More than once during my tenure as a politician, I voted to  deed public property to private parties for $1.00.  That is the minimum allowed by law to secure a financial transaction in my community.  Much of the time, what was awarded was a corner lot, too small to build on, which

Hold on to your pacemaker.  Latest news is they can be hacked.  Worse news is that people are making stock bets on that vulnerability. Normally, security companies wouldn’t explore medical devices as an avenue for hacking.  One supposes decoding their encryption wouldn’t take h

For me, the most jaw dropping division in this wide and varied country of ours comes not from politics, religion or race but from the gap between those who have heaps of money and those who don’t.  Life couldn’t be more stupefying than what passes for normal on the pages of magaz

Our president-elect has told so many lies to the public, his fibbing has taken on a transparency akin to truth-telling.  What’s more, when his followers fail to notice his contradictions, they provide an example of cognitive dissonance working on a massive scale.    Cognitive di

Like a person in a drunken stupor, I careen between bouts of messiness and sterile order.  My physical work environment is becoming more and more sterile as I gain skills that allow me to file documents on my computer.  The evolution poses a new problem, however. I sometimes get los

This is embarrassing.  I went to a book sale the other day and sold all my novels, including my personal copy of Gothic Spring.  I sold it  by mistake.  The book is valuable to me because  I use it when I do readings. The pages are  dog-eared and marked with comments I wish to m

If you’re feeling jittery about where the country is going, there’s good news on the personal front.  The link between physical exercise and mental acuity is real. (“Ask the Brains,” Scientific American Mind, Sept/October 2016, pg.72.)  As we already know, the brain requires

Before Donald Trump has been sworn into the presidency, pundits, their past failed prognostications forgotten, are predicting he will be a one-term office holder. (Click)  Meanwhile, Democrats are wringing their hands and emailing to their constituents about their disappointment over

After the November 8 election, a friend sent me the November 11, 2016 OP Ed piece by David Brooks from the New York Times.  A number of my liberal friend speak kindly of the writer.  He is their token conservative, I presume.  In deference to them I reprint his remarks and follow w

Until the 2016 Presidential election, it was safe to say women were making strides toward equality.  Some hurdles remain Women are  barred from the priesthood in the Catholic Church and still lag behind men in equal pay. (“Noted,” The Week, November 11, 2016,pg. 16,).  Whether