To the average person, the workings of government can appear mysterious and bizarre.  That strangeness may be why taxpayers can grow suspicious of their elected officials. For example, when a county sells land to an individual for $1, some might wonder. Is something going on under th

Donald Trump has written another executive order that will come to nothing. That order instructs the IRS “…to exercise maximum enforcement discretion to alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits religious leaders from speaking about politics and candidates fro

Professor Higgins’ line from My Fair Lady asks why a woman can’t be more like a man.  He sees women as frivolous, inferior creatures no real man could  understand.  But change the emphasis of his words and the question asks something different.  Why can’t a woman be more lik

How does a ticket priced at $75 to a live theater performance end up costing $1400 on the street?  The answer is  scarcity.  Being a miser, I think $75 for 1 to 2 hours of entertainment is pricy enough.  I don’t pay that much to the woman who cleans my apartment and her service

Americans have a strange relationship with money.  Everyone wants to be rich but most resent those who are.  Bernie Sanders would tie the wealthy to a pyre and light a match, even though he made over a million dollars last year. That schizophrenia between striving to be rich and hav

I’ve been a card-carrying member of the Labor Movement of a long, long time.  The organization, however, can be doctrinaire and retrograde in its thinking.  Unlike my brothers and sister, for example, I supported the NAFTA treaty.   Yes, I acknowledged there’d be a disruption

Once again, the deck chairs are being rearranged at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MOMA).  After the venerable Philippe de Montebello retired as director, Thomas Campbell (Blog 4/26/17) took his place, bringing with him a “new broom” approach to modernizing the institution.  Hi

When I went in for my first cataract surgery, the nurse handed me a medical questionnaire.  Among the boxes to be checked was the one that often gives me pause.  Was I white or Hispanic?  I never know what to do with these labels.  (Blog 8/8/17)  In the end, I checked the “whit

Facing the second of two cataract surgeries, I feel I’ve seen enough doctors for a while.  Unfortunately, as one gets older, a person tends to see more, not less, of them. I should be happy. I have access to medical care when I need it.  In some parts of the country, particularly

I’ve written more than once about the games people play to get their books on The New York Times best-seller list. (Blog 4/10/14).  The direct route, used for years by Evangelical writers, politicians, (Blog 1/14/16)) and well-known authors, like Jaqueline Suzanne and Wayne Dyer, i