Last week, I did a search on Amazon, looking for the correct spelling of an author’s name. I didn’t want to buy his book, nonetheless for several succeeding days, I was dogged by promos whenever I surfed the web. I wasn’t intrigued. I felt assaulted. What I didn’t know was the
“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare wrote and with the advent of social media, his words couldn’t be truer. So many comedians exist on the internet that late night television shows have hired as writers some of Twitter’s leading lights. (“Satirized for Your Consumption,
When I revealed in an earlier blog that, prior to the election of George W. Bush, I’d been a registered Republican, readers admitted they were surprised. We live in a complex world, I replied, and I’m not averse either to profits or the stock market. (Blog 5/19/15) Not to pu
I came across another example of the way our government parses words to obscure rather than clarify meaning. In the past, readers may recall I had an exchange with a former staff member for Under Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who served in the George W. Bush administration.
Two of the least effective words in the English language are “ought” and “should” which, when employed, are more likely to annoy rather than influence a person’s behavior. If “ought’ and “ should” had any clout, obesity would be conquered, along with alcoholism and
Recently, a woman on my Facebook page, a leader in my community, admitted she had been abused by her father while she was growing up. Stunned by the revelation, I marveled at the manner in which she’d lived her life, holding positions of great responsibility which betrayed nothi
We have a new reason “to despise Facebook,” says Jay Barmann of SFirst.com. (“Talking Points,” The Week, October 3. 2014 pg. 16) The company has long had a policy that requires users to subscribe under their real names. But what’s in a name some Drag Queens are beginni
Whenever my co-host, Susan Stoner, and I sit down to discuss the venue for another of our YouTube book review series Just Read It, the air crackles with good vibes. Collaboration is something novelists seldom get to experience and while I enjoy the contemplative times of writing a
A blog reader wrote to thank me for sharing the latest PEW Research Center’s survey about Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. In the main, the attitudes expressed there were similar to those found in the PEN survey I discussed earlier. (Bog 12/2/13) Snowden’s revelations about t
Not long ago, one of my Facebook friends threw up his hands, disgusted with the level of violence in the world. “It’s time for the people to do something if our leaders can’t,” he declared. Intrigued, I wrote back to ask what he had in mind, and like most of us who are