Take Your Hands Off My Stuff

Once when we had a Middle Eastern student living with us, he took off on Janine’s bicycle. This was a bit disconcerting given that he did not ask permission. Whisk! There goes Yahya on Janine’s bike. Where is he going? How long will he be gone? Perhaps he is running away. Maybe he intends to…

Helpful Tidbits for the Sports Imbecile

Dear Sports Imbecile: As a fellow halfwit when it comes to sports, I felt it important to share some lessons I’ve learned about living with this rare social handicap. A football is neither. The game called football has hardly any foot work and the so-called “ball” is really a prolate spheriod. WARNING: Saying, “hey guys,…

A Better Tribalism

There’s been a lot said about tribalism lately, mostly bad. I’m not a sports guy, but when I listen to sports fans, I see our tribalistic tendencies at work (by the way, you know the word “fan” is short for “fanatic: a person exhibiting excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion toward some controversial matter.”) But…

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get a Strongman

While I have not read the book Strongmen, I have watched the rise of global leaders who could be described that way. Bombastic, egotistical, self-righteous, excessively confident (and almost always men). They are populist autocrats, and I find their rise to power proportionate to a rise in fear. This isn’t a new phenomenon, nor is…

The Slaughter of Mrs. Humphrey

Source: Google Photo I have written a couple unpublished novels of speculative, post-apocalyptic fiction. Here’s an excerpt, just for fun. Rosemary has always thought that Elder Stoltz’s face looks very like a mouse. Though she muster all powers of concentration, she cannot stop herself from seeing him in this way. His ears stick out nearly…