The challenge in writing a daily blog is to stay balanced: to choose topics close to centers of interest my readers recognize, while providing enough novelty to prevent them from becoming bored. All writers face this delicate balance.  Harry Potter put J. K. Rowling on the map. But w

Virtue isn’t always a blessing, no matter what the devout might think.  Take humility, for example.  That got me into trouble last week. I wrote a blog, tongue-in-cheek, about an email from my web designer.  She was seeking information about the site.  As she’d provided the de

In pursuit of yesterday’s blog about growing old, I pause here not only to celebrate the 100th birthday of Beat Generation poet,  Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but also the publication of his new book, Little Boy: A Novel Unlike other writers in the pantheon of literary history, Ferlinghe

Last week, a call from my doctor’s office left me stunned.  My annual checkup was due, so I’d called earlier to ask if  I could pick my “poop” test in advance.  I like to get medical “stuff” out of the way before the warm weather. Imagine my surprise when the nurse repl

In a February blog, I mentioned an economic idea beloved by the far left called Modern Monetary Theory. (MMT)  It posits that  a  country with its own currency needn’t worry about accumulating debt because it can print money to pay off its interest.  Sounding too good to be true

My mother, who recently turned 103, and I had an Indian Restaurant where we liked to have lunch.  The moment we stepped through the door, steam rising from the kitchen, beckoned with aromatic fingers.  Curry. Cumin.  Saffron. Too often, we were the shop’s only patrons. Not becaus

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX has a new dream.  Beyond technology for the earth and the stars, he wants to redesign humankind.  If we don’t use our know-how to enhance ourselves, he believes artificial intelligence will conquer humanity. (“Hacking mortality,” The Week

For several months last year, I received more robot calls than there are fruit flies in a banana republic.  I let them ring without answering and, recently, they’ve stopped.  I don’t know if ignoring them is the reason, but I’m grateful for the silence.  To say these interrup

I have a friend who is averse to reading emails.  That makes it difficult for us to arrange to meet for coffee because I’m averse to telephones.  As spies we’d do dismally.  How would we come together long enough to arrange a dead drop, a place where we would leave and pick up

Want to know if you have an empathy deficit?  Try this experiment.  Without looking into a mirror, draw the letter E on your forehead.  If you print the letter as it might appear on the back of your eyelids, rather than the way someone else might read it, you may want to consider a