Notes from the Field / October 2012
Rafael Nasser
It has been years since I experienced Dr. Don Beck work his magic in a crowd. The last time I saw him in action was in NYC about four or five years ago. It was wintertime, and before the event, I recall him describing with childlike glee the excitement he felt walking past the Macy’s storefront that was ornamented with bright Christmas lights. It was an endearing moment that revealed one of the lesser-known …
Notes from the Field / March 2008
Feature Articles / January 2007
The recent discovery of bones at Ethiopia’s Lake Omo indicates that our species is approximately two hundred thousand years old. That observation suggests that 10,000 generations of anatomically modern humans have roamed the planet. During this span of time humanity has undergone six discernable Waves of Emergence with a seventh underway.Historically this process unfolded at a measured pace, each wave propagating and maturing leisurely over millennia and more recently over centuries. But the frequency of …
Feature Articles / June 2006
He grinned, “I’ll take my chances.”
The first two …
Coda / March 2006
On November 12, 2004, the day Yasser Arafat was buried in Ramallah, I landed in Ben Gurion airport. Ten days earlier I had watched a team of professional movers disassemble my cozy Manhattan apartment and stuff the contents into 117 cardboard boxes bound to follow me across the Atlantic to my new home, Tel Aviv. After the movers left I stood alone in the bare-walled living room and in the eerie silence I questioned my decision