Estates of Being

  Last weekend, I went to an estate sale around the corner from my house. I’m drawn to estate sales, but not for the usual reasons: for me, it’...

50 Things That Made My Year (2023)

Time is the fire in which we burn. –Delmore Schwartz   Here in no particular order are 50 things that made 2023 for me: My daughter becoming a teenag...

Global Village People

I first heard the term ‘global village‘ a long time ago. Marshall McLuhan coined it in the 1960s, imagining an interconnected humanity all coming to...

Don’t Worry About College Majors

I’ve heard a lot recently about ‘picking the right college major’. It’s normal to worry about such things. I remember. But I think obses...

Page Count

Today I was organizing my collection of book reading notes, and wondered: how many books have I read in my lifetime? I made a wild (and probably generous) guess...

Gentrification’s Wheel

Gentrification is complex. Many say it’s better than the alternative. In many American cities, “blighted” areas are redeveloped or otherwise t...

Water We Waiting For?

Note: This first appeared in The Oregonian newspaper on June 18, 2007. One of Portland’s best opportunities to be “green” is going down the dr...