Working with an editor on my memoir taught me to appreciate how rapidly language changes. Like floodwaters, it flows, alters course and refuses to be controlled. The French have tried to apply rules to their native tongue, hoping to preserve its purity, but snippets of English breach

On Black Friday, I encountered a woman scurrying toward the entrance to my retirement center.  The raw wind blew past as I held the door open for her. As I did, I noticed the shopping bag she clutched in her hand was filled to the brim. “Did you get a bargain?” I asked, making li

One day last week, PBS Newshour aired a segment about MRI imagining. Scientists are experimenting with it to “read” our thoughts. The invasion sounded creepier than what Edward Snowden envisioned when he warned that companies and governments are invading our emails. What raised my

The human race seems to be on a collision course with itself and women will play a critical role in the outcome. On the one hand, population growth poses an environmental question. How long can the earth sustain us?  “Already we have consumed more resources in the last 50 years tha

Last week, I was browsing through a health food store when a clerk offered me a sample of vegetable bacon. “You won’t be able to tell the difference from the real thing,” she assured me. Taking the sample, I popped it into my mouth and noticed how my taste buds perked up. I’d

Frankly, the younger generation’s meme against their elders strikes me as tame. “OK Boomer,” sounds like a capitulation, not rebellion. What? No clenched fists? No finger?  Hand gestures are out of the questions, I suppose. The feat would require a person to give up scrolling o

Not long ago, I grew weary of seeing my news feed treated like a public kiosk. I love promoting my friends’ achievements when they publish a book or have an art show, but commercials are fair game for exploitation. One day, for example, I attached an announcement for Just Read It, m

At the retirement center where I live, I recently sat down beside a woman who suffers from tremors. She was enjoying a late lunch by herself which made me wonder if she might find my presence a distraction. Her smile reassured me. As I settled in, I recalled the first time we’d met,

Given the many life and death threats facing our species, an algorithm to help identify which challenges are imminent and which can wait five minutes sounds great. Unfortunately, technology is part of the problem. The more we rely on it, the more we are likely to find ourselves in a d

A reader directed me to an article in the October issue of The Atlantic, John Seabrook’s comments on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and creative writing. Could machines learn to write better than professionals, it asked. I’ll probably go on foraging for ideas from this piece for a w