Reducing the Plaque, Circumventing the Quacks
"Untrained people who pretend to be a physician and dispense medical advice and treatment that doesn't work or is harmful have their counterparts in the realms of government and activism."…
"Untrained people who pretend to be a physician and dispense medical advice and treatment that doesn't work or is harmful have their counterparts in the realms of government and activism."…
"When will they finally see that it was never really worth it? When will this charade end?" -- Bre Payton The general public in each and every country on…
"Walt Disney never did justice to Chicken Little's hurdles." -- Richard Martin Oxman There's a NEW obstacle, a fresh difficulty you must face in your race to right the wrongs of society...…
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's in ability to sit quietly in a room alone." -- Blaise Pascal "I feel monotony and death to be almost the same."…
"Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches I'll recruit my army from the orphanages" -- from Bob Dylan's Thunder on the Mountain "All trustworthy souls are orphans."…
People are crazy and times are strange I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range I used to care, but things have changed -- from Bob Dylan's Things Have Changed The year…
"...truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long...." -- Act II, Scene ii, The Merchant of Venice Police chases are a top cause of auto accidents, but at…
Recently, an article of mine was posted which received a record number of responses (for my pieces). I'm using that work as a point of departure here for providing…
A week after the U.S. 9/11 I was in France conducting an art workshop for painters from various parts of the globe, and I was thinking about the Chilean…
"At present, virtually all schools are preparing students for a future which will be unrecognizable, not acknowledging the social or environmental 'deadlines' that will dominate their lives." -- One of…
"You can indulge your righteous rage, but the things it comes out of are pretty cheap. The trick is to make yourself an instrument of your own policy. Whether…
"At night, I dream of radiated bulls and peacocks and swans." -- Flannery O'Connor wrestling not only with mortal illness but with the possible extinction of the human race,…
"No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize. Revenge should have no bounds." -- Shakespeare compounding ignorance with ignorance in Act 4, Scene 7 of Hamlet Mildred, the middle-aged mother at…
"We should be clear about what it costs to bare one's soul and make an authentic difference." -- one of the author's home schooled youngsters I'll be relocating to…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTg6rZJCu4 "Be proud you're an Indian, but be careful who you tell." -- from the documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page really got rocked the first time he…
“It became apparent to me that a people would never abandon their means of livelihood, good or bad, capitalistic or otherwise until other methods were developed which would promise…
It doesn't matter whatsoever whether or not Einstein actually ever made that remark about how man would only have four years left if bees went south on the planet.…
"A major challenge for activists is to acknowledge that they need to develop a sense of language, a feeling for words. One needs to become acquainted with their shape,…
What to do? What's necessary? Not a vow of poverty, but close to it. Not a vow of abstention from gratuitous violence in entertainment, but close to it. Not a…
"Nowhere is a place in its own right: everywhere is a resource waiting to be exploited. No one is a person in their own right; everyone is a worker, consumer…
"Why aren't they screaming?" -- from Philip Larkin's The Old Fools Belleville gets a bad name from people who've never been there or who feel threatened by diversity. Immigrants and…
"In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote, 'I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though…
"The Declaration of Independence said governments are not sacred things. The laws are not sacred things. Governments are set up by people to defend rights, life, liberty and the…
Of the issues which are totally ignored, for all practical purposes, there's one that we can spotlight here which -- if not addressed post haste -- stands to take us…
"The horror in Syria is terrible, but much worse has been going on in the Congo -- greater numbers sacrificed -- for a much longer period of time... with…
"The glorification of one race and the consequent debasement of another -- or others -- always has been and always will be a recipe for murder." -- James Baldwin Religion…
Dedicated to my memory of Thich Quang Duc It's relatively easy to get all fired up about the blatant abominations of a given administration. It's quite another thing for concerned…
In the realm of songbirds one never finds any creatures attempting to force others to embrace their singular song. Humans do exactly that with their wars abroad. And with their…
"Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches I'll recruit my army from the orphanages...." -- from Bob Dylan's Thunder on the Mountain In Madness and Civilization Michel Foucault makes…
In the opening of her 1953 short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", the deplorable tramp Tom T. Shiftlet cannot keep his eyes off of "the square…
And so the two of us highly recommend what Arundhati Roy -- author of that 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel, The God of Small Things -- suggests is…
Written by Rachel Olivia O'Connor (drawing upon C.S. Lewis) When concerned citizens mobilize, most often they assemble on the basis of morality. Yes, the issue of survival frequently comes to…
I recently applied for a position of Youth Counselor for traumatized youngsters living at a Residential Treatment Center in Sonoma County, California. I submitted a resume which I can't but…
At the time of Jesus' birth, the earth's entire population was just 300 million, smaller than the U.S. by itself today. About 45 million of those people, including Jesus himself, lived in…
"President Obama had tears in his eyes in January, 2016, calling for relief from record breaking shootings and killings in the U.S. Yet 2016 became a record breaking year…
There's an illusion of choice in the U.S., when it comes to securing information about current events. Specifically, there are approximately 1,500 newspapers, 1,100 magazines, 9000 radio stations, 1,500 TV…
"Unless we address overpopulation and development anew, neither gorillas nor giraffes will be able to co-exist with humans. And life will not be worth living for human beings." --…
Co-Written by Rachel Olivia O'Connor and Richard Martin Oxman "Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed." -- Pascal One year before meeting with…
Co-Written by Rachel Olivia O'Connor and Richard Martin Oxman We won't state the obvious points about what was accomplished, or anything concerning who should be praised. Rather, below, I give…
At the very end of an interview on RT News focused on the two thousand military vets who are slated to act as human shields for the protesters at Standing Rock this…
"Direct action is necessary for democracy to work, bold moves walking a fine edge, going over the line at times. But talk about 'revolution' in the U.S. is premature, to…
That's my first entry here in my list of a baker's dozen. The other "sides" to my personal joy are listed below (in no special order). Keep in mind, if…
"It is the weight, not numbers of experience that is to be regarded." -- Isaac Newton In the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson derived the right to…
IN ACTIVISM -- acting out as a concerned citizen seeking movement in solidarity (to make this a better world, to encourage a sense of family among all the creatures on…
"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas.... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon…
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