Returing to that strange chapter in Ron Rosenbaum’s book “In Defense of Love” and his brutal takedown of Count Leo Tolstoy, I’m getting close to the point where I could make a full refutation of his argument, but now that I’m about halfway through Tolstoy’s novelella “The Kreutzer Sonata” and a highly acclaimed short biography…

It’s a remnant of my competitive debate days that I still feel compelled, with something complicated, to give a roadmap to what’s ahead. For example, any first draft I speech I write has an excess of exposition up front, with the full understanding that none of it is actually going to make it into the…

The past week has been a very pleasant experience for me, rambling a bit through some different topics, seeing where they might lead me. I’d like to get back to the projects that mean the most to me now, but I also want to let the universe decide for me where to spend my attention….

It’s impossible to imagine a worse bill ever passing through Congress than the current Big Beautiful Bill, a piece of legislation so unpalatable that dozens of Republicans held their nose to pass it the first time through, hoping the Senate version would improve on it, only to later admit that the Senate made the bill…

I very rarely discuss, never mind write about, my dreams. This is due to several reasons. First, I rarely remember my dreams. Second, they typically follow an annoying pattern — I’m in a pleasant situation, but then I have to fulfill some kind of objective that becomes increasingly complicated and the whole thing dissolves into…

On the flight back from Vancouver, I plowed through more of the book and, I guess it’s getting a little better — at least it’s holding my interest a bit. Chapter four was actually about Tolstoy, which of course interested me quite a bit and I’ll return to that shortly. I’m not one of those…