Gay Marriage, the Pledge, and All That
This week, a ten-year-old boy was ratted out by a substitute teacher after he refused repeatedly to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He refused because, in the good ol’  USA, the rights of his tax-paying gay and lesbian fellow citizens have been repeatedly assailed and compromised and, to him, that did not add up to “liberty and justice for all.” Out of the mouths of babes! How many people have conveniently forgotten that this country was founded by rebels? Th

Tilin’ and Stylin’– Home Renovation
It starts like this: while cleaning the carpet, you run across a particularly stubborn thread which, after many minutes, won’t allow itself to be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. You stop everything so that you can roll the thread into a ball, and while you’re in that bent-over position close to the carpet, you notice how awful it really is. Later that day, you snag your big toe on a section of parquet that has loosened itself from its gluey mooring. Still later, you notice

Hallowe’ens Past
Hallowe’en in my mind smells like Noxzema. Really. It occurs to me that now I’m as old as the people who opened their doors to me as a young trick-or-treater in 1960s Brooklyn. For decades I haven’t had to buy eggs for throwing, shaving cream for smearing, or chalk socks for walloping– real commodities that we saved weeks to pay for, ultimately reveling in the outraged shrieks of pain and / or disgust tha

Short Stories
One of my favorite things to do these days is to wake up early, make coffee, and crawl back into bed with a book of short stories. The overhead lamp makes a circle of light in the dark morning that spotlights me and my book, and, with the bedroom door closed and my ear devices sleeping in their little storage box, I am pleasantly isolated. A volume of short stories is as close to reading perfection that you’ll ever find. A novel will have one ending that takes

Let’s Get Naked at the Airport !
  Photo Copyright TWA ” An x-ray machine that takes ‘naked’ pictures is being tested at an England airport for use as part of a high-tech security system, a story by The Australian News reports. Manchester Airport security officials say the full-body scan eliminates the need for passengers to be patted down and remove their clothing, because it can detect weapons or explosives instantly on fully-clothed passengers, the story said. But some say the scan reveals too much, includin