VLADIMIR PUTIN“Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.” What exactly is he calling for then? “A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS, AND NOT OF MEN” The past few years have seen the rise of a handful of authoritarian leaders around the world who have taken great strides … Read more
ARTISTIC MASTERY“Hewitt is one of these world-class musicians whose live performances of even the most technically difficult music do not contain any mistakes of note, yet still I was a bit dislocated at hearing such a different interpretation of this music.” So I saw Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt at the Orange County Performing Arts Center … Read more
3:45 IN THE MORNING“…something tells me I shall miss these late evenings with daughter Julia.” Maybe it was the psychological trauma of baby Julia’s second day in a new day-care center. New faces, new noises, new smells – a new place surrounded by other babies and toddlers — it was a lot to take in … Read more
GUANTANAMO BAY DETENTION CENTERReasonable measure to secure our country? Or overreaction and judicial “black hole”? ON TERRORISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS: Today is the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks on September 11th, 2001. It is time to opine on a topic increasingly on my mind these past several months: civil rights in the context of … Read more
Worth the read every single day? TO READ OR NOT TO READ? I read two newspapers everyday. It is the one ritual I promised to keep after the upheaval of becoming a father, the daily activity I would keep to bridge the gap the life between the “before” and “after” metamorphosis of becoming responsible for … Read more
Thieves broke windows in late night school burglary. CLASSROOM BREAK-IN I arrived to my school as usual yesterday morning, Friday September 7, 2007. But as I turned the corner towards my classroom I encountered not the empty twenty steps of sidewalk that leads to my place of work but instead a throng of school district … Read more
USC crunches Idaho 38-10 in 2007 season opener SPORTS AND BOOZE So last night my father and I walked around Balboa Island in my hometown of Newport Beach, California. The moon beamed down on us as we walked and talked in the darkness, and the air still had a touch of the heat that had … Read more
“…and now i own and run porn sites.” So I receive the below message on Myspace the other day from a student who I taught digital video (Adobe Premiere and After Effects) and graphics (Photoshop) to a few years back: I had you for vizcom and now i own and run porn sites. you were … Read more
“BRILLIANT DISGUISE” A man looks into the camera and sings his song of confusion and heartache. The entire music video is just one shot, and the camera slowly zooms in while the artist looks you straight in the eye and sings from the heart. No special effects. No lip-syncing. Just the singer and his guitar. … Read more
FATHER AND DAUGHTER DURING NAP TIME Summer of 2007 As a teacher, I have my summers off. To be more specific, my last day of work was June 15th and my next day will be August 15th (not including one college class I taught Tuesdays and Thursday evenings for six weeks). I will have had … Read more
“THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT!”“There was nothing I was not up for teaching…boundless energy and ambition!” THE PRODUCTIVE DECADE OF ONE’S THIRTIES I used to tell myself I was one of those relatively few people who loved their jobs. For me teaching was more vocation than job, and the boundary between … Read more
“Both parents then showered crying baby Julia with kisses and loving words…” A Morning to Remember Forever Today baby Julia had her usual morning feeding at 9:00 a.m. She fed for some thirty minutes and then played and cooed for another hour or so, watching the world around her and reaching out for her toys. … Read more
“The president is in good health,” Bush spokesman Tony Snow said Monday, July 23, 2007. “There is no reason for alarm.” WHY? Last Saturday I read that President Bush underwent anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy, whereupon Vice President Cheney officially was in charge of the Executive Branch for a few hours. I was also informed … Read more
Wife and daughter at the entrance to the Santa Barbara Zoo AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE Today I did something I haven’t done in some 25 years: I went to the zoo. I went with wife Maria and daughter Julia to the Santa Barbara Zoo, to be exact. And I had a great time, much to my … Read more
10 THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE My step-sister Kimberely asked me to identify twenty things I wanted to do before I died. I decided to think up ten but could not get past eight. I did, however, come up with a lot that I had already done or did not wish to do. Here … Read more
Steve Jobs wants you to buy his new iPhone! The new Apple iPhone went on sale this morning, and customers camped out to be the first in line to buy one. I do not understand this. Someone please help me to understand. Why is this such a big deal? I cannot see it. As I … Read more
A new baby daughter on board! “4” IS THE MAGIC NUMBER! Today my wife and I celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary; and several weeks ago, I celebrated my fortieth birthday. But with a baby girl on board such events, especially my birthday, seem to take on much less importance. They say many women as they … Read more
Actress Keira Knightley stars in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. STILL GOT IT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS There is much talk about the “hegemony” of the American film business, and how it is driving everyone else out of business – American “cultural imperialism,” and the like. The French, for example, actually have … Read more
THUGS WITH MASKS WHO TAKE ORDERS FROM NOBODY God be praised for Netflix! Over the past three years, the mail order DVD rental service has significantly enriched my life in a way no conventional bricks-and-mortar video store could. Please keep in mind I am not a movie junkie. In fact, the number of movies I … Read more
KURT VONNEGUT ON THE DEATH OF KURT VONNEGUT Writer Kurt Vonnegut died today. He was 94 years old. I read a number of his novels while in high school, being told he was a “classic.” I remember reading him with mild amusement, and in the twenty five years since I have rarely thought of his … Read more
Father and daughter three weeks into their relationship. “A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER” I look down at my daughter and search for signs of what will be. Right now to Julia the whole world is contained in a feeding or in trying to digest food or conciliate sleep. She is only 23 days … Read more
E-MAIL READY On March 1st, 2007, exactly one week before her projected birth date, Julia Emerson Geib acquired her first e-mail address. A big moment in her life, obviously! It took place at exactly Pacific Standard time. Five minutes later she received her first email. It was from her father. Just you watch how the … Read more
“Hillary Clinton is the right candidate. The nation is in deep need for a mother figure who will lead the people out of a violent world and back into caring for the poor and the disabled, mostly caring for our children, our future.”Daphne Zimanquoted in LA Times of February 16, 2007 I read the above … Read more
“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.”Ludwig van Beethovenquoted in Marion M Scott, Beethoven (1934) I generally don’t listen to much Ludwig van Beethoven. He … Read more
“A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.” André Maurois “What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to … Read more
“More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.”Rudyard Kipling —————— In talking last week with a childhood friend who now lives in North Carolina, a yawning depression overcame me as he described his typical workday — it sounded exactly like mine: “I work steadily right through lunch and maybe grab … Read more
“An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.”Thomas Jefferson THE “DIS-UNITED” STATES OF AMERICA I would like to think that bipartisanship can work in the United States. JFK once wrote, … Read more
“That was the difference in why September 11th would fail. That was why bin Laden would lose.” It all started on September 11th, 2001. The Twin Towers fell in New York. Then, on September 12, 2001, I looked out at my period 6 Honor’s English class. My students were 14-years old, and they were confused, … Read more
“A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live… When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles … Read more
“There’s too much music everywhere. It’s horrible stuff, the most noise conveying the least information. Kids today are violent because they have no inner life; they have no inner life because they have no thoughts; they have no thoughts because they know no words; they know no words because they never speak; and they never … Read more