When I was in college, I became aware of a popular publication called, The Family of Man.   Between its covers were photographs from around the world, depicting how people in different countries, cultures and ages lived.  No words accompanied the photographs and  none were necessa

Unlike Al Qaeda which took pains to avoid the World Wide Web and the digital age, fearing their movements could be tracked, Isis has embraced technology, employing it to inflate the organization’s profile and using it as a recruiting tool.  According to writer Jared Cohen, the orga

Somewhere, I read the video camera on my computer could be used to spy on me.  Panicked, I called my technician to ask how I could protect my privacy.  He replied, “Stick masking tape over the lens.”  Okay, that was a cheap, low tech fix.  I got lucky.  But what about all the

Barbara G. Walker, among her many talents, is a Biblical scholar, author of books like The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Man Made God.  Her latest essay, “Deconstructing Religion and Power,” draws  links between the origins of man and the rise of religion. (FFRF, Vo. 32, N

The other day, a wide-eyed employee at my retirement center approached me as I was headed for the dining room. “I just looked you up on Wikipedia.  Gosh, I didn’t know your were famous.”   I laughed. Being on Wikipedia doesn’t make me famous.  In fact, I recall an insider

Several years ago, an English friend let drop he’d been knighted by the Queen and given the highest rank of Most Noble Order of the Garter.  I was so impressed, I made Sir Ian Dunbar, my friend, a magistrate in my novel, Gothic Spring, and charged him with the task of conducting th

I’ve always wondered how a company famous as a tire manufacturer got into the culinary business and had the power to make or break the reputation of a famous chef.  According to writer Sam Kashner, the business began in 1900 when two brothers, competitive auto racers, invented deta

One of my readers, unhappy with my last two blogs on political correctness (blogs 6/23/15 & 8/10/15), sent me an article from the Atlantic Monthly which opposed my view.  (“The Coddling of the American Mind,” by Greg Kukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Atlantic Monthly, September 2

I may have mentioned earlier that the house cleaning chicks at the retirement center where I live laugh at my flip top cell phone because it does nothing but allow me to make phone calls. Yesterday I found the pair of them on a  break, crouching against a wall.  Neither was talking.

Do unicorns exist? In Silicon Valley, they do.  Unicorns are tech start-ups that begin with a billion dollars or more of venture capital behind them.  In fact, there are more unicorns  there than  Harry Potter has seen in his world because, at the moment, tech is ripe with specula