Reading Jessica Livingston’s ‘Sound of Silence‘ struck so many resonant chords it was like she was playing my song. A soundtrack to a current dilemma I’m waffling over. Which is…to FaceBook or not to FaceBook. Livingston articulates the downsides eloquently: I’m sick of being a target for every neocon who buys alt-right agitprop. I’m tired…

When I hear of the serial murder sprees — all done w/ guns — that plague America, I think of my sons. Not always first, but always. Probably too self-referential, I identify with the mothers of children slaughtered in Sandy Hook, executed in Umpqua, annihilated in Charleston. Who ends a phone conversation with a son or daughter…

On a FB thread a friend began, there’s a discussion of homosexuality, race, and gender. My friend is not tolerant: he lives his beliefs. An aside: I don’t really like the word ‘tolerance.’ It always reminds me of the stuff I didn’t want to eat when I was a kid. My mother & grandmother said…

When you go to a national humanities conferences, you hear a lot of stories. Stories of the past (especially in Birmingham, 50 years later…), stories of what-if, stories of maybe and possibly and even stories about stories. And when you’re a writer — aka someone who collects stories — you may well hear stories from…

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