Calls for a UBI (universal basic income) have subsided, now that the Yang Gang has been put to bed. “What are we paying people for?” is the typical question. “For just breathing” is not considered a serious response, even though physics confirms that breathing is work, and necessary work at…

Right around the time Alec’s new Bucky bio showed up from Powell’s (shipment to my home address vs the local branch was somehow mandatory if I used PayPal) I had gone back into studying Ouspensky + Gurdjieff in earnest, again through a Jungian lens, although this time not that of…

Do you remember when the book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know came out, by E.D. Hirsch Jr.? If so, you go back a long way (to 1987), as I do. The book sparked a lot of controversy of course, regarding what was on the list or off…

Not that many people know that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a research paper on Mithraism. Those studying to become ministers of a religion frequently get assigned, or freely choose, to study some other religion and in MLK’s case, the religion of Mithra was one of them. Mithra has or…

I grew up reading a lot of science fiction, especially Isaac Asimov’s stuff, but then I gradually shifted gears and started reading more widely. This was Isaac’s stated plan for his young readers: get them hooked on “scifi”, then switch them into more non-fictional tracks, by the same author. He…