Martin Levowitz

I hate being told what to do or not do, and almost always side with rebels who reject the status quo. There was an old cowboy song – “Don’t Fence Me In” – which my family used to sing to me – or at me – whenever I got antsy, as a kid. Even now, […]

One of our Constitution’s most cherished provisions is separation of church and state, a real testament to our founders’ foresight. Throughout history, cruel injustice has routinely been inflicted upon innocent citizens by state-sanctioned religions. (Even today, many nations acknowledge only one official creed.) Aware of this, “the framers” sought to discourage government mistreatment of minorities, […]

This article is about winning and losing; loyalty and lying. In nature, among living things, to win is to survive. You lose, you die. Farther up the curve, among “civilized” beings, if we call ourselves that, the taste for winning does not fade, even though there’s no longer much literal danger of death. Go to […]

We Humans have different ways of knowing things: from experience, for instance, or by intuition (hunches / gut feelings.) And then, more cumbersomely, there’s science – systematic observation and measurement. These different modes of inquiry deliver “facts” of different sorts. To learn if God exists and if He / She believes in us, you’d need […]

I think I’ll name my next dog Fauci. I simply love the sound of it and do respect the man whose name it is. He seems to have integrity and is, therefore, believable, when so many are not.  I’m quite surprised that Fauci’s still around. He’s done what one must never do – he’s contradicted […]

CORONAVIRUS DAY AND NIGHT CORONAVIRUS ON TV. CORONAVIRUS WILL OR WILL NOT BE THE END OF YOU AND ME. CORONAVIRUS IN THE NEWS, CORONAVIRUS ALL THE TIME, I DON’T KNOW HOW IT MAKES YOU FEEL BUT GETTING TIRED OF IT I’M. YOU CAN’T GO TO A MOVIE AND YOUR WORKPLACE HAS SHUT DOWN. THE SCHOOL […]

The plague has come upon us. We must wonder who will croak. My fascination with death began in childhood. When I was four or five years old, a feral female cat named Gee was living in our woodpile. She soon gave birth to three calico kittens, each with its own distinctive pattern. We named them […]

This rap may sound elitist. Well, too bad. Apparently, my already overdeveloped sense of cultural alienation hasn’t stopped growing. Mainstream or Pop Culture in this country has always seemed woefully crass. I understand why so many good artists and writers expatriated to Europe in the old days.  I watched the Super Bowl with friends. Although […]

Once, years ago, I arrived late at the Tucson Rodeo Parade. All I got to see was the last few floats, a banner-bedecked buckboard and a roping horse or two, and then the final group in the parade: five yellow street-sweeping machines and small army of guys with rakes and brooms and those pivoting dustpans […]