Most people were surprised by the political defeat of Eric Cantor in the Virginia Republican primary recently.  Political pundits the previous night had yawned as they predicted the outcome: a cakewalk for Cantor.  That’s the problem with pundits.  They have no special wisdom. 

Every year I pay  to have someone prepare my taxes.  I don’t use TurboTax because a friend’s experience left him tied in knots and feeling as if he’d been forced to waltz with an octopus.  That’s why I’d rather pay to have my taxes done than wander alone through the bramb

My blog of July 8, 2014 was about the effects of random acts of “niceness.”  It told the story of one writer’s decision make a conscious effort to be kind to a stranger each day.  When she opened her eyes to the opportunities, she discovered people all around her were performi

Academia is busily stirring another tempest in a tea pot as it attempts to assimilate technology into the teaching of humanities.  The new approach is called digital humanities and the first problem is how to define it.  At the moment the term includes everything from transcribing l

As my play nears production, my 4th novel goes nowhere while I search for an agent.  Getting a big-time agent is at the top of my bucket list — someone out of New York or Chicago or San Francisco.  I had a brush with one the other day, but she declined my manuscript because th

Those of us who stand at the bottom of their climb to literary success may be surprised to learn that established writers continue to face rejection once they’ve made it to the top. Having produced 4 novels, George Orwell found it nearly impossible to publish Animal Farm, for exampl

Last Friday, the nation celebrated its 238th birthday with the usual fanfare.  However battered our democracy may seem at times, it’s still a work in progress and looks to the future.  Generations upon generations of citizens have carried this political experiment forward, though

I read what seemed a snide comment in the news the other day.  Lec Walesa, former president of Poland, observed that the United States was declining as a world power.  Instead of being incensed, I cheered.  Since World War II, the United States has been defending liberal order in t

                        (Courtesy of redtri.com)

Most of my travels on the internet involve research for my writing, my blog in particular.  Women’s rights issues interest  me, so I often find myself reading material about the Middle East.  Knowing about big data as I do, I shouldn’t have been surprised when one day an ad for