theLeftAhead

Writer’s Note: I don’t know if the following is a rant or a poem or something in between but I wrote it in New York City while ingesting the malodorous, beautiful smell of smog and gazing up at the colossal concrete redwoods as they competed for a glimpse of God. So whatever this writing is, I was inspired to abandon constraint and explore a lack of boundaries for my words…

In an effort to add some context to a troubling day, theLeftAhead turns our thoughts to the incomparable Carl Sagan. In a public lecture at Cornell University in 1994, Sagan presented a photograph of planet Earth titled “Pale Blue Dot” that was taken on Valentine’s Day 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe. He then delivered a brilliant, poetic speech about the photograph’s deeper meaning. For those of us who…

I have held off for some time from putting these thoughts out there for the entire world to see, as I fear it may upset certain people. But the time has come the open up this particular can of worms, if only to work through my own thoughts, and maybe help others in the same situation to work through theirs. I recently read an article about ending friendships over differing…

Author’s Note: I wrote the following words ten years ago today. I wrote them in a journal that I still possess and still reflect back on often. I wrote them late in the afternoon right here in San Antonio, sitting in a corner booth at Bombay’s Bicycle Club. I wrote them with a great deal of sadness. I wrote them with a great deal of determination. Today, the President of…