A MODERN VERSION OF THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE I’m celebrating today. A friend who has been shopping her first novel around for a couple of years has finally been given a contract. The publisher is a small, Independent company but the terms look decent. I’m sure she’s going to si

STRAWBERRY AND VANILLA ICE CREAM – a very courageous act.  Yesterday, I found myself walking through the Barnes and Noble bookstore and as I had a little time on my hands, I talked to a young man who was promoting the $99 Nook. He was patient as he took me through some of its featu

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES Thomas Frank has written a new book, “Pity the Billionaire” which takes a look at the ideological divide that seems to be pulling the country apart. He admits his conclusions are observational and not derived from any study, scientific or otherwi

YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER… I’ve returned from my weekly water fight with my 96 year-old mother. We don’t throw balloons at one another. That would be more fun than coaxing my parent to sip a few drops of the liquid to stay hydrated. Drinking water is something she’d rather

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS… I’M NEVER SICK OF THEM I came across another delicious word in my reading the other day: Coruscate.  It means to give off sparkles. As it begins with a sound that reminds me of “corrosive,”  “corrupt” or even “corrugated,” it struck as one least

THE AGE OF PERICLES IS UPON US Decades ago, when I was in college, I listened to lecture in which the professor argued that enforcing some of our laws some of the time didn’t mean people wanted them enforced all of the time. Being young, I thought the idea was shocking, but he went

WINNING AND LOSING – WHAT’S IN A WORD? The sun was out during my walk through the park this morning but the landscape was misty and cold. Rounding a bend along the path, my gaze fell upon a witch hazel shrub that was sporting a few bright yellow blossoms. In the pale light, I wasn

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT There’s a new book out which analyzes the amount of fraud going on in the investment world. It’s “Tangle Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America” by James B. Stewart, reviewed by Jennifer Szalai in the February 2012 edition of “Ha

IN DEFENSE OF INTOLERANCE Recently, a woman on my Facebook page posted an article about a man in a Middle East who bludgeoned his wife to death because she gave birth to a female child. Naturally, I sat stupefied and tried to imagine how such brutality could happen, but a few moments

THERE’S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN – Oh Yeah? A few weeks ago, I was stumbling around on my computer when I came upon blog with a language translator attached. With the click of a mouse, readers could access the same message in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi…you name it. I played aroun