IN PRAISE OF DAUGHTERS Irshad Manji in her book “The Trouble with Islam” documents her life growing up in the Muslim culture and questions beliefs she feels are not only contradictory but squander the talents of women. She cites numerous passages in the Koran which seem to

“OLD MAN AND THE SEA” AND THE GRAPEFRUIT DIET A friend put me on to a mystery writer I’d never read and I’ve just finished the first in a series featuring a female detective. The author has a clipped style so the novel moves at a brusque pace.  Some introspection dots

WHEN ART SHOULDN’T IMITATE LIFE ART                                                     (courtesy: Castle Rock Entertainment) Shakespeare’s “Othello” is one of literature’s many examples of a dark passion that ends

I MAY BE A NOBODY, BUT… Emily Dickinson wrote a poem I’ve quoted before because it always brings a smile to my lips: (Blog: October 25, 2010) It begins with:                               “I’m a nobody!  Who are you?” Today, I’m giving

THOUGHTS OF WEATHER, BIRDS AND HAPPY BABIES The weatherman is predicting snow in the next few days and he’s probably correct. The science has become more credible than it was when I was a child.  The percentage of forecasts that are right as opposed to those that are wrong seems to

I HEARD A SAW BUZZ On my way to the park, a tall cottonwood tree stands, so tall it does damage to the clouds that pass overhead. I’m told it is almost 200 years old and I’ve been watching it cycle through the seasons for years. Yesterday I heard a buzzing in the neighborhood, lou

A WORD TO BAGHDAD FROM AN AMERICAN TAX PAYER A friend gave me a book called “The Ghost Map” by Steven Johnson which chronicles the cholera outbreak in London in 1854 and the efforts of two men, a physician and a local curate, to find the cause. It’s the sort of book that

“Wherefore O, Summer Day” – “The Bee is not Afraid” by Emily Dickenson T. S. Eliot wrote that April was the cruelest month, (“The Waste Land”) but sometimes, on a day like today, when the sun shines but provides little warmth and the ground is bar

CARPE DIEM In my blog post of February third, I commented on the bravery of journalists who put their lives on the line to keep the nation informed of news at home and abroad.  Little did I realize days later I’d be reading about the brutal rape and beating of Lara Logan, CBS repor

EGYPT AND TUNISIA – WELCOME! “Uhuru” is the title of a novel written in the 1960s by the American writer, Robert Ruark which deals with the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya that were intended to free the country from British rule. The word means “freedom” in Swahili and as