At Home in Our Common Humanity

Initially published in the Raleigh News & Observer 5/4/2016   From Moses leading the Jews to the Promised Land, to the Holocaust survivors aboard Exodus 1947 seeking Palestine's port of Haifa, to "there's no place like home" Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz...

Learning the Thunder

Originally published on 6 July 2016, in the Raleigh News & Observer.   Reflecting on the milepost of my 25 consecutive years as a licensed N.C. physician assistant, the last 20 at Duke, I recalled my black leather medical bag which was a graduation gift. As...

The Nature of Numbers

Initially published in the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER on 23 March 2016   "Mathematics is the language by which God has written the universe," said Galileo. This metaphorical language of Galileo suggests that from the sub-atomic level of particle physics to...

Sticking Life’s Landings

Initially published in the DURHAM NEWS on 10/5/2016   "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, ... and done a hundred things you've not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence ... put out my hand, and touched the face of...

Exploring Space is Our Destiny

Initially published in the Raleigh News & Observer November 23, 2016.   Two thousand years ago, effusive in his wonder and reverence, the Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy wrote in the "Almagest": "When I trace, at my pleasure, the windings to...

Learning the Thunder

Reflecting on the milepost of my 25 consecutive years as a licensed NC physician assistant, the last 20 at Duke, I recalled my black leather medical bag which was a graduation gift. As I've been 100 percent hospital-based for the past 22 years, it hasn't gotten much...

Cicadas and Other Cycles

Initially published in the Raleigh News & Observer on February 7, 2016        "Today I will no longer hide my light. Today I hold my head high; and I will look you in the eye and tell you of my wasted years, gifts, talents and experiences." When I left my home in...

Chasing Crows

Initially Published in the Raleigh News & Observer on 9/14/2016 "Children are a heritage from the Lord." -  Psalms 127:3 This past spring I witnessed this arresting avian behavior: My attention was yanked skyward as I heard loud, harsh, discordant screeching. The...

Sell Books and “Colonize the Moon.”

The day before the James Webb Space Telescope was launched (December 25, 2021), I noticed a prominently displayed, handwritten "protest-like" sign with this exhortation: "Buy books from people who want to sell books not colonize the moon." Except as a base station,...