Recently, I spiced up a blog (2/2/2017) with a little alphabet profanity: WTF.  A couple of readers chuckled and seemed surprised that I either knew or would use the expression.  I may have been a school teacher at one time, but life in the Labor movement and in politics gave me a r

I’ve just finished an article in Harper’s about people who serve as life coaches. Though largely unschooled and uncredentialed, these folks make a living advising others on how to conduct their lives.  “Why didn’t I think of that?” I asked myself as I put the magazine aside

I don’t care for Joyce Carol Oates’ writing. Her style I shall call “lumpacious” — an excess of words and arthritic phrasings put to the service of despair and gloom without a ray of humor. Nonetheless, I struggle to keep an open mind; so when I came upon her short ficti