...

Spoiler alert!

The "Queen Of Scream" is actually the "Queen of Squeam (ish)."

I woke up this morning to the cover of the Los Angeles Times and the moving image of the President of the United States saluting the returning war dead, their young bodies ripped...

So Rio was awarded the games. How wonderful. How appropriate and to use a modern parlance: "It's about, like, freakin time." Obama Snubbed!, so claimed this very website. Snubbed? Come on. He went, he pitched, they chose another city. Done. Good for him for trying, the hometown son fighting for...

At the end of the lovely Rob Reiner film The Bucket List, two human men -- flawed and contradictory, given knowledge that their oh-so-human lives are about to come to their mortal end -- find redemption and transformation. The song "Say" by John Mayer plays over the credits. The film...

Pain is part of the body's defense system, triggering a reflex reaction to retract from a painful stimulus, and helps adjust behavior to increase avoidance of that particular harmful situation in the future. So says Wikipedia. My favorite reference to Pain comes from The Princess Bride by William Goldman (I...

"Pay Attention" I was told, at 6am by our guide, Agung Rai as we walked through the rice fields of Ubud, Indonesia. In the excitement of travel and acclimating to a new place and reality you can always miss things. "Listen" he said... and the words of Joni Mitchell's Woodstock...

As I travel to Ohio on my first airplane trip during this flu crisis, I am immediately taken with the advertising possibilities. As a brilliant self-promoter, after all, I am the walking advertisement for good digestive health as the Activia Lady. I realize there is a mountain of money to...

This week was the first time I realized that the recession that we have all been getting used to has hit us all where we live -- in our stomachs. The cover image in the New York Times of Michelle Obama tilling the garden plot brought it all out. We...

Give me a f-ing break.

The cover of the New York Times has an article about the fact that President Obama's hair has started to turn gray! Are we really so deluded, see many of my past posts, that we are focusing even one inch of a column...

Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." The London Underground is not a Political Movement and Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Sorry John Cleese but I couldn't help myself...

The brilliant New Yorker cover with A-Rod signing autographs for...

Get mad as hell and decide not to take it anymore, check.

Feel like I can't make a difference, check.

Get assaulted (in the best sense of the word) on my neighborhood street by an Obama supporter/fundraiser/champion/and now friend and make a commitment to get involved, check.

Get a t-shirt...

"I believe in the nobility of work. Work allows us to help others and I believe that even the smallest act of kindness, even the most seemingly insignificant work done in the service of others brings us into alignment with our own deepest self and in some mysterious way with...

In It's a Wonderful Life, the classic holiday film, the hero, George Bailey, saved the small, family Savings and Loan that his father started from a run by nervous investors, convincing them to take out only what they needed, that if they stuck together, they could avert the failing of...

Like so many things, its original intent and its current interpretation are out of whack. Just like America. I went to hear Eugene Jarecki speak about his new book, The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men an a Republic in Peril and he explained the sea change that...

Thank you Barack Obama.

Thank you for four years ago making me say out-loud " Why can't he be our candidate?"

Thank you for blowing away the ether of complacency.

Thank you for beating that maver-"ICK" and his running date.

Thank you for being patient with this insane process we...

"Big bottom drives me out of my mind, how can I leave that behind..."

Ok, I admit I am re-interpreting Spinal Tap's song but desperate times calls for desperate measures.

The bottom, the abyss, dark, harrowing, uncertain, lonely. The good news, if there is any, is that...

The scariest thing I hear about the Palin nomination was that she would appeal to voters because they would be able to relate to her and she to them. I get that. There are many places where relatability is key. I am a recovering addict alcoholic and finding another group...