While standing in the checkout line of a grocery store, recently,  I ran into a friend and stopped to chat.  Engaged in a robust conversation a few paces  from my cart, I noticed a woman with a cane moving ahead of me.  I waved my fingers in the air to indicate the cart she was pa

Somewhere, I read the video camera on my computer could be used to spy on me.  Panicked, I called my technician to ask how I could protect my privacy.  He replied, “Stick masking tape over the lens.”  Okay, that was a cheap, low tech fix.  I got lucky.  But what about all the

When I was in my mid teens, my mother took me shopping for a dress to wear to a school dance.  Never destined to be buxom, in those early days, I had the anatomy of a brick.  Nonetheless, the sales woman at one shop was determined to find an outfit that would flatter my figure.  Sh

Recently, I’ve reviewed two novels that played with time in their storyline for Just Read It, the YouTube book review program I co-host with author Susan Stoner. (Click)  Personally, when plots mix episodes from the past with those of the present, exchanging them one after the othe

Barbara G. Walker, among her many talents, is a Biblical scholar, author of books like The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Man Made God.  Her latest essay, “Deconstructing Religion and Power,” draws  links between the origins of man and the rise of religion. (FFRF, Vo. 32, N

The other day, a wide-eyed employee at my retirement center approached me as I was headed for the dining room. “I just looked you up on Wikipedia.  Gosh, I didn’t know your were famous.”   I laughed. Being on Wikipedia doesn’t make me famous.  In fact, I recall an insider

When I was a kid, my friends and I spoke in pig Latin when we wanted privacy while others were present.   The rules were simple and familiar to many, though in our smugness, we weren’t aware of that until our 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Brown, slapped us down with a few pig Latin phra

Several years ago, an English friend let drop he’d been knighted by the Queen and given the highest rank of Most Noble Order of the Garter.  I was so impressed, I made Sir Ian Dunbar, my friend, a magistrate in my novel, Gothic Spring, and charged him with the task of conducting th

I’ve always wondered how a company famous as a tire manufacturer got into the culinary business and had the power to make or break the reputation of a famous chef.  According to writer Sam Kashner, the business began in 1900 when two brothers, competitive auto racers, invented deta

One of my readers, unhappy with my last two blogs on political correctness (blogs 6/23/15 & 8/10/15), sent me an article from the Atlantic Monthly which opposed my view.  (“The Coddling of the American Mind,” by Greg Kukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Atlantic Monthly, September 2