My dentist Gary is one of my best friends, and I visited his office today. I joked with him, “Why do you have to make your living by tearing my mouth apart?” Actually, he’s great at his job, but that’s another story (email me if you’re looking for a great New York dentist). The point […]
Relationships, Family and Friendship
What makes me happiest doesn’t cost the planet
My little girl Isabella and I just spent the weekend at a gathering at the Providence Zen Center, the head temple of the Kwan Um School of Zen, where I meditate. There were five or six other kids there and from the moment we arrived Isabella ran around having fun and paying almost no attention […]
Individual action and the number of children we have
Somebody emailed me an article by Joanna Benn on the BBC’s website: “Baby Decisions–Adding the World’s Woes?” Click through to read the whole article if you want, but basically, Benn poses the two sides of the argument like this: When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I […]
My grandfather’s cuff links
My grandfather was a big wig, first, in the OSS and then, through the 50s and 60s, in the CIA. In fact, my last book, Operation Jedburgh, told the story of secret World War II operation that my grandfather helped oversee. Now, I am not uncritical of the actions of the CIA through those years […]
More on community versus consumption–smart growth
There is an ad I saw at the movies. A man wakes up, presses the snooze button, gets up late and arrives at a work meeting disheveled and disorganized. All his colleagues frown. Cut to the scene replayed. The alarm goes off. The man scoffs down a Pepsi. He jumps out of bed, puts on […]
Apropos, first, of nothing and, then, of something
Apropos of nothing: The other night I was lying in bed, being held hostage by my daughter Isabella who insisted she would only go to sleep if I stayed there with her. She was mad that I had made her go to bed at all. She said, “I don’t like you anymore, Daddy.” So we’re […]
Entertaining Isabella without TV
Sorry, if you’ve seen this one before, but if you haven’t, I think you’ll enjoy it… A reader named Chrissy wrote to me and asked how we entertain Isabella without TV or video games: We build towers from a set of wooden blocks and laugh our heads off when the towers fall down. Towards bedtime, we sit […]
Too bad about the fireflies
One of my most avid readers is, well, my mom. Since I’ve never quite been the best at staying in touch, she tells me that, because of the blog, she feels closer to me than she has in years (love you, mom). Needless to say, the post she liked the most was the one about entertaining my […]