Not long ago a blog reader unsubscribed because he was furious that I would write about investing in oil stocks.  (Blog 3/30/15)  I wrote back saying that I didn’t think a bet on whether or not a company’s fortunes would rise or fall had much affect on the melting of the polar i

If a robot can become a financial planner, (Blog 4/15/15) can other robotic services be far behind?  House cleaning is a candidate.  A personal secretary is likely.  Maybe even a cook.  How about emotional needs where touch is so important?. (Blog 4/22/15).  Yes, I’m alluding t

“Next to oil, looting is the best-paying sector for Isis…” admits Michael Danti of the U. S. State Department Syrian Heritage initiative.  (“Syria’s Monuments Men” by Bryan Schatz, Mother Jones, May/June 2015, pg. 12.)   What the terrorists don’t destroy, they allow l

It read like a mystery thriller, the story one of my former students, now an attorney, related to me over afternoon tea.  During the Vietnam war, she had been active in the antiwar movement and had risen to the defense of several prisoners, calling for social reform.  Unfortunately

Checking my email this morning, I found a message from a blog reader which wasn’t his usual fare.  Instead of an article about writing, he’d sent me an ACLU petition in support of a state House Bill to secure a citizen’s right to film or take pictures of police actions.  The c

A reader sent me a New York Times article about the pluses and minus of earning a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.).  (Click)  I put the article aside for a while as  I admit,  I’m ambivalent about the subject.  Setting standards for creativity strikes me as an oxymoron.      N

Sometimes I feel guilty for needing so much time alone.  Will my acquaintances think I’m standoffish, I wonder. Then I remind myself, they probably don’t think of me at all.  Either way, to write, I need solitude.       About solitude, Darya Zabelina of Northwestern Univer

Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent article about mindfulness gave me a laugh.  “…in the Bay Area, I learned that rich locals liked to unwind at Buddhist monasteries in the hills, where, for a few thousand dollars, they could spend a weekend doing manual labor for the monks.” (“Min

In a stunning amicus brief before the US Supreme Court, South Carolina’s state attorney general has used the 14th and 10th Amendment of the Constitution to argue that while racial discrimination may be illegal across the land, discrimination against women and gays is not. (Click) 

My friend and colleague, Susan Stoner, Sage Adair mystery series writer, sent me an article the other day with an “I told you so,” message.  Stoner self publishes her work and uses a distributor to make her series available in bookstore.  For some time, she’s encouraged me to