Herewith, in the “you can’t make this stuff up” department: Several days ago, I had convinced a stock investment newsletter firm to refund $1,500 I paid for a service described in the promotion as the opposite of what was delivered. The thrill of victory was followed by the agony of defeat (to paraphrase Jim McKay, […]
It’s been a long time since I delved into the world of grammar, or more accurately, the mechanics of writing in this blog. As copy chief for a group of magazines for nine years, I learned a great deal about mechanical niceties that contribute to the craftsmanship of articles. In all media, I constantly encounter […]
I’d always admired John Grisham as a person, a humanitarian steeped in the pursuit of justice for the wrongly accused through works of nonfiction as well as fiction, and as a board member of The Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries. But, despite my authorship of two novels dealing with unjust convictions, one based on a […]
It was a case of beauty and the beast – roughly speaking. And the key word is rough. It describes the infrastructure in the Panama City, Panama, city center. With its status as the financial center of a region stretching from the south end of Central America to Colombia in northern South America, the city […]
Just a couple of days into the second presidency of Donald Trump, we are witnessing a wrecking ball smashing the government institutions and agencies that were erected on behalf of the American and global populations. Facing elimination or drastic paring are a host of departments and programs, including the Pentagon, Department of Education, Corporation for […]
December 22, 2024 Dear Friends, Relatives, Countrymen, I come not to bury Trump – I’d like to, but he seems invulnerable – and certainly not to praise him, as he is the antithesis of everything decent, virtuous and noble about the human condition. Indeed, the emperor has no clothes, exposing the rot for all in […]
It continued for 111 years. The torture of boys from age 11 to 18 was meted out by sadists who ran the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, in the Panhandle. The school was closed in 2011, when investigation of the horrors that were allowed for more than a century began, culminating […]
Dumb diddly damn. I made a bad error in my Perseverance post. I wrote, McCourt’s and Dall’s parents, or at least their fathers, were irresponsible alcoholics … No no no! It wasn’t Dall’s parents; it was Walls’ parents. Too many “alls,” and I got flummoxed. I stand corrected — especially after the whippings I should […]
To all of you lovers of thrillers and mysteries, I want to extend a warm – if a bit belated – welcome to my blog. What do I blog about? Let me count the ways (as Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetized. I had to look that up). On second thought, I can’t count what I don’t […]
High on the list of favorite books I’ve read is Angela’s Ashes, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner by Frank McCourt. Almost everyone I have exchanged opinions with found it depressing, a view I didn’t share. I laughed out loud at McCourt’s grim humor in his depiction of the miserable life of poverty that constituted his […]