Two women have come into the library. From my seat facing the reading room, I watch as the younger woman deposits the older in a comfortable chair by the magazine racks. While I don’t know for sure, I surmise they are mother and daughter, not caregiver and charge. There is something about the way the younger woman heads over to browse the nearby new releases that tells me this visit is for her.

The mother, as I will call her, is quite elderly, at least in her 80s if not 90s. She sits quietly. She doesn’t flip through one of the many magazines on offer, doesn’t even seem to notice her surroundings.

The minutes click on, and the mother stares at nothing. Is she lost in her own thoughts, reliving another time in her life? Or is she just looking ahead to the mug of cocoa and plate of Fig Newtons that await her return home?

Suddenly, and it is sudden, there is a small crack in the mother’s patience. Continue reading “Surprise! Aging Is Happening to Me” →

If I were Jon Stewart, I’d be really annoyed right now.

Jon Stewart popularized the concept of fake news. He wasn’t the first or the last. The Onion, Saturday Night Live and Greg Kilborn came before him. Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Trevor Noah and Seth Myers followed him. But we all know the crown belongs to Stewart.

Continue reading “Understanding, Scrutinizing and Protecting—Yes, Protecting—the Media” →

…with apologies to Shakespeare

January 27, 2017

While I was planning this blog, I struggled with what to call it. The obvious way to proceed was to ask, what’s it about? The answer: life. Yes, that’s just a bit broad. Zooming in, I thought about what happens to us as we go through life. We get hurt, and, if we’re lucky, someone comforts us. From childhood on, that’s the pattern. And if you start thinking about the earliest hurts in your life and how you were comforted, you’re naturally going to think about the bumps, scrapes and kisses you received. So— Continue reading “What’s in a Name?” →