G. Kasten's Blog
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Apr.15.2013
For most of my life, I though it was important to be an unhappy person. Not for any good reason -- I've been pretty fortunate. But because something could go wrong at any moment, because how dare I be any other way? With people suffering from diseases, famines, poverty and untold tragedies all...
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Apr.06.2013
So I'm like, sitting in this little lunch place in this upper middle class setting, and drinking coffee and there are these, like, three young women talking nearby. Between the music and the distance I can only make out part of what they're saying. But I'm trying really hard not to mind my own...
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Mar.21.2013
When I was doing research for my book on perception and truth, I originally wanted to include a chapter on religion. After all, religion is a great example of the human ability to believe on faith alone.
But I ran into a problem. I wanted to interview people from different faiths, and try to...
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Mar.15.2013
Suppose we forget about the obvious arguments against armed guards in schools for a moment, and just focus on the question of whether or not they could actually prevent horrific violence. If the NRA suggestion is adopted, and an armed man or woman was hired to patrol every school in the United...
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Mar.12.2013
For years my parents deferred maintenance, even though the stockpile of garden chemicals and old paint cans at their house suggested otherwise. I go to pick this stuff up last Saturday. My now-adult son shows up to help me, sleepily at noon, still wearing his pajama bottoms. I'm in a hurry,...
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Feb.24.2013
Caryn James wrote an interesting review of Idol Gossip that appears in today's New York Times Book Review section. The book is about how people both worship and resent film actors.
I've long been fascinated with how films imply that our own lives could be more interesting. Characters in movies...
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Jan.01.2013
As amazing as inventions such as cell phones, computers, and GPS navigation all are, I'm sometimes surprised at how slowly our technology proceeds. After all, if technology is based on logic, why do we have to suffer through version 1.0 before we get to version 4.3?
One reason is that like in...
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Jan.01.2013
What was your biggest personal disappointment of 2012?
Maybe not a good thing to dwell on, but for me 2012 was the year I realized that my efforts to reconnect with a childhood friend just weren't going to pay off.
We'd met in the third grade, were terrific pals through the fifth grade, then...
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Dec.31.2012
What was the best thing you did in 2012?
Was it an experiment that worked well, a resolution you carried out, a good deed? Whatever it was, preserve that quality, that moment, that part of yourself, and bring more of it into the next year. If you do that, I think you can regard 2012 as a success...
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Dec.29.2012
How I Became Bitter
In the mid-sixties, at age 12, my neighborhood friend Tuffy took up the business of selling greeting cards. He would go door to door carrying one of his attaché cases, asking people to buy different types, ranging from boxes of birthday cards to all-occasion cards. I went...
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Dec.15.2012
I recently wrote and directed a short play, a sometimes daunting, often surprising and always humbling experience.
One afternoon as I sat in a library in Orinda, California, I experienced one of those rare events we all hope for and which never seem to happen; the play...
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Nov.18.2012
A few months ago, for no reason I was aware of at the time, I started reading books about motorcycle gangs. With horrified fascination, I learned about a subculture of people who had little use for the rules of society, treated women badly and...
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Oct.08.2012
This fall, Ryan Andresen, of Moraga, California was denied Eagle Scout status by the Boy Scouts of America because he had told others he was gay.
As you probably know, the rank of Eagle Scout is the highest honor a scout can achieve, and to earn the rank, the scout must jump through numerous hoops...
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Aug.16.2012
Why do people like to tell stories?
I'm not wondering so much why people like to write short stories and novels, or why people like to read stories, or listen to them.
I'm wondering why people like to tell stories.
Stories get told all day long, usually verbally. Often the style isn't any more...
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Jul.06.2012
That people can be incredibly vicious or amazingly enlightened was an unofficial lesson I learned while attending a Quaker summer camp in northern California in the summer of 1967. I quickly became good friends with Michael, who at age 12 was already a confirmed pacifist. The camp was divided into...
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Just Trust Me is a needed resource for finding truth in a world in which we are far too accustomed to accepting corporate marketing propaganda as fact. Randy Kasten reveals how the lack of accurate and forthright information is destructive to our health, social institutions, and communities.”
—Larry Cohen, Founder and Executive Director, Prevention Institute
About G.
G. Randy Kasten is a civil litigation attorney with twenty-five years of experience and is the author of Just Trust Me: Finding the Truth in a World of Spin (Quest Books, September 2011)
His site is: GRKasten.com
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