Every morning and every evening, I get a big kick out of my mailbox, which was created by John Sendelbach of Amherst. I got the idea from his famous “bobble rocks.” For years I had a stack of cinderblocks with two-by-fours tucked in them, and every time the plow went […]
Well it happened at last, Sarah was voted off the island on America’s Next Top Model. As she closed the door on the way out, she was holding my old pal Brown Bear, also known as Softy, her lifelong companion. I was glad that old Softy got to be on […]
I already mentioned I.F. Stone’s “Trial of Socrates,” an astonishing work of classical scholarship that in a few well-crafted chapters obliterated my lifelong admiration for Socrates. What I didn’t mention was that Stone (born Isidor “Izzy” Feinstein) had never written anything in this field before. People are always telling me […]
Despite all the odious people who wave it around, the Bible really is a good book. I particularly like the Gospel of Mark. The other gospels are based on lore — their authors had no additional sources beyond Mark, and Mark begins with the baptism of Jesus and ends with […]
I drove down to New Jersey this weekend, no mean feat for a hobbit like me, but boy was it worth it. I went to see two one-act plays at Drew University, “The Author’s Voice” and “The Actor’s Nightmare.” My daughter Sarah was in “The Actor’s Nighmare,” a brilliant play […]
If you’ve read the Apology of Socrates (by Plato), then you probably have the same reverence for Socrates that I always had, until I read “The Trial of Socrates” by I. F. Stone. This astonishing work reversed everything I had ever imagined about ancient Athens. And if you put it […]
As I mentioned in a previous entry, I recently purchased a copy of National Geographic for a dollar – way more than I would usually pay – because it had an article by Dwight D. Eisenhower about his friend Sir Winston Churchill. After looking over the images and the articles, […]
I am not an apologist for the British Empire, nor do I excuse Sir Winston Churchill’s disparaging remarks about Mahatma Gandhi — though Gandhi himself would, in an instant. From what I’ve heard, he was not a guy to hold a grudge. But I want to offer this bit of […]
People always want too much for National Geographics. They have two huge bundles bound up with twine and they want a buck apiece or else take the whole bunch for ten bucks. I don’t generally buy them, but I did pay a buck for this one edition. It had an […]
