"Just imagine how good it would feel if we all got together once in a while in large public gatherings and admitted that we don't know why we are alive, that nobody knows for sure if there's a higher being who created us, and that nobody really knows what the hell's going on here." -- Wes Nisker, meditation teacher, Inquiring Mind (Spring 2005)

A new study by the city of Austin and the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that coal-tar sealant, the shiny black stuff that goes on parking lots to protect asphalt from the elements, may be a major source of water pollution in Austin.

Scientists from the city's Watershed Protection and Development Review Department had been studying PAH hot spots since the late 1990s, but it wasn't until 2001 that they started collaborating with the USGS. The partnership began, Van Metre recalled, when city scientists approached the USGS with sediment from local waterways showing levels of PAH contamination that Van Metre found literally unbelievable.

"Our first reaction was we thought their data were wrong," he said. "We thought there must be a lab problem, the numbers were so high."

Your argument for remaining beard-free is unimpeachable. But you must stop using disposable plastic razors. I don't need to spell out the reasons: the source of plastic, the likely distant country of origin, the effect on the waste stream. Here in the U.S., 2 billion disposable razors are purchased annually. That's a lot of space in the landfill.

Besides the environmental concern, David, there's, well, the dorkiness. You want a date, you want the date to lead to something, and at some point the date might see you shave. Shaving is sexy, and a choice opportunity to impress that special man or woman with your suave masculinity. Plastic disposables say, "I think little about personal grooming" -- not to mention, "I'm cheap" -- and you have little margin for this type of drastic error.

If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral. -- Samuel P. Ginder, US navy captain

The first two enumerated rights, life and liberty, are straightforward enough, but this business about the pursuit of Happiness is more complex. Note that it is a right to the pursuit of Happiness, not to Happiness itself, and that despite the messages of our consumer culture, Happiness is not always the same thing as Fun. And nothing makes some people unHappier than the prospect of other people being Happy in a way that does not suit them. Yet this right to a personal definition of Happiness, and the right to pursue it, remains at the core of what Americans want their country to be. It is the Declaration's most profound idea.

Sabbath time can be a revolutionary challenge to the violence of overwork, mindless accumulation, and the endless multiplication of desires, responsibilities and accomplishments. Sabbath is a way of being in time where we remember who we are, remember what we know, and taste the gifts of spirit and eternity. -- Wayne Muller: Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in Our Busy Lives

Teaching others isn't just sharing knowledge - the knowledge you share is merely a tool that allows your students to recreate for themselves the inspiration that you provide by being who you are.

The myth, or belief, that people are solely what they make of themselves is useful to keep in mind while reading two ongoing series: the New York Times' on class and the Wall Street Journal's on social mobility. Both focus attention on a truth about American society that runs counter to most people's deep-seated beliefs: There is less social mobility in the United States now than in the '80s (and less then than in the '70s) and less mobility than in many other industrial countries, including Canada, Finland, Sweden and Germany. Yet 40 percent of respondents to a Times poll said that there was a greater chance to move up from one class to another now than 30 years ago, and 46 percent said it was easier to do so in the United States than in Europe.

...It becomes clear, as the Times series is titled, that "class matters," just as race, gender and other accidents of history matter. The social class into which someone is born largely defines one's class as an adult, and both make a difference in how healthy or how long-lived the person will be, especially in the absence of universal health insurance. It influences access to education and to jobs.

The myth of the self-made person, however, encourages the person who succeeds to think his good fortune is due entirely to his work and genius. For this reason businessmen in the United States have historically been more anti-union and hostile to government than their counterparts in Europe. And the myth makes those who fail blame themselves.

Great social disparity means that the financially well-off use their money and greater political leverage to protect their privilege rather than to design policies for the common good.

...the very rich accumulate their wealth not simply because of what they did but because of the society in which they lived, and they have a debt to that society. And the heirs of such wealth are the antithesis of self-made men.