Essays

Philosophical and Political 

Living Towards Ends

Not long ago I wrote an essay[1] about what are called “existential risks,” aka “X-risks,” those calamitous possibilities (e.g., nuclear war, anthropogenic climate disruption, pandemic, and more, sometimes referred to collectively as the polycrisis) that are considered capable of rendering Homo sapiens extinct, or nearly so, and our present ways of life definitively so. I did not write about...

Aging: The Surprise

I awoke today preoccupied with thoughts about aging and its place in a life—Thoughts about aging as a phenomenon and as my experience and how it came on me as a surprise. I then moved to an obvious question: When does aging begin? (I know well enough when it ends.) My assumption is that it’s primarily a physical process with each step linked to mental accompaniments: emotions, interpretations,...

A Patient’s View

These thoughts are sent into the dentistry realm not from a dental practitioner or researcher but from a patient. I presume to do so based on two facets of my history. First, I have far more than the average level of dental problems (although perhaps not disproportionately since I am 79 years old) and have seen and/or talked with 8 or 9 dentists about my needs over the last three years. This...
2022 The Northern Route – Flatey Iceland

2022 The Northern Route – Flatey Iceland

16 September: I left Westfjords last evening, taking the ferry across Breiòafjoròur, a large bay separating the Westfjords from the Snaefellsnes Peninsula and am a hundred miles or so north of Reykjavik in a community called Reykholt; in two days I leave for Oslo....

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2022 The Northern Route –  Isafjordur Iceland

2022 The Northern Route – Isafjordur Iceland

My introduction to the Westfjords was to rolling country for the most part including even the fjords. But as I’ve driven farther, especially since Holmavik, the valleys and mountainsides have grown deeper and higher. This is how I imagined the whole vast (for Iceland)...

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2022 The Northern Route – Akureyri Iceland

2022 The Northern Route – Akureyri Iceland

Big weather change: wet (although not much so), foggy (much so), and temp in the mid-30s. I’d rather this wasn’t happening just as I prepare to launch into the Westfjords region, said to be the most unpopulated except for the Highlands. The main problem is...

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2022 The Northern Route – Husavik, Iceland

2022 The Northern Route – Husavik, Iceland

I drove the “Diamond Circle” today—it’s a name that confirms that marketing hyperbole has infected travel talk as much as it has real estate and anywhere else it is considered useful. I enjoyed the trip, about 250 km, and it adds to my growing picture of what this...

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2022 The Northern Route – Iceland II

2022 The Northern Route – Iceland II

The drive north along the east coast (of Iceland) pleased me as these dramatic landscapes usually do. It was high, talus-sloped mountainside port and Atlantic Ocean starboard all the way, with the space between them varying from almost none to a mile, more or less. I...

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2022 The Northern Route – Fjaðrárgljúfur

2022 The Northern Route – Fjaðrárgljúfur

4 September: The day began with a continuation of the plethora of water falling in its diverse ways from the mountain edge. They’re all different and all appealing. One began with a long fall that was unusually vertical presumably because there was no wind to disturb...

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