As I write this we’re five days out from E-Day. Most polls show Joe Biden ahead of President Trump, but as a political scientist and more importantly a labor guy, the only poll I ever…
Posts published in “Essays”
I had two main problems in life: I was fifty pounds overweight and my next-door neighbor beat me at Scrabble every time. Actually over the years I did beat her once, by one, and we…
Jack London’s big, bold 1909 novel, Martin Eden, which some consider autobiographical, is on the screen again, this time in an Italian production that’s set in Italy and that arrived in 2019. Pietro Marcello directed. He…
Can you think of a job you can apply for, accept, then not perform the required tasks and get neither fired nor blamed? I can. I know a line of employment in which applicants can…
A couple weeks back I shared a “why I am voting” opinion from a man I coached and taught when he was a teen in the 1980s. As something of a counterpoint, let's take a…
Thursday night’s presidential debate was branded by many a pundit a historic first. The rogue Interrupter-in-Chief would be held in check by the latest technological breakthrough from the Pentagon, one developed after years of research…
One day last summer I was showing a recent Valley settler neighbor the historic sights of Navarro town and reminiscing about "the good old days." Part of the tour, of course was up Wendling Soda…
There’s an old actors’ trick that advises if you can’t bring on fake tears, just think of when your favorite dog died. It can work for even the toughest macho men. And I’ve even seen…