According to the 2025 Compassion Report from Sanford’s School of Medicine, only 1 in 3 Americans feel compassion for all groups of...
The Olive Tree
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI The olive tree outside my door and I met in a nursery eleven years ago. She was seven inches tall, in a one-gallon pot. Since then, she’s outgrown pots, and lived in a garden plot for a few years. Now, four feet tall – a proud juvenile in her twenty-five-gallon pot, appreciated in that casual way into [...]
Pat Taub
Why I’m Voting for Jill Stein
Next Tuesday we will elect a new President. This election year, a significant number of people are rejecting the two major party’s candidates, turning to Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. This week’s WOW blog features Stein supporters who describe why she is their choice. I am voting for #SteinWare2024 as a way of signaling my opposition [...]
Pat Taub
Are You Man Enough to Overlook Genocide?
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE The astonishingly tone deaf PAC ad on behalf of Harris-Walz, “Man Enough”, really has to be seen to be believed. About 99% of viewers are convinced the ad is satire, with many commenting: “Saturday Night Live is funny again!” But alas, it’s not SNL. Stereotypes played by actors that likely never sat on [...]
Pat Taub
Waking Up to the Threat of Nuclear War
“It could not have come at a better time,” Joseph Gerson, longtime peace and disarmament activist, responding to the Hibakusha as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for their activism directed at banning nuclear weapons. Gerson’ s comment contained the hope that the Hibakusha’s peace prize will reignite a focus on [...]
Pat Taub
Thank You’s I Never Got to Deliver
What if you had a chance to pose lingering questions to important people in your life who are now deceased? Poet Victoria Chang did this very thing, writing letters to her deceased parents, which she compiled into the book, “Dear Memory.” Chang, in trying to come to terms with her sketchy knowledge of her parents’ upbringing [...]
Pat Taub
What Happened to Us?
GUEST POST by MARY DUNN One hundred years ago in 1924 a Zionist paramilitary defense force, the Haganah, proclaimed the role of protecting the newly formed communities of Jewish settlers in Palestine. Their slogan, “Judaea was lost by blood and fire and will rise again by blood and fire” continues to direct Zionist ideology all these years [...]
Pat Taub
Want Inner Peace: Practice Soul Care
In today’s frantic world, inner peace can feel unattainable, but it’s not all that elusive if you practice soul care. Living soulfully involves developing practices that lead to a life of integrity and deep meaning. When your soul come alive, your world lights up, transporting you to another dimension. You feel one with the universe. [...]
Pat Taub
Wrestling with Ego
This past weekend I was visited by my brother and his wife, who are doing their best to live fully with my brother’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis. After they drove away, and I reflected on their visit, I was struck by how many times I passed judgment for my brother’s difficulty restraining his hyper-behavior and for my sister-in-law’s [...]
Pat Taub
When Israelis Kill Americans
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL “If you harm an American, we will respond.” – President Joe Biden, February 2024 The young woman had large brown eyes and a wide smile. She had a cause: solidarity with Palestine. But unlike the young Palestinian women murdered by Israel over the last 11 months, there was something different about her. Aysenur [...]
Pat Taub
When Genocide Becomes Normalized
Caitlin Johnstone, the prophetic Australian blogger, lamented in a recent post that the genocide in Gaza has become normalized for most Americans who tend to react with a fleeting comment, like, “It’s horrible,” and then go about their lives, where Gaza is a mere footnote. Johnstone challenges us to open our eyes to the propaganda [...]
Pat Taub