2009 Articles

I couldn’t get too worked up over John Hughes’ death – since the teen movies he made appear to me to have merely added to an already established stage of teenaged nihilism leading to adult oblivion—much like the character in the book Mark Chapman had in his pocket when he shot John Lennon to death—except […]

The ceremony of innocence is drowned…I find that America’s youth grows up far too quickly –and what is meant to be childhood — is drowned in a media deluge of mutually exclusive images, ideas and sounds – and mixed together into a schizophrenic cocktail for our youth (haven’t you noticed how we all end up

The other day I woke up wondering what-the-Hell I’m doing here: I mean, why have I been getting up every morning for the past 31 years to teach; write; parent; and/or otherwise get from A-to-B?  Saying it was to find women and get laid – is a bit too simplistic (and demeaning to any female

So let me see ıt I have thıs straight…after the Romans did their thang – the Catholic Church did theirs – assisted mightily by Spain, and then the Brits and then the Germans and then the U.S.  But the U.S.’s hold on the world has always been tenuous – as we haven’t been able to

If I struggle with ‘‘i‘‘s it’s because I am writing on a Turkish keyboard: a very different kinda keyboard.  Speaking of different – life in Turkey is very much different from today‘s U.S.  In fact, life in contemporary Turkey reminds me of my formative years in Michigan.  Imagine that, not only is it incredibly humid,

Well…another birthday has come and gone – where do they all get to? As I sojourn in Germany and contemplate getting dual citizenship – I also contemplate those great ex-patriates…Hemingway et al. (I don’t think Polanski qualifies).  I know a pretty cool story about a buddy of Hemingway’s – but I’ll leave that for another

One of the reasons that I love Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael so much – is that he does such a great job explaining (at least to my mind) – how things got to be this way.  And I certainly don’t disagree with anything Daniel has to say – but I wanted to add my own caveat

I will never forget how outraged one of my former college students was when I intimated that she might have played a critical role in her own cancer.  I back-pedaled during this, in-class, confrontation — as I certainly didn’t want to be the catalyst of a relapse – but I do have to stand by

Just like President Obama – I was figuring on a 6-game series between the Lakers and the Magic – I thought that Jack wanted one more Laker appearance before the season ended.  I certainly don’t know for sure – but I figured one additional game would pad the league coffers by about $200,000,000.00 (unless advertising

It’s getting so you can’t pray anymore – without the possibility of being killed in church.  Actually, I guess you’d have to be a doctor performing abortions to worry about this.  These pro-Lifers (a.k.a. anti abortionists) are really a-bunch-of-sanctimonious hypocrites.  Let’s send them all to war – better yet, let’s have the pro-Lifers work exclusively