How to get through a political season that's likely to be mean and nasty? Smile. Even a writer as serious as Borges knows this. Borges’ peculiar sense of humor led him to make remarks that, intended in jest, today would be considered politically incorrect. On his...

  “[The Importance of Being Earnest] is exquisitely trivial, a delicate bubble of fancy, and it has its philosophy…That we should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.” Oscar Wilde...

 As I write this I sit in fog drenched Mendocino while much of the country suffers under the horrid heat of a global heat wave. I indulge myself in quiet esthetic contemplation in the midst of an ugly political cat fight that divides the country. In a word I choose...

 Well, here we are in one hell of a pickle. America may have been here before but never quite as deep in the weeds as we are now. Just weeks away from the two major political conventions both parties are committed to unpopular octogenarians for the highest office in...

You can’t keep standing on tiptoeor walk in leaps and bounds.You can’t shine by showing offor get ahead by pushing.Self-satisfied people do no good,self-promoters never grow up.Such stuff is to the Taoas garbage is to foodor a tumor to the body,hateful.The follower of...

 I think I can, I think I can. I think I can.I knew I could. I knew I could. I knew I could.                   The Little Engine That Could It’s better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.                    Paraphrase of Alfred Lord Tennyson Fail...

 This phrase has been used to justify a vote for Donald Trump for President. The very fact that there is a need to justify a vote for Donald Trump exposes the concerns many have about making him President once again. Dozens of people he appointed to cabinet and high...

 There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch                     Economics in Eight Words Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young...

  “To sleep; perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub: for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?”                                                              from Hamlet by William Shakespeare  Two octogenarians meet in a bar. The Republican says to the...

  The Sick RoseBY William Blake O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm:  Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Social media, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are...

 Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them   David HumeThe best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity   William Butler Yeats Looking forward,...

 The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. In this age of Artificial...