Weaving in and out of the lunch tables at the retirement center one afternoon, I paused to sit beside a woman I hadn’t seen for a while. Looking up from her book, she frowned.  “Do you know the meaning of viand?” she asked.  Wondering if hers was a trick question, I answered t

The Heritage Foundation believes it knows what’s good for America.  That’s why I paused to read Kevin D. Robert’s Forward to its latest manifesto, Project 2025. Should Donald Trump be elected our President in November, Robert’s introduction to the document summarizes the chan

Gone fishing for the day.  Celebrating 13 years of blogging and 12 years of Just Read It video book interviews. I’m back next week.  Thank you, readers!

My U. S. Senator voted against the Ukrainian-Istreal aid package that Congress passed recently.  He said he opposed it because of  Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct in the Gaza war.  I like my Senator. Nonetheless, I sent him an email that accused him of being long on principle, but s

Google sent out a 3-page, single-spaced summary of their revised terms of service the other day.  Frankly, I’d rather read instructions for giving myself an enema. Plowing through the document’s legaleze is pointless. What voice do I have to make changes? None. Besides, Google as

She’s a star within the Evangelical community, but I won’t identify her for reasons that will become clear.  We met decades ago when I was an elected official. Though I am an atheist, I treated members of the religious right with the same courtesy I gave to Mothers Against Drunk

I was grateful to my neighbor for helping me with a technical problem.  He’s the resident guru on computers at the retirement center and far too modest about himself. Aware that I might need his advice in the future, I asked if he’d care to adopt me despite my advanced age.  A s

A month before leaving public life, I published a critique on the media.  At a retirement gathering soon after,  a reporter asked why I’d waited until leaving office to share my views. Previously, I’d written other papers –one on property taxes and the other on Grand Jurie

Watching a reporter interview historian Timothy Snyder one evening, I sat up in my chair when he laid out his thoughts about  Donald Trump’s strategy for the current 2024 Presidential election.  Snyder presumed the former president knew he would lose the contest and was taking unp

I’ve given up worrying about the existence of God.  Discussions about diety I leave to the young. After decades spent thinking about the inscrutable, all I gleaned from religious precept was that misogyny rises from it like a noxious odor.  I’m not alone in this opinion. Donna N