President Trump A week ago, I sat down and churned out a letter, stream-of-consciousness fashion, for my friend from Indiana to send to backward acquaintances who have fallen under the spell of the fraud in the White House. He was not putting his name on it, he said, because they are gun-toting fools who have […]
Noah Webster Today is D Day. Excuse me, not that D Day, which was June 6, not October 16. And that year was 1944, when military forces of the United States, mainly, and a coalition of other Democratic nations crossed the English Channel in a vast armada of ships and boats, landing on the […]
Nov 21, 2020 Dear Sir or Madam: I am utterly dismayed that you people continually send to your customers misinformation about what is a healthy diet. You list what you call the “Good” fats and the “Bad” fats, and you are dead wrong about seven of the 16 that you list. “Unsaturated Fats” are labeled […]
Tampa Bay Chance encounters of related people or things in unlikely circumstances often elicit the cliché, “It’s a small world.” These days, we all likely would be better off if it were a larger world, so we wouldn’t be crammed as closely together, and the coronavirus wouldn’t spread as readily. A little more physical […]
December 23, 2020 Dear Friends and Relatives, These days, I am reminded of a favorite expression by my late brother-in-law: “We’re havin’ some fun now.” I dredge that up with irony dripping off me like foam sliding down a glass of beer poured too fast. How in God’s name did almost half of this country […]
Michael Hartnett Michael Hartnett is the author of six novels, his latest being Blue Gowanus, which I reviewed below. He holds a doctorate in English, is a high school teacher and adjunct professor at Long Island University, and has been a poetry editor. A trenchant critic of social phenomena, he had this sober, and […]
Rob Eagar, a book marketing expert and author of several nonfiction books, is the first person I’ve come across in the business of public relations to abandon a neutral position on President Donald Trump, excoriating his attempt to destroy our democracy and calling on writers to do likewise. He penned the following essay a few […]
Some 30 years ago, I bought a Hon office chair from Costco, one with a gray, cloth fabric that I could sit on after a sweaty workout without my skin sticking to it. Its tension-control knob allowed me to lean back and put my feet up on my tech-frustration-battered desk for lengthy phone conversations. A […]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren The bumper of my 2010 Mazda is a stream of stickers dedicated to two people who couldn’t be more different: Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. On either end of the bumper is the same sticker: A pumpkin carved to look like Trump with the adjacent message, “Trumpkin: Orange on the outside, hollow […]
San Jose, Costa Rica “These vagabond shoes, they’re longing to stay.” That wasn’t a typo. If I keep having the kind of experiences like the one I just had in a trip to Costa Rica for dental work, my rendition of New York, New York will alter a lyric. Allow me to digress. Ten years […]