I’ve written endlessly about the burden of college tuition for students. (Blog 6/16/15) I’ll say it once more. The cost of higher education is an outrage. We’re a nation blighting the future of our country by impoverishing our young. What I hadn’t considered until
Last week, I was sitting quietly in the bistro of my retirement center, munching on a cheese and tomato pizza, when one of the residents breezed in, ordered a ham sandwich and swooped into the chair opposite me at my corner table. She used to be in show business so she always leaves
A blog I wrote over a year ago was about Craig Mundie’s solution to all the data mining going on in the world. He advised that the practice was so pervasive, we’d be wise to create rules for how data can be used rather than attempt to prevent its collection. (Blog 4/4/14) An
It’s a flaw of mine, I know, that I can follow an author’s writing yet know little about him or her. Only recently, for example, did I learn that Edith Wharton, one American’s great novelists, was an expatriate. She lived in France and distinguished herself during World Wa
Recently a group of international women leaders, which included Gloria Steinem, crossed into North Korea in an effort to begin a face to face reconciliation with the women of that country. (Click) In doing so, the group was criticized for playing into North Korea’s hands, partic
Recently, a blog reader emailed an article from the Wall Street Journal that got my juices flowing. (Click) Columnist Peggy Noonan was taking some Columbia University students to task for their editorial in the college newspaper, Spectator. (Click) In sum, the article was a response
“What makes aerial drones so different from manned aircraft is not their efficiency as hunters or killers but their ability to linger.” So writes William M. Arkin, a former army intelligence analyst. (“Loitering With Intent,” by William M. Arkin, Harper’s, June 2015 pg.
Science has finally answered a woman’s age old question: Why do men exist? (Click) Apparently, nature opted for variation rather than replication and so the “X” chromosome gained the potential to become a “Y” chromosome, introducing competition. An amoeba, dividing end
No question about it, technology is taking us into brave new worlds, worlds that until now were the purview of science fiction. One example is a recent article by James Surowiecki who warns about the problems we can create when we use robots as stockbrokers, allowing them to respond t
I wish literary critics would say what they mean. Being vague or abstruse hardly qualifies them to make comments about other people’s writing. Jason Guriel’s recent praise of Clive James’ poem, “Japanese Maple,” is an example of critical opacity. (“A Final Flood of Col