James Krenov (NY Times photo)

James Krenov died recently.

No, you don’t remember him.  It would be quite surprising if you’d ever heard of him, unless you are one of the dwindling number of genuine ‘cabinet makers’ in the world today.  I hadn’t heard of him either – but his obituary in the New York Times this week makes me wish I had known him. Read more »

Not long ago I was reading a 26 year old essay by Wendell Berry (“Two Economies” – included in Berry, The Art of the Commonplace) in which he refers to a short section of a 200 year old poem by William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, when I discovered a one month old news release – and it suddenly all made sense. Sort of. Read more »

There is an article this week on The Chronicle Review from the Chronicle of Higher Education that comes pretty close to ‘must reading’.  “We are all Madoffs” by David Barash (University of Washington) makes a simple, and surprisingly powerful, connection between the Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme and what we are all doing to God’s creation.

If you are one of the few who don’t remember exactly what Bernie did that had the entire nation enraged, it was this: He ran one of the country’s largest (and most successful – until he was caught) pyramid schemes.  The idea was simple, the execution complex and ingenious:  Collect “investments” from people – pay “dividends” back to those people from new “investments” from other people.  The scheme runs well until you run out of new investors or someone blows the whistle. Read more »