Recently, two-term Congresswoman, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina gave a speech on the topic of how to bring more women into the  Republican Party.  Her comments, however, were directed toward her male counterparts:  Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level… Many o

Recently, I wrote that if corporations are people, they need to be better Americans. (blog 8/15/14)  They need to pay their taxes, for example.  Allan Sloan’s new article in Fortune explains one way some companies are shirking their duty.  (“Positively Un-American,” by Allan

While I cling to my hope of finding a big agent for my 4th novel, I know the trend is against me.  Self-publishing is becoming so acceptable, that big publishers are getting into the business.  Even the New York Times Bestseller list includes self-published authors, something that w

I sat down to lunch with a former student recently.   He’s now a tenured English professor at a major university, so we fell into a discussion about how digital communication is transforming our language.  After we’d finished our quiches and said our goodbyes,  I came home com

One of my favorite pastimes when I was a teenager was to cruise Sunset Boulevard, starting from the beach at Santa Monica, California and following the winding road all the way to where it ended at the Los Angeles railway station.  The scenery along the route was varied.  The low be

I’ve just finished an article in Harper’s about life coaches. Though largely unschooled and uncredentialed, these people make a living as cheerleaders for those who can afford to pay.  Their role is to tell strangers how to live their lives.  Nice work if you can get it. (“50,

I knew the director I was about to meet hadn’t been born when I first sat down to write my play.  Young enough to be my granddaughter, the giddy days of the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment was a footnote in her history book.  That baby boomers were once flower children mig

Not long ago, one of  my Facebook friends threw up his hands, disgusted with the level of violence in the world.  “It’s time for the people to do something if our leaders can’t,” he declared.   Intrigued, I wrote back to ask what he had in mind, and like most of us who are

When Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time  came out several years ago, someone hid money at the back of one copy to see if anyone  got to the end of this complex work on cosmology.  The book hit the best seller list and remained there for 4 years, but no one has ever a

I shocked a few friends when I announced that I’d sold my home and would be moving into a retirement center.  They weren’t surprised because they thought I was too young.  My grey hair and sagging jowls say otherwise.  So why the eyebrows lifted to form a question?  I suspect