Somewhere in the late 1990s, I ran a across an age-old maxim that had been updated for the computer age: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to use the internet, and he won’t bother you for weeks.” Ah, I wish that were so. I have […]
It has been awhile since my last blog entry. I’ve not been deliberately avoiding ‘thoughts from the spiral’; rather, I had an unexpected hard drive failure (as though anyone ever really expects the computer to just die one day). The good news is that I had recently performed a full-system back-up, and my laptop was […]
I read an article earlier today about the financial impact on productivity of cigarette smoking: “Early deaths caused by smoking cost the nation about $92 billion in lost productivity between 1997 and 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday” (source: CNN.com). I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that this loss of life […]
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine posted to our circle of friends about feeling painfully shy. After sending my reply — most of which appears below — to her (and cc’ed to the rest of our group), I was surprised to hear how many of us also engage in “practice conversations,” whether […]
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America Barbara Ehrenreich Owl Books (May 1, 2002) ISBN: 0805063897 Not quite a week ago, I caught an episode of Morgan Spurlock’s new “30 Days” television series on FX. In this particular episode, Spurlock and his fianc?e attempted to live on minimum wage for a month. I […]
Year ago, as my first novel, “Rhythm,” was in the hands of first draft readers, I went to work on a new book project about forgiveness. It was conceived as a series of letters between two fictional characters: a convicted murderer on death-row and the young daughter of the police officer he had killed. At […]
The Supreme Court has ruled that individual state laws allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes do not supercede federal marijuana laws, as detailed in this article from CNN.com: Supreme Court allows prosecution of medical marijuanaMonday, June 6, 2005 Posted: 10:40 AM EDT (1440 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities may prosecute sick people […]
