When I negotiated for a teachers’ union, years ago, I avoided the trap of arguing with School Board members about where to find money for health care or salary adjustments.  I insisted the district reset its priorities.  That’s why I turn a deaf ear when Republicans say there is

Walking through the mall near my apartment is as quiet as walking through a graveyard. Where, I ask, have all the people gone?  Worse, where are the stores?  Nordstrom, Payless and Radio Shack have disappeared and Sears, given the few people wandering the aisles, seems to be hanging

He sat opposite me at a popular restaurant, letting his coffee grow cold.  In the midst of his second divorce, he wanted to talk about a dating service he’d joined, one that matched couples using algorithms.  He hoped  the technology would help him find a new soul mate. I hoped h

The television show In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne as psychoanalyst who was unable to get his personal life in order, is one of my all-time favorite series. I remember saying to a friend, a therapist who was also a fan of the show, “This theater is too good for American televi

Two men stood ahead of me in the cafeteria line at the retirement center.  The first had severe heart problems, I knew.  The second probably did as well for his stomach hung over his belt as if it longed to kiss his thighs.  The first man bought a doughnut fritter glistening with e

” …there are experts and then there are experts, and they come in varying degrees of credibility.” So writes Milton Esterow about keepers of the canon in the  art world, particularly those devoted to Pablo Picasso’s contemporary, Amedeo Modigliani. (“The Modigliani Code

When Jennifer Doudna at Berkley and Emmanuelle Charpentier of France collaborated on their CRISPR research, a  gene-editing tool, (Blogs 9/11/15, 6/15/16) they little imagined they’d be starting a war.  But when Feng Zang, of the Broad Institute at Harvard/MIT, tried to patent his

Ingrham’s, a large publishing and distribution company for  writers’ works, sent me an email yesterday.  They were raising rates for their services.  The attachment was a long, single spaced document with several pages of contract changes.  I am careful about material like thi

As I wrote in an earlier blog, petty tyrants exist everywhere, even at the salad bar. (Blog 5/18/17.)  Young, old, dark, fair, tall or short, they hold certain traits in common, according to writer Joshua Kurlantzic.  (“Return of the Strongman,” by Joshua Kurlantzic, Bloomberg B