When I ran for public office, I described myself as a fiscal conservative but a social liberal.  Over time, I came to see my description was facile and without meaning.  What was I saying about myself?  That I don’t want people to pay much in taxes, but I wanted day care and heal

A wonderful bakery exists two blocks from my new address so Sunday morning I walked over to buy some fresh croissants.  On the way, I stopped at a newspaper stand and bent down to read the headline.  Apparently, our city commissioners had passed an ordinance which required property

Joseph Stiglitz, American economist and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, has written a thought provoking piece in January’s Vanity Fair.  In it, he looks at America’s future now that China has overtaken it as the world’s largest economy.  Most certainly, he predict

We hear a lot about crowdsourcing these days — the seemingly democratic, web friendly enterprise that brings small contributors together with small entrepreneurs to promote new businesses or to  help people who need surgeries raise the funds —  a pitiful way to provide h

My computer is behaving badly this week.  It’s not anything I’ve done.  I haven’t stuck my tongue out at it.  I haven’t kicked the thing.  It’s having a fit on its own and I’ve got 3 experts working on the problem.  That a computer can upset a person’s life in a na

Well yes, (yawn) Downton Abbey has returned for a new season on public television.  I quit watching after year 3 when the heir to the estate died in a car accident.  Frankly, I was never fond of any character, except Maggie Smith’s.  The rest are too bland or too precious to hold

As my play, “Woman on the Scarlet Beast,” goes public, there’s another role my director is about to assume: becoming a mother.  If the baby reads the calendar, it should arrive soon after the play ends.  I’m hoping it is a well-behaved child and won’t arrive before it is s

I got my annual letter from Social Security the other day.  Instead of going up the 2% predicted for retirees, I am going to receive $15 a month less.  Oh, I got my incremental rise, like everyone else, but my medical insurance rose high enough to eat the increment.  I’m not comp

Recently, I exchanged messages on Facebook with a young man from India.  He’d recently lost his virginity and felt guilty, but mostly his anxiety came from not knowing how the girl felt about the experience.  He didn’t love the young woman but had been carried away by his emotio

I’m sure most of us have made a computer mistake similar to the one I made recently. You punch in a password to a secure site and the computer spits it back as invalid.  You try again, thinking you’ve mistyped a letter, but the machine doesn’t budge an inch.  “Have you forgo