I go see my mom at lunchtime every day, and we laugh and laugh. She has lost all her marbles and doesn’t know who I am, but I never quiz her (Alzheimer’s patients hate that) and I pay close attention to whatever she has to say, and they like that. […]

At reunions and other gatherings like that where you run into a lot of people you haven’t seen for a while, I got sick of asking people what they were doing and started asking them what they were reading. I think you find out a lot more about them that […]

I’ve been to two Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as a condition of probation on my DWI conviction, and both meetings have given me invaluable insights into what is beautiful and uplifting about the human race. Leaving aside their value for me as a person, they inspired the journalist in me and […]

I guess every journalist can remember their first by-line. A by-line is always a bit of a thrill, even after thirty years in the business. A slightly cooler thrill is listening to a senator deliver a speech or a statement that you wrote for them on statewide television. I’ll never […]

For nearly twenty years, my mom has been giving me a yearly subscription to Old News, a really interesting publication founded by Nancy and Richard Bromer and continued by their son Rick. They take historical stories and present them in a news format. It’s just about as eclectic as you […]

The world has watched with shock and horror as a trained cadre of demented men acted out scenes of destruction they had no doubt seen in action movies and imagined themselves to be heroes in the cause of righteousness. We have no evidence that they were deluded by patriotism or […]

I joined a new site for recommending great reads, but they kind of discombobulated my thinking by asking me what is my favorite book. Is that the book that you most enjoy? Is it the one that changes your way of thinking and makes you a better person? Depends on […]

Back in the year 2,000 my cousin Max kept telling me I had to get email. “Why?” I answered. “I have nothing to say to anyone in the world.” That turns out not to be true. I’ve been blogging since 2006, and it has been as much fun as a […]

It’s always a treat for me when my very glamorous daughter Sarah Banks Hartshorne comes to town. (Helps my Google ranking, too! She’s famous!) We went out to dinner with our pals Catherine and Starshine yesterday, and this morning we had a great slog through the mud in the pouring […]

Here’s yet another riveting read from Jimmy Breslin, a book I had never heard of, that changed everything I ever thought I knew about the impeachment of Richard Nixon and US politics in general: How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes From an Impeachment Summer. With consummate skill, Breslin takes […]