In September, 2007, my classes began in Santa Barbara. I was determined to succeed. I feared that driving the regular 45 minute+ commute each way would prove to be a terrible waste of study time. When I had expressed this concern to Peter and Lalo in Mallorca they immediately offered…

Cheap airfare led me south, into the Pacific islands for Easter break of 2006: French Polynesia beckoned. In Moorea I luxuriated in two of the most enchanting hotels I’ve ever stayed at in my life. The first (Linareva Beach Resort), had bungalows on the west coast of Moorea which rested…

The summer of 2004 provided me and a group of my students an opportunity to circle through a whole new region of Europe: Scandinavia and the Baltics. We’d begun with a pre-packaged tour for a few weeks, then taken off on our own for a month or so, each student…

Once Upon a Time, in a far away kingdom called Troy, there lived a king and queen who ruled wisely and graciously over their people and lands. The king and queen (Priam and Hecuba) were blessed with many children, who they sought to teach to be wise rulers themselves, should…

My first month attending the boarding school on the prairie, I found myself the subject of a kind of commonplace boys’ school bullying. One night, during our forty-five minute break before lights’ out, I heard a knock on my door and when I answered it, received a massive dose of…

…Freedom is the truth of necessity. Hegel, The Science of Logic, § 1286 (1816)[1] How does one go about making the world a better place? 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) came up with one proposed solution. He adopted an aesthetic of philosophical pessimism, which scorns all life and…

(The Climate is Always Changing!) Over the past decade, “It’s Natural” has become the preferred approach of most Denialists as the evidence of a changing climate has grown impossible to ignore. The “It’s Natural” argument can work in conjunction with the paranoia-based “Hoax!” promoters since the latter can claim that…

Featuring: Pointy-headed engineers who can’t see the BIG picture Like NPR’s coverage, the WSJ articles remain blissfully out of touch with the complex and wide-ranging effects of global climate destabilization. In their economic and technological myopia, both are akin to the Geoengineers who eagerly focus narrowly on one thread of…

Featuring: The Wall Street Journal The “This is Fine” approach to the climate crisis tends to appeal to those who wish to appear rational, moderate, and impartial in their judgment. The “Hoax!” approach suits those with deeply paranoid political streaks. The “Insignificant/Beneficial” view of rapid anthropogenic global heating tends to…

My two sisters and I decided we wanted to see the beginning of the new millennium arrive while we were sipping cocktails on a remote island, in the middle of the Pacific, this side of the International Date Line. Thus we could be among the last in the southern hemisphere…

Here, in Ventura, Condors were not the only critical environmental concern that Dad was involved in. When I was three years old, the Union Oil corporation got a special dispensation from the federal government to ignore building safety permits on a new oil well which was being drilled between the…

Dad was born in 1930, in Elkhart, Indiana to solidly Republican parents. His father, the son of German immigrants, earned a living as a local goods merchant. His mother, a somewhat imperious woman who used her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution to cover up the grunge in…

Featuring: Weatherman John Coleman “Give me clean, beautiful and healthy air — not the same old climate change (global warming) bullshit! I am tired of hearing this nonsense.” Businessman Donald Trump, January 29, 2014 (via Twitter)[1] While Crichton dreamed up ‘fictional’ climate change hoaxes in his own bestseller conspiracy theories…

Featuring: Novelist Michael Crichton “NBC News just called it the great freeze — coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?” Businessman Donald Trump, January 25, 2014 (via Twitter) More potent in terms of injecting Denialism into American brains, was the work of…

Featuring: Editor John Nolte of Breitbart “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Businessman Donald Trump, November 6, 2012 (via Twitter) Although evidence now presented even in the corporate media of the devastating effects of global climate destabilization…

For many teachers, teaching is a passion. Many teachers feel a calling, a moral imperative to try to serve their students and encourage them to become the best people they can be. But with the damage done to the entire system of public education personally and nationally in the past…

I had taken the boat from Vatopedi along the coastline of the Greek monastic peninsula of Athos to Esphigmenou. …

In Hebrew scriptures, one of the most ancient and unusual books is that of Job. He is not a prophet, per se. He is just a man who has lost his worldly wealth, his family, his health, and even many of his friends. Job holds God accountable. His losses are…

“Liberal” Media Climate denialism at National Public Radio The heft given to the purportedly “liberal” WaPo and NYT is generated by their corporate sponsors and corporate promoters. Even ostensibly non-corporate American news sources such as National Public Radio (NPR) wind up taking their cues from the neo-liberal ideologues. [1] Take…

“Liberal” Media Denialism — Featuring the Washington Post Two decades later, in the NYT’s rival paper, WaPo, we see the fruits of the seeds of climate Denial planted back in the late 1980s by the “Paper of Record”. The Washington Post in February, 2009: “Dark Green Doomsayers” by George F…