Category: Blog

I once asked a friend whose son was playing football in the 7th grade what he felt when he saw his child getting hit and knocked to the ground.  His reply shocked me: “I love it,” he said, staring me straight in the eye, daring me to be surprised!  “It means,” he continued, “that he’s…

I was sitting around the other day, twiddling my thumbs, in a general state of procrastination over something or other (which is par for the course of my life), contemplating the year gone by, and wondering as we head into this holiday season why we do the things we do.  For instance, when we go…

In the blinding euphoria of the recent election, before we endow them with messianic auras, let’s remember they’re just politicians—all of them.  Decent human beings who care about family, country, etc?  Yes.  But all of them, in every country on the globe, are enmeshed in a system (created by their political forebears and promulgated by…

In 1985, when I was living in Bahrain I watched all seven games of the World Series between the Cardinals and the Royals without knowing anything about baseball. I still don’t know why or how I made it through the series, for I watched it alone, without Google, and without knowing the difference between a ball…

Another ingredient has been pitched into the toxic pre-election political cauldron as teachers find themselves in a stand-off with the mayor of Chicago, a situation that is being watched with interest around the country as the inevitable questions surrounding education and money take center stage.  As with most things these days the case has been…

I was in our living room in Bombay on September 11, 2001, having arrived 4 days earlier from the UK after two weeks of traipsing around Wales and Snowdonia and parts of Northern France and Belgium with my cousin in her cabriolet with the top down (the cabriolet not the cousin), for it was mostly…

I’ve been fortunate never to have experienced the crippling effects of chronic  depression, although I know many people who have; of course I’ve had my share of despair where the world seemed to spin out of control and even sleep, if it could be had, offered no respite.   We’ve all spent late nights sprawled on…

Augusta National Golf Club just admitted two female women into its ranks.  But why are so many people hailing it as a victory for women?  Did women and the so-called Women’s Movement really need authentication by an effete old boy’s network of stodgy businessmen?   On the surface it would appear that they have finally put…

The Olympic motto has always intrigued me because across so many disciplines it seems to be honored more in the breach than the observance.  Faster, Higher, Stronger is a clean set of aspirations for athletes all over the world—beautiful in its simplicity and crystalline clarity, with no room for doubt (now that electronic photo-finishes are…

A dozen years ago I became a US citizen, joining my children and circle of friends in this grand experiment. It wasn’t easy dealing with the INS and a battery of incompetent petty bureaucrats who forced us to take our fingerprints four times on four separate occasions spread over two years (for a variety of…