Essays by Larry Barnett
As the financial collapse continues – home prices falling and more job losses announced every day – attention has focused on stimulating the economy. The injection of trillions of dollars by the government into the banking sector and virtually every other segment of the American economy has been viewed… Read the rest
I receive a fair number of reader comments about my columns, mostly appreciative, and occasionally not. While notes of appreciation are a pleasure to receive and easy to respond to, nasty notes are a challenge.
During my twelve years in public office, I learned to roll with the punches. After a few unsettled… Read the rest
Over the past several years I have become enormously fond of drinking tea. My father used to drink tea each morning, and I remember as a boy joining him at breakfast with a cup. I didn’t really enjoy the tea, but I enjoyed sitting with him sipping Lipton’s and feeling grown up.
My mother discouraged soda … Read the rest
Wall Street brokers commonly refer to market theory, a high-sounding pseudo-scientific set of investment principles developed to explain and predict how markets work. Between themselves, the brokerage community refers to yet again another valued theory, but this one is called “the bigger fool”… Read the rest
It’s said that time is money, but until a recent discussion with an airline seatmate I’d not realized how far this idea has gone.
I’ve been flying back to NYC to visit with my parents fairly often this past year, and about 25 percent of the time, I chat with my seatmates. This last trip was particularly interesting;… Read the rest
Just as necessity is the mother of invention, so do desperate times demand imaginative solutions. Accordingly, it’s clear that the time has now come to introduce Kibble for People.
The economy is in a shambles, the unemployment rate is growing. Junk and fast food sales increase every year and people… Read the rest
In mapping brain function, specific areas of the brain have been found to be primarily responsible for particular functions, such as hearing, seeing, feeling, motor coordination, reasoning and so on. Despite this clustering of functional areas, the brain is nonetheless capable of fully integrating… Read the rest
In comparison to ancient stone-age cultures, we consider our modern culture an advanced civilization. In actuality, all that has really advanced is technology and information; our silly and superstitious emotional selves have not changed a bit, as so amply evidenced by “Reality TV.” An accurate… Read the rest
At one time people’s names were a reflection of their role within society and culture, not simply historical surnames passed on by tradition and birth. Accordingly, the Colliers were the makers of charcoal, the Coopers were the makers of barrels, the Smiths were the forgers of… Read the rest
Einstein’s general and special theories of relativity put an end to the notion of absolute time. His formulations and subsequent scientific experiments confirm the plasticity of time, and demonstrate that depending upon velocity, direction and position of the observer, time is not the same at every… Read the rest
Over a recent breakfast with the boys, discussion turned to economic depression – what each of us might do for a living if worse comes to worst. Some of the great strengths of human beings are resourcefulness and creativity, without which we would never have scrambled out of the savannah and invented … Read the rest
Go ahead and take a breath, dear one,
The earth is generous.
Besides,
You will give it back, soon.
Breathing is so constant and continuous that it’s easy to forget about it. In fact, if we could not forget about it, life as we know it would be nearly impossible. Regulated by the autonomous nervous system,… Read the rest
I recently enjoyed my five-year colonoscopy. OK, enjoyed is not the correct term; endured is more like it.
Five years ago, I had to drink what seemed like a bathtub’s worth of putrid liquid, but they’ve made great progress. This time I only had to drink half a bathtub, and the flavor was lemon-lime, not … Read the rest
My daughter and her husband are on their honeymoon. They didn’t go to Paris or to London or to Rio de Janeiro. They went to Vietnam.
For those of you too young to remember, Vietnam is the place that many link to America’s only lost war and greatest military humiliation.… Read the rest
My stepdaughter asked me to perform the marriage ceremony at her recent wedding, and in preparation, I decided to buy a white linen suit. I ordered it online and paid $169; with a few alterations, it fit and looked great. I also decided that I wanted white footwear, and as the wedding day approached, I popped… Read the rest
I used to love pork spareribs. Alas, I loved them too much. I have eaten my fill time and time again; I’ve probably eaten well more than my share.
I’ve never had to chase a pig, hold it down, kill it, butcher it and then clean up the mess. My meat-eating has been a decidedly tidy affair, yet killing animals is… Read the rest
As America’s energy crisis has accelerated, the subject of nuclear power has reemerged. Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster have receded into history and an entire generation has no memory of these two near catastrophic events. Nuclear power plant construction is regaining… Read the rest
My first major exposure to the culture of the hero was at summer camp in Maine. Like many suburban New York boys, I was shipped off for eight weeks each summer, beginning at the age of eight.
Camp Androscoggin of 1956 (a mere 11 years after the end of World War II) was a military-style camp, located in the Adirondacks… Read the rest
The plant kingdom predates animals by millions of years, and trees are ancient masters of survival, the oldest among them estimated at 6,000 years. Without trees, human beings never would have survived. What appears to us as our mastery of the plant kingdom is more likely the opposite. Just ask an ear… Read the rest
We tend to think of life in Euclidian terms, that is to say, straight lines between points A and B, negotiating space and time using the geometry of fixed shapes. Sure, we negotiate curves every once in a while, but even those we like to describe as smooth, dramatic arcs in an otherwise straightforward … Read the rest