Love Letters Live

The Middle East Peace Process is alive and well in the hands of School Principal Mohammad Kundos, his colleagues, students and their parents. While governments are sputtering along trying to bring an end to hatred among conflicting factions, Mohammad Kundos, a Muslim from a religious family spends his days at Hand In Hand school fostering understanding, love and...

Rescuing old, stray, abandoned and sometimes abused dogs is what Sherri Franklin does. She is on duty every day finding them loving homes, saving them from euthanasia, providing the most loving and tender hospice care to minimize their suffering. And, if she cannot find an adequate and compassionate foster home quickly, well, she takes them into her...

Living Beyond Normal An Autistic Autobiography is more than Adam Sherman’s life story. It is, as he says, a story bigger than he is. With honesty and candor he takes on the task of vanquishing the many misconceptions of autism. What drove him to write this book was sudden connection of Black Lives Matter...

When a boy on the spectrum and his teacher were unable to understand each other, what should the teacher have done?  Steve Spitz, the one neurodivergent boy in his class has some valuable thoughts on this. Granted, Steve was in grammar school decades ago when a student whose mind seemed to be wandering left teachers in a...

The LGTBQ community in good hands with Jill Baker as she focuses on gender, transgender and HIV wellness. A family nurse practitioner for 20+ years, Jill works as a primary care provider, which means she is authorized to prescribe medicines and take care of her own patients. Pressure on doctors to see so many...

Times change, and language changes to reflect it. Janna Barkin, author of He Has Always Been My Son , talks about the importance of using the pronouns that people choose to reflect their gender identity that may differ significantly from the gender they were assigned at birth. Janna tells us what it is...

  Alison Hitchcock wrote over 100 letters to a man she barely knew. They met at a yoga retreat and did not really connect until they were next to each other in a headstand and, oops, a simultaneous bodily function took over. Friendship sealed. Alison, not one to cook meals, wanted somehow to cheer up...

“It’s a girl!” came the proclamation at the birth of Janna Barkin’s second child. Her 5 year old daughter disagreed. Janna Barkin, author of He’s Always Been My Son , talks about raising her transgender son. Unconditional love for this beautiful child, of course, but more than that. We live in a constantly changing world where gender...

Steve Spitz knew early in his life that he differed from the other children in school. He learned differently, he processed in atypical ways, his mind wandered in class. That he grew up with a devoted family who loved him unconditionally was a blessing that softened the edges of challenges, yet it was only a short time...

Gordon Goodwin is a Grammy winner , composer, arranger, pianist, saxophonist, actor , founder and bandleader of Big Phat Band , popular radio personality , 4 time Hollywood Bowl performer, conductor for Johnny Mathis, worked with Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg, Christiana Aguilera, John Williams, Ray Charles. You may be tempted to ask “where does it end?” Don’t bother...

Before the days of matchmaking sites and online dating, there were personal ads in newspapers. Rose Taibbi, to keep her mind occupied while waiting to go to the wake of a dear friend, picked up a local newspaper and looked at the personals. She crossed off everyone but  two and, baffled as she was at why she...

Receiving a heart that saved his life, Steven Taibbi lives every day in profound gratitude and wanted to include the donor’s family in his life. His donor David Jason Jocobo, a healthy 36 year old man, father of four, suffered a brain aneurysm and collapsed in front of the family, dying just three days later. The family...

Color one of the most important facets of our lives and sometimes our defining identification. The colors we wear, what does it say about us? What color gets our heart rate up and probably feels like love? Do parents still tell teen children what colors they may not wear? Lee Rosenberg, high-school art teacher is back with some...

Steven Taibbi was born with a hole in his heart and has earned a stunning distinction; one he never asked for. Operated on right after birth, by the age of six he became the first person to live through two open hearts for ASD repair. Throughout his life he was told repeatedly that he had maybe only a year...

Teaching art to high school students may be more than you think. If you add into the lesson plans some physics, chemistry, discovering new talents, patience, and triggered memories, well, you have just entered Lee Rosenberg’s art class. Long ago and far away I had heard that good teaching is something like 90% entertainment. I believe that. Lee’s...

Feeling blue, anxious, needing something to cheer you up ? Heaven knows the world is pressing down on us all with glum news. Good news is the release of a movie that, admittedly, will not change the world, but it is sure to make you smile from way down deep. The Knights of Swing, about a teen swing-band of...

A 12 year old runaway girl, homeless and facing indescribable danger and misery is now in her 3rd year of law school. And, she is not the only one to have gone through the Jeffrey Sitcov’s Doors of Change and come out, yes, changed. Too many children have had to flee home to save their lives; they have...

As Passover is around the corner, Rabbi Peretz Mochkin dives right into the complexities of shedding various kinds of slavery that keep us from being as much as we can be. He talks about leaving the mental constraints of slavery; can people leave limitations foisted upon them?  Then there is relating instead of interacting and what that means personally...

Hint: he is the biological son of the sitcom mother of Ron Howard. Yes, Happy Days, and good for you and good for him as happy days there were. Pleased to present Jim Meskimen, an exceptional man you probably know him from more places than I could count on the fingers of four hands. The truth is because Jim...

Has the internet damaged our ability to trust what we see before our very eyes. You think it is Tom Cruise chatting on a Youtube? Think again. Maybe it is. Maybe not. Peter Katcoff, president of the Marin Philosophical Society , talks about loss of trust caused by the internet. People in positions of authority are lying, and lying...

With a war going on right now that has the potential to threaten the entire world in myriad ways, I know that legions of us have sent donations to help the people of Ukraine now facing horror after horror. Not to minimize countless political atrocities against people taking place daily, it’s just that this one was a reminder to me...

How much damage has the internet caused humanity? Plenty in ways both personal and universal. Peter Katcoff, with a slew of degrees, teaching experience and as current president of the Marin Philosophical Society, has a solid feel for societal changes and what they mean for us. The news, of course, is not all bad even though it becomes clearer...

Judy Tenuta is kicking cancer’s stage 4 ass! You may know her as The Love Goddess, Aphrodite of the Accordion, Singer, Comedienne supreme, stage actress performing in the Vagina Monologues and Menopause The Musical.  She has appeared in specials on HBO and a stint on General Hospital and is the first female stand-up comic to win “Best Female Comedian”...

The incomparable Noah Griffin (not a figure of speech here) has just been elected to the Tiburon Town Council. Although newly elected, he is no newcomer to Bay Area political life. He comes to this position with quite a history of accomplishment; a Harvard law degree, years of work with and for well-known and respected politicians including SF mayors...

What is the purpose of school administrators? Good question. Larry Strauss, teacher and well-known fiction author talks about what it takes to be a first-rate teacher, how and why teachers can fail, and the value of going above and beyond the basics – yes sometimes you have to break the rules to let your students know that, in...