The Discomfort Zone I woke up Thursday morning to news of the so-called Real ID card being approved by Congress, in a late-night session, with the provision stuck to a multi-billion dollar military appropriations bill. As I understand it, there was no debate at all, and the Senate vote was unanimous. Very nice. A … Read more
The Land that Time Remembered It’s easy to think of the story of Apollo’s birth on Delos as a way of explaining how a tiny island, blazing with sunlight, and made of rocks overrun with wildflowers and lots of really intense lizards, became for seven centuries a major cosmopolitan center of worship and trade on … Read more
Dear Readers: Today’s edition of Planet Waves is a milestone: ten years since I began the project. The first edition of this column was published on May 1, 1995 in a newspaper called Free Time in Poughkeepsie, New York, covering the first two weeks of May. If you had told me then that a decade … Read more
Stranger than Fiction… The only thing currently in the neighborhood that could be stranger than fiction is an eclipse of the Moon in Scorpio. For those who may still be wondering, the past two editions have been fiction essays that were based on my April Fool’s parody, “An Open Letter to the Space Brothers.” I … Read more
Light Bath From aboard the Mothership Dawn, April 2005 THE LIGHT HYDROGEN POND. One level up, and third door on the left. I collected my leather bag, thinking nothing of leaving my carry-on and laptop case behind. Fourth and sixth densities. Space critters with Holiday Inn pencils monitoring activity on Earth back to the days … Read more