The earlier edition of this website contained about 4300 essays which I wrote between 2004-2013. The number of topics I wrote on was vast. For example, after a tour of Italy in 2006, I returned and wrote several essays on the architecture and religious history of Assisi. Around 2007 I became enamored of the natural world around us; this resulted in learning to identify hundreds of types of trees and plants/flowers, many of which I wrote about.  I would do "tree walks" before they were very fashionable, if they ever became so, and then write about what I saw.  Several places, such as Corvallis OR, Reed College (Portland OR) or Stanford University, had extensive "tree maps" or guides to the trees. By far the largest number of essays from that collection, however, is on words and their origin or meaning.

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This page will consist of two kinds of essays:  1) my "vintage" essays from that period, reprinted and perhaps updated or improved at times; and 2) my "new" essays, written in 2020 and beyond that explore a number of topics. Though I plan to continue to write on classic texts and their meaning, or words and their usage, and post those essays on their respective pages, I also will comment on current issues, books or articles, or other topics of interest and post them here. 

On March 8, 2020, I posted the first three pages of the vintage essays, which were five essays on my original site, on my memories of Junior High at Middlesex Junior High in Darien CT (1964-1967). I added one more essay on March 12, about my memories of specific people. 

Those essays on my Middlesex experience are here and here.

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A March 25, 2020 essay entitled, "Hi, I'm Bill, and I'm a Semi-Christian" is here. A March 29 essay on "From 'Black and White' to 'Spectrum' Thinking:  The Thought Revolution of the Twenty-first Century," is here.

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During 2006-2016, I was the consultant for the Autism Research Institute (San Diego CA). In that capacity I wrote a long, and some say useful, essay (about 20,000 words) on "Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy," a hot issue when I wrote it (2008) and since then, too. Those several essays are here.

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I am also posting several essays describing some of the legal and historical issues behind those most tumultuous years (1800-1803) in American history. I focus on the landmark Supreme Court decision Marbury v Madison.  I originally wrote these essays in Fall 2007, just after I had finished my law school teaching.

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My May 13, 2020 essay on "Diary in a Time of National Emergency," is here.

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