Who is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a pre-primer
I caught a bit of a television program devoted to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) affair this morning, and I have done a bit of research on the Internet. First, this affair is huge in France, newspaper sales have skyrocketed, the news weeklies are devoting 13-20 pages to it this week. DSK was, prior to this affair, thought […]
Prickly Expat Egghead Buys a Kindle E-reader
Readers of my blog may be interested to hear reports of my experiences with the Kindle e-reader. I purchased the device yesterday. The one I purchased was the “Wi-fi” model, on the grounds that I would not often need or want to download content while in transit. Generally speaking, there has been one overwhelmingly pleasant […]
Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”
I have often said to friends and acquaintances that I think Martin Scorsese is a hugely overrated director. “Goodfellas,” which I recently watched for the second or third time, chronicles the history of people so repulsive that one hardly knows where to begin. Scorsese has given the phrase “banality of evil” new meaning, and he […]
Coincidence in a State of Mourning
My mother, who died on December 3, 2010, was living in a large condominium complex for seniors that also had assisted living services. I asked the management if I could see what she had put in her storage locker in the basement. There were two empty suitcases and a box filled with papers. I would […]
Brief Eulogy
As already noted on my Facebook page, my mother, Barbara Scodel, died on December 3 at the age of 87. Her health had been deteriorating seriously for about two years, and she had had three major strokes over the past six years or so. She was a person of great generosity and joie de vivre […]
Something Lost
I have lost my [writer’s] voice. If I look very hard, will I find it? There are no guarantees. I don’t know where I lost it. It could be anywhere.
My San Francisco Giants win the World Series
I saw all the Giants playoffs games this year, I think, and I do not watch baseball. The last time I saw this many baseball games was probably in about 1964. I always tell people that I stopped watching baseball after Willie Mays got traded to the Mets, but I don’t quite know if that’s true. I don’t really […]
As Mideast peace talks recommence…
Here is something I wrote for the bloggingheadstv fora about ten weeks ago, just after the flotilla incident. The post attracted a certain amount of praise, so I am putting it here also, as I probably should have done at the outset. The blockade is not just collective punishment. It is collective punishment that may […]
Conversation about aging and mortality
The following recorded conversation about aging and mortality resulted from the friendships that formed in an online chat group ostensibly devoted to the NBA professional basketball team, the Golden State Warriors. So this is something that has come from my participation in the online experience. I have always lived under the shadow of death, because […]
California’s same-sex marriage decision
I have now read Judge Walker’s decision in California (documents.nytimes.com/us-district-court-decision-perry-v-schwarzenegger?ref=us), and I think I conceded far too much in a recent online colloquy with someone in the blogginheadstv fora who was opposing same-sex marriage, primarily on the grounds that heterosexual marriage has been the preferred means for achieving the state’s interest in perpetuating or increasing […]