When I was a child and did something my father thought was stupid, he’d shake his head and say, “Must be something in the water.”  He said it countless times before I was old enough to drink wine instead of water so his words never left me. I’m inclined to revive them again a

My life is pretty hectic at the moment.  Besides caring for my 98 year-old mom, there’s my play to worry about and preparations for my move to a retirement center.  When I saw my calendar for the upcoming week, I threw up my hands.  “Oh no.  Not another lunch, coffee, movie!�

While having lunch with a friend, I expressed  frustration in my attempt to obtain a permit from the city that would allow a moving van to park in front of my house. The commission staffers  overseeing the traffic department had no idea which division handled permits and so I stumbl

While scientists attempt to map the human mind in a well-funded program called The Brain Activity Map Project (BAM), theologians and philosophers wonder if that mapping will give us a greater understanding of consciousness and free will than we have now.  As writer and Pulitzer priz

We humans have curious minds and I use the word in two senses: 1) as minds that take an interest in the world around them, and 2) as minds being strange in themselves.  Hamlet observed, “What a piece of work is man,” (Hamlet II, ii) and  I couldn’t say it better.  The entire

Each year when the time comes to renew my subscription to More Magazine, I equivocate.  At 78, I’m too old to care about mascara that will make my eyelashes grow.  I have naked, Mona Lisa eyes.  I don’t mind.  I no longer wish to paint a face “to meet the faces I shall meet.

Language is so wonderfully malleable.  It can do almost anything except my dishes.  Take Lewis Carroll’s, The Jaberwocky, for example.  This tale about a fearsome beast is funny,  not because of what the words say, but because of how they sound. “His vorpal blade went snicker

By now, everyone is so familiar with genetic engineering that if we read some scientist had crossed an octopus with a watermelon to create a waterpus, we wouldn’t blink.  We’d accept it because we’re already familiar with genetically altered tomatoes that look great but tastes

“Don’t expect Congress to protect you against all possible data invasions,” says Sergey Feldman, a data scientist, when asked to comment on “deep learning,” the latest frontier in computing. (“Do Androids Dream of Electric Lolocats?” by Dana Liebelson, Mother Jones, Sept

Not long ago, I contacted a friend to ask if he was interested in seeing the new Woody Allen film, Magic in the Moonlight.    His reply was terse, something to the effect that he would not support the work of a child molester, a reference I presume to Allen’s marriage to his adop