Essays by Larry Barnett
The human condition requires eventually losing everything, even our body; we don’t get to take it with us when we die anymore than we get to take our favorite sweater. Birth, aging, sickness and death comprise the totality of our physical experience – we all know this – but we still suffer… Read the rest
Considering the immeasurable diversity of forms of life in this world – tube worms breathing methane at the mouth of 800 degree volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, lichens digesting the minerals in rocks for survival, worms living inside glaciers, bacteria that grow “legs” to move across… Read the rest
Cause and effect are so all-pervasive and unobstructed, most of the time we don’t notice it in operation. The world we enjoy (or not, as the case may be) reflects the continuity of cause and effect at work on everything, even hamburgers and ketchup.
In their classic act, Bud Abbott… Read the rest
Thousands of years ago the idea of atoms was proposed. Ancient Hindus and then Buddhists wrote and taught about atoms, as did the Greeks. Reduced to smaller and smaller particles, physical material eventually became too small to be seen physically, so the existence of atoms was inferred.
Not verified… Read the rest
Having never been to Las Vegas my wife and I planned a visit to celebrate my birthday. We felt excitement mixed with horror; and every friend we told about our plan reacted with: “You’re kidding!” But kidding we were not. Like Ishmael… Read the rest
I’ve just completed James Lovelock’s recent book, “The Vanishing Face of Gaia”. Lovelock, now 90, is the scientist-inventor who popularized the term “Gaia” in the 1970’s to define the earth as a single living organism – dynamic, self-regulating, and responsive to global and cosmic forces. Gaia Theory,… Read the rest
One of the great unsolved mysteries of existence is…existence. Given all the possible variations in the nature of time, space and physics, how is it that things exist as opposed to not existing?
There is the issue of matter vs. antimatter, for example; when they meet they instantaneously cancel each… Read the rest
If marijuana is legalized in California the commercial floodgates will open. This is less a matter of good or bad than a simple matter of fact. The marketplace and its investors will swoop in and create an advertising juggernaut to capture customers, and the pot genie will never go back into the lantern.… Read the rest
For most of modern history, wars were fought between nations – France against Germany, Italy against Austria, England against France, Japan against China, America against Germany, Japan, North Vietnam, and so on. While the nature and character of each war differed, what they all had in common… Read the rest
Of four basic human emotions – mad, glad, sad and scared – mad is the most problematic. It is from anger that people are hit, stabbed, choked, murdered, abused, hurt, punished, cursed, castigated, blamed, and objectified. To this list we may add “thrown out of office.”
Politics… Read the rest
I had a lunch date with a friend in San Francisco last week at Green’s in Ft. Mason. I hadn’t been there in years, and the entrance to Ft. Mason had been re-engineered, requiring me to find my way to the new entrance. As I ducked through the Safeway parking lot, a fellow in white pick-up pulled up to my passenger… Read the rest
“Leaf blowers to right of them, leaf blowers to left of them – into the valley of death rode the six hundred!”
With apologies to Tennyson, I must admit that there are few sounds more detestable than the gasoline-powered leaf blower. On Wednesday my southbound neighbor’s gardener toils, leaf blower raging… Read the rest
Prior to 20th century physics, which established the dominance of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, the concept of an all-pervading invisible aether, the medium through which light, gravity and electromagnetism moved, was commonly accepted. Harkening back to ancient alchemy… Read the rest
My wife says I remind her of the story of the princess and the pea, the parable about making a big deal about nothing. It’s true I am a picky person, though I prefer to think of my self as discerning. That distinction notwithstanding, there are some complaints that I find perfectly reasonable, and among … Read the rest
9-11 is a special day for me because it is my birthday, but it’s not so pleasant for everyone else. The events of 9-11-2001 produced tremendous cultural trauma, and its powerful effects are still reverberating. Such trauma happens from time to time and it often engenders worldwide change. There are … Read the rest
We live in a “me” world, where attention to self is a daily preoccupation. “I want this and you want that” is the basic functioning of contemporary society and we routinely go to sleep each night expecting to greet our “selves” the next morning.
Our sense of self is contingent, however. First there must… Read the rest
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled that any action which can be defined as “material support” to an organization deemed “terrorist” is a federal crime. Material support, says the court, includes discussion and/or consultation about non-violence or peace, making… Read the rest
In the 1974 book Lives of a Cell, author Lewis Thomas paints a disarmingly sweet portrait of a single cell that all but imparts a charming personality upon a living thing so small it’s microscopic. The life of a single cell, one of 40 trillion in each of our bodies,… Read the rest
I attended a lecture today. The topic was Jews in the 21st Century, but it covered the 20th century as well. All told, it was not a bad talk, if a bit too long and somewhat repetitive. As it pertained to Israel, I found no basic disagreement with its premise that extremist intolerance on the part of both Israelis… Read the rest
The handwriting is not on the wall; it’s on the computer, the cell phone, the tablet, Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In and Skype. Technology is rapidly making the mailman obsolete.
Reflecting on this brings up memories of Al Zooks, the mailman of my suburban youth. As I remember him, Al was a grizzled old… Read the rest