A life in words

  • Conversation with a pacifist

    Conversation with a pacifist

    The city I was born in (Richland, Washington) was created by the federal government as part of the effort to synthesize the plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. As such I feel not responsible for, but somehow tangled up in, the legacy of that development, especially since reading Black Rain by…

  • Audio: Drumming by Seattle Kokon Taiko

    Recorded on my Galaxy S10 at From Hiroshima to Hope, 6 Aug 2023, Green Lake Park, Seattle. No copyright infringement intended. Recommend listening through headphones or good speakers.

  • Culture Peace

    Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character…. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus V.4, 1670, trans. A. H.…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address