This past week, I experienced a real gut check. Mark Feiner, the new but fantastically competent conductor of our South County Sound barbershop chorus, died in his sleep at age 55 over the weekend. We were all shocked. We met as a chorus the next Tuesday night, to honor and talk about Mark and his … Continue reading Gut Checks

A couple weeks ago while on a plane headed for Ethiopia, I was thinking and writing about Ethiopia's forlorn neighbor, Somalia. The UN had just officially declared an "end" to the famine conditions there.Last summer, the UN had slapped the "Famine" label on Somalia, declaring this the first major African famine since the Ethiopia/Sudan famine … Continue reading Building Altars