An interesting question, I think. I’m inclined toward yes, if not in a legal sense. And fascinated at the responses from my friends and others… And a tip of the Hatlo hat to Rod for the pointer… Read more

Christopher Isherwood was born on this day in 1904. A novelist, perhaps best know for the film adaptation of his Berlin Stories which would be the basis for the film Cabaret. He would also become an icon of the new Gay Rights movement. He was most important to me as a spiritual writer. A friend of his, the mystic Gearld Heard, introduced him to Vedanta and specifically to the swami in charge of the Vedanta Socity in Southern California, Swami... Read more

Neil Armstrong, as Wikipedia describes him, an “American NASA astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon,” died today at the age of eighty-two. What a life… Good night, Rocket man… Read more

ON this day in 1835 the first of a series of six stories appeared in the New York Sun purporting to detail the discovery of life on the moon by the renowned astronomer Sir John Herschel. Who, I hasten to add, was an innocent victim of the hoax, as well. They just used his name as it was perhaps the most prominent in the field in that day. The astronomer appears to have been amused, at least until he realized... Read more

I was absolutely delighted to learn the scientists & engineers who put Mars Curiosity down, named that stretch of Martian dirt for Ray Bradbury. I think he would have appreciated it. I know I do… Bradbury dreamed something, a human dream. An ancient dream. God, I love NASA and the human dream that drives us toward the planets and the stars… Happy birthday, Ray! Read more

Ray Bradbury was born on this day in 1920. One of my literary heroes, and a serious influence on my young life. I’m not exactly sure why, but I love that the Wikipedia article on him claims he was a descendant along with Ralph Waldo Emerson of Mary Bradbury, who was tried and convicted as a witch, but who through means historians dispute, somehow escaped hanging. An obit recorded two quotes his views on God and love. According to the... Read more

On Facebook one of my friends noted what was the number one hit song when she was born. One of those easy things to reference thanks to the world wide web (and you thought it was just for porn…) Some people put a lot of store in their sun sign. Me, I think we can find much more by looking at the hit music on our birthday. It is astonishing what it can reveal about the human soul, and perhaps... Read more

on this day in 1858, as Wikipedia succinctly puts it, “Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s same theory.” Read more

I see that Davy Crocket was born on this day in 1786. A hero of my childhood in the 1950’s, a generation that actually wore those coonskin hats sold in support of a popular television series. Fortunately no photographic evidence of this survives. In my case. Found tons of embarrassing pictures from my generation on the web… Of course the real person was vastly more complicated, darker and more interesting than the figure portrayed by Fess Parker, who I admit... Read more

Jiufeng Does Not Approve: A Brief Meditation James Ishmael Ford Jiufeng Daoqian served Shishuang Qingzhu as his attendant. When the master died, the assembly elected the head monk as the new abbot. Jiufeng was unsure of the new master’s realization. He declared “I will test him, and if he understands what our late master understood, then I will continue as his attendant.” The two men met. Jiufeng said, “our late teacher said, ‘You should extinguish all delusive thoughts. You should... Read more