If there is a truth in this world, it is that media reports can seldom be taken at face value.  Note the recent article from Fox News. (Click)  It speaks of an FBI gag rule that prevented agents from revealing facts about Hillary Clinton’s emails.  The implication of a cover-up i

In the virtual world, humans become real at the touch of a computer keyboard and language is what we use to define ourselves.  Governments know this.  So do commercial enterprises.  They’ve been at work developing tools to determine what our keyboard strokes  and our word choice

Want  help from Amazon with a purchase or a product?  Here’s the customer service number: 1-888-280-4331.  May it do you some good.  Knowing the number did little for me when I called at the  behest of two of my book readers.  Both had written reviews for my latest novels, Bal

I have no idea why Aldus Huxley titled his futuristic novel, Brave New World.  I feel anything but brave just thinking about tomorrow. Technology keeps tearing ahead of us while our brains scramble to cope.  I’ve barely become acquainted with the world of illusion, which includes

We’ve all heard the commercials promoting prescription drugs.  Take a pill to reduce a headache but the side effect could cause a heart attack. Not only is the pharmaceutical approach to illness, risky, but the cost of the drugs can be astronomical.  One company, Glaxo-Smith-Kline

I’ve been eating Spinach and doing yoga exercises in the hope of living long enough to see a self-driving car.  But yesterday, I  woke up to learn my aspirations are way behind the curve.  More likely, I’ll see flying cars before self-driving ones.  Believe it or not, the tech

Browsing through a recent edition of The Baffler, I came across an… I don’t know what. Was it an essay, a poem?  The piece consisted of 300 words strung together without a period and closed with, “Remember there is life and there is death…” (“Remember This,” by Robe

If you break out in a rash at the thought of genetically modified foods (GMO), read on.  A sweeping study  released by the National Academy of Science has concluded that GMO’s are as safe as any other food.  (“GMO’s: Safe to eat, says science,” The Week, June 3, 2016, p

Thinking about Artificial Intelligence, Stephen Hawking warns, “One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand.” (“The End of Code,” by Jason Tanz,

I sometimes marvel at the subjects some authors choose to explore.   Take, Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing by Matthew Kirschbaum.  (“Word Perfect,” by Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, June 2016, pgs. 71-73.)   How large, I wonder, is the audience that