No one likes paying taxes, least of all billionaires.  They’d rather buy yachts.  Obliged to keep up appearances, they give to charity, some less than others, Elon Musk being the stingiest.  Nonetheless, they are lavish in their political contributions to politicians who favor th

The budget pamphlet in my mailbox was titled “Financial Realities.”  I laughed.  As a person once responsible for a  $200 million budget, I know financial realities are imaginary.  Budgets are guestimates of the future based on the unlikely assumption that history will repeat

Lately, I’ve wondered if the human brain is capable of living up to its democratic ideals. What raised this question was an article I’d read about bone development in a child’s hand.  At the age of three, a youngster is unable to hold a pen because he or she lacks sufficient bo

“…only a lucky writer can write a classic, and it’s only a rare classic that can be perennially relevant.” So writes Lauren Groff in her essay, “The Lost Yearling” (Harper’s, Jan. 2014, pgs. 89-94), a eulogy of sorts, for the fading Pulitzer prize book, The Yearling, wri

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a memoir. Not the story of my life.  Nothing is so extraordinary in my existence that it merits a book.  But a booklet about my four years abroad might be of interest to others.  I left for Europe in the early 1960s and returned nearly fo

Recently, a Facebook friend shared a quote attributed to — but not proven to be — by Mark Twain: “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”  I wrote back that I could make neither heads nor tails of this

Winning the Pulitzer Prize won’t ensure a writer respect from a certain cadre of critics, those who owe their high perches to their employment rather than to any literary achievement.   For good or ill, these arbitrators of taste imagine they determine what passes for fine literat

It’s been 25 years since Salman Rushdie published his novel Satanic Verses and Iran’s head of state, the Ayatollah Khomeini, responded by charging him with blasphemy and placing a death sentence upon his head. Not surprisingly, Rushdie went into hiding when he heard the news.  Th

“A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs,” Mark Twain once observed. (Following the Equator) He’s right, of course. Who doesn’t desire a little luxury in life? Still, some carry their aspirations too far. Kim Kardashan and her fiancé rece

Mark Twain said of Rudyard Kipling, whom he admired, “I am not acquainted with my own books, but I know Kipling’s books.” (Hello Goodbye Hello, by Craig Brown, excerpted in The Week, 11/30/12 pg. 41). His remark surprised me the moment I read it. Surely this was excessive praise