(At the hands of Hillary Clinton? No way!) What I had been dreading all these months has finally happened. Hillary Clinton has joined the presidential race. Don’t get me wrong. I would like nothing better than a woman to be … Continue reading
I have always thought of Vegas as a place to avoid. Until recently, Las Vegas was stuck in my mind as a slightly bigger version of Reno; not today’s Reno, mind you, but the Reno I remember from 30 years … Continue reading
If I were to characterize the year 2006 in a singular fashion, I would have to say it was the year that I got addicted to crossword puzzles. It was the year I went over to the other side. It … Continue reading
Even though the pundits were talking ad nauseum about the possible Democratic takeover of Congress before the election, I was skeptical. It was all hype, I thought. Then, during the last few days of the campaign, I got increasingly worried, … Continue reading
I vividly remember my first encounter with American tea. It was at a diner. I asked for tea and was served a freezing, brown liquid in a tall glass into which a straw was immersed. Watching my mystified look, a … Continue reading
I don’t know why people have such a need for forming cliques. Perhaps it is human to want to belong to a group. Perhaps some of us can’t shed our tribal heritage. Unfortunately, in the modern world, the tribe thrives, … Continue reading
Even though Shangri-La has become an idiom for utopia and an advertising slogan in the Western world, it originated in James Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, in which he describes a valley deep within Himalayan peaks, where, in a monastery … Continue reading
When Americans try something new, they act as if no one else in the whole wide world has ever thought of it before. So a guy named Michael Pollan has written a book about eating organic, in which he discusses … Continue reading
The contract was signed nine years ago, the book due in 2000, but never has Gloria Steinem stopped to sit down and write it. So many other things needed her attention. Elections. Organizing. And, sadly, the illness and death in … Continue reading
At the outset, I must confess one thing; I love mysteries. Many of my literary friends consider mystery a genre deserving the label of trash. But I love a good whodunit. I love the suspense, the passion gone awry, the … Continue reading