I AM A SICK MAN…. I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. So begins Fyodor Dostoevsky’s narrator in, Notes from the Underground. Certainly, the author has developed one of the most unpleasant characters in literature — not the most
I ran across a quote the other day that brought me up short. An artist is an artist because he is not happy with the world, so he creates his own existence. (Robin Gibb, quoted in Billboard.com, reprinted in The Week, 6/8/12 pg 19.) I’ve long heard that a great artist has to suffer,
Larry McMurtry and I shall never meet, yet I’m certain we’re kindred spirits. I picked up the second of his three-book memoir at the Dollar Store the other day. I’d never read any of his work, though I knew he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove and that he wrote the sc
In 1957 Vance Packard wrote a best seller called The Hidden Persuaders. It recounted claims by market researcher James M. Vicary who insisted that consumer choices could be influenced through subliminal messaging. Words or images flashed on a theater screen, he said, would result in h
I decided to shake up my world a little by letting one of my women’s magazine subscriptions lapse. I wanted to subscribe to something different. Instead of More I signed up for Scientific American Mind. I haven’t regretted my decision. The information the May/June edition was inte
I thought I knew what I was doing when I began a new career in my 70’s. I am retired. My income meets my needs. What better time to explore new terrains? Though I felt confident about this new direction, as I reflect back, I realize I was, and probably still am, something of a child
An essay titled “The Headscarf as a Feminist Statement,” caught my eye the other day. Nadiya Takolia had written a spirited defense of her right to wear the hijab, an Islamic scarf that conceals a woman’s hair yet leaves her face exposed. She calls her decision a radical act bec
I walked home in a light drizzle the other day after a delightful coffee with a former student. He’s in his mid-50’s and proud of his first grandchild, a girl name Jefri. He didn’t much care for the name, but, of course, he had no say in the matter. I’ve read a few studi
I never expected to be a cover girl. Now I am. A former political colleague, Jewel Lansing, has written a book — Multnomah: The Tumultuous Story of Oregon’s Most Populous County. As a former commissioner, I, along with others, appear on the jacket. Jewel co-authored
A friend sent me a blog recently by Dr. Mark Allen Sircus. He was writing on the importance of being a good listener. By that he didn’t mean to sit quietly. Sitting quietly allows the mind to go on speaking to itself. No, he was talking about being open to ideas that are for