Tonight on my way home, I had a strong hankering for chips and salsa.

When I went into the grocery store, however, the only salsa on the shelf cost more than four dollars.

I thought to myself, "Darn it all, I'll make my own salsa!"

I bought a tomato, an onion, and a jalapeno pepper.

I bought a can of tomato sauce that cost me sixty cents.

I went home, poured tomato sauce into a bowl, and chopped up my tomato, my onion, my jalapeno pepper, and an orange bell pepper that h... read more

Whereas a few weeks ago I experienced my kinship with snails, earlier today I experienced empathy with ants, particularly with what it must feel like for them to encounter human beings.

Can you ~feel~ what it's like to live in a world inhabited by creatures the size of Empire State Buildings, who walk around largely oblivious to your earthly existence?

More importantly, however, can you ~imagine~ the constitution of a creature who willingly walks around on sidewalks in such a world?
... read more

I've never feared the Christian Right, because I've always viewed them as part of a fringe culture that is going seriously out of style.

Now, however, there is more concrete evidence than ever before that that view is correct.

Leave aside the recent laudible actions of San Diego's Republican mayor, which I blogged about last week.

Consider that the national front-runner in the Republican primaries -- ~the national front-runner~ -- is a man who, in the grand scheme of American po... read more

After a year of trying to figure out how to frame the work I do with individuals, a conversation with my closest female friends, Rebecca and Cecilia, has yielded a solution.

I am a personal growth trainer:

www.andrewschwartz.net

I had considered calling myself a personal growth trainer some time ago, but I had passed over it as too neologistic.

Rebecca and Cecilia, however, helped me see the extent to which my work is almost perfectly describd by an anology to personal trainin... read more

This video clip of the Republican mayor of San Diego explaining his decision to support gay marriage is one of the most moving things I've ever seen:

www.youtube.com/watch

Seems culturally significant, too, doesn't it?

Last night, without the assistance of any illicit substance, I experienced the level of being at which I am as closely related to a snail as I am to my second cousin.

It was a pleasant realization, at once humbling and uplifting.

Cecilia Moorcroft, one of my dearest friends, will be in Los Angeles doing Feng Shui consultations next week from September 19th through September 22nd.

If you want to book an appointment with her, send her an email: ceciliamoorcroft (AT) yahoo.ca!

I can testify from personal experience that Cecilia's a brilliant consultant of space, and knows how to stimulate transformation in a powerful way.

She practices what's known as "Western Feng Shui," which means she approaches her work mu... read more

Blogger Peter St. Andre proposes the possibility that right-wingers' fears of Islamic terrorism are overblown in the same way that left-wingers' fears of global warming are overblown.

It's a fascinating comparison:

stpeter.im/

Notice that with both issues, if you propose to a purveyor of the conventional wisdom that there may be something amiss or unfactual about the conventional wisdom, you are (typically) dismissed as off your rocker.

Which, I suppose, is correc... read more