“… therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne (1572–1631), “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,” ‘Meditation XVII’ I visited the Korean Friendship Bell in Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, California recently. It is considered one of the major tourist landmarks. What is…

I lived in an Islamic country two years in the late 1960s. I have a prayer carpet in the front hallway of my house which contains deliberate flaws in its geometric pattern. Some take awhile to detect. One might want to sit awhile. Or, as some of the denizens of…

Certain events embed themselves in memory and, like images on glass, are irrevocably etched. Someone I knew well for a number of years told me this story. It did not emerge all at once, like a waterfall cascading over a dam. Rather, perhaps like the life cycle of the grasshopper…

One of the acknowledged great novels of the 19th (or perhaps any) century is “Les Miserables,” a massive (over 1400 pages) epic historical work published in 1863 by French novelist Victor Hugo. It is widely considered his masterwork. I was privileged to view (again) the 1980 musical “Les Miserables,” based…

Had I not attended a recent Zoom meeting I would have not heard it. On the other hand, had I not attended, perhaps it wouldn’t have been uttered. Our sibship, six strong, meets weekly via the Zoom platform. With good fortune, my sibs are all alive and reasonably well. …

I learned something new recently. When one is too old to learn, one is truly too old. With good fortune, I’m not there yet. I viewed a PBS/BBC program entitled “Dogs in the Wild.” The program featured segments on members of the canid family in various parts of the world…

I re-viewed “Duel” recently. Based on a short story by Richard Matheson, the 1971 film featured actor Dennis Weaver (perhaps better remembered as Matt Dillon’s assistant Chester in the long-running TV show “Gunsmoke”) as a put-upon business commuter on a long drive to meet a client. I make no apology…

You had to be either aboard the International Space Station, residing under a rock or sleeping the sleep of Rip Van Winkle if you were unaware of the recent white balloon affair. Americans caught a glimpse of a large (estimated diameter 200 feet) white balloon floating in our skies at…

I viewed the movie “AVATAR: The Way With Water” not long ago with family members. This is not a review of that movie. There are many already extant and interested readers can access them, should they be interested. Were I to review it, it might add more heat than light…