Essays by Larry Barnett
Should it be Joe & Amy 2020 or Joe and Gretchen? Biden-Warren is uncomfortable on the tongue, too hard to say and both names end with the same sound. Without doubt, the significant decision the democrats will have to make this year is how things look and sound on a lawn sign.
Lawn signs are natural for… Read the rest
The ideal of a stable society has preoccupied humankind for a long time, perhaps forever. In order to promulgate social stability, diverse methods have been attempted by various systems of governance and leadership ranging from autocratic to democratic, communal to sovereign, hard-fisted to liberal.… Read the rest
Just to make myself clear, this is a story about a story, one of 7.25 billion stories we human beings tell ourselves and each other at every waking moment. With that caveat, I shall proceed.
At pandemic moments like this it’s important to remind ourselves about stories; it’s all too easy … Read the rest
It’s deeply ironic that Joe Biden, who as Senator deflected and dismissed Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment by then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, now finds himself and his campaign for president distracted,… Read the rest
The coronavirus has reportedly killed over 60,000 people in America as of April 30th – probably far more – a large number but still a small percentage of our total population. It’s effects on life, on the other hand, have affected all 325 million of us. Jobs have been lost, family life… Read the rest
Most analyses of economic collapse focus on the effects of wealth inequality, financial malfeasance, and inadequate government regulation. Centuries of such analyses – by Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Polanyi, Friedman, Krugman, Graeber, Picketty and many more – have extensively examined… Read the rest
Communication between people is a mix of words, gestures, facial expressions and tonality; in many circumstances, how we communicate is what we communicate; it’s a matter of nuance. Words delivered with a sneer are received differently than those delivered with a smile. By observing the nuances… Read the rest
I’m currently sporting a hair style I call the Covid; in other periods it’s been called the Einstein, a wild style ill-suited to going out of the house.
Over my 72 years, I’ve had all sorts of hair styles. In my childhood, a crew-cut was forced upon me by my father, a man with little in … Read the rest
You’ve got to hand it to Madison Avenue; in response to the coronavirus pandemic American corporations have barely missed a beat in altering their commercial sales pitch, reassuring consumers that this unpleasant shopping hiatus will not last forever and that a return to fevered consumption… Read the rest
Living things occupy space and declare territory; this is true of plants and animals alike. To the extent possible, a matter of both genes and luck, each living thing extends its sphere of influence. In simple one-celled… Read the rest
We humans like to believe we represent the pinnacle of evolution, even going so far as to characterize ourselves as being in the image of God. It is true, insofar as we can tell, that human beings are the only animals on earth with self-consciousness and the ability to use written forms of communication… Read the rest
Among the many effects of the Corona virus pandemic, one of the most remarkable is the widespread use of facial masks. Initially such masks were medical in style, the antiseptic-type nurses and health workers wear in hospitals; but before long a cottage industry of mask-making blossomed across America… Read the rest
Humor during a pandemic can be touchy; people are justifiably worried and lives have been turned upside down. Accordingly, a plan to place a set of April Fools’ advertisements I created for the Sonoma Valley Sun got scrapped in favor of other, more serious, content. But here we are on April Fools’… Read the rest
I first met Jacques Lehmann and Katou Fournier when they walked into my booth at the New York Stationary show in the early 1980s. At that time conventions in New York were held at the Coliseum, a multi-story building with escalators located at Columbus Circle, where the 55-story Time/Warner tower now… Read the rest
When I was just a wee lad seven decades ago, Sundays were different than any other day of the week. For many Americans, Sundays were a day for Church or Temple; we were not a religious family, however, and Sunday services played no major part in my upbringing. What made Sundays different was the quiet.
Almost… Read the rest
I find myself feeling grateful to have such a large library of books. In these times of no toilet paper, I’ve got months of dual-purpose reading material, and it’s comforting to know that if the toilet paper shortage continues, we’ve got it covered.
Generally, I’d find myself… Read the rest
When we speak of domesticating animals, we’re referring to a guided transition from wild animal to one that tolerates, and even seeks out, people. The word “domestication” shares linguistic roots with the word “domicile,” meaning home. Thus domesticated animals… Read the rest
What’s to be done when those we love and care about become the potential agents of our own demise? This pandemic presently presents us with an entirely foreign situation in America, where we have been largely spared the horror and pathos of war and the intimate experience of death surrounding … Read the rest
I grew up watching television, and have had a TV in my home for my entire life. My childhood was filled with cartoons, bloodless westerns and Walter Cronkite soberly delivering the CBS Evening News. Everything about television has changed, of course; today TV is a globalized content delivery system… Read the rest
We can peer into the farthest reaches of space and identify objects and forces of such massive proportion that they’re virtually inconceivable. In the other direction, we can dive into the quantum world, an unfathomable, infinitesimal realm that contains the very building blocks of matter. Science… Read the rest