My JFK retrospective

This is being written not long after the 50th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, which caused me to read a 700-page biography, which led to further research. I am not inclined to worship at the shrine of JFK—Camelot?...

A matter of nomenclature

Easily my favorite family member is a person to whom I am not related by blood but marriage. My brother’s father-in-law is named George, and he is not even my sister-in-law’s father but her stepfather. George is well-traveled...

The worst book I never read

Way back in the early 1990s, I had a GF whose middle name was Jean, so that is what I will call her here. She was an intelligent person, with a master’s degree and a high-paying job at IBM. She also had a trust fund and a comfortable...

LBC

Just around the corner from my office building is a very interesting and unique establishment: LBC, which stands for Lecture & Broadcasting for Culture. It is the brainchild of Rim Cheol-Woong, a multifaceted man whom I will try to...

Sympathy or Praise?

During a hot summer day in 1975 in Nacogdoches, Texas, I was talking with a neighbor named Jim. He was a woebegone individual who drank too much. His story was a strange mixture of complaint and braggadocio. I listened until I could stand no...

Blood in the Desert

One night in the summer of 1993, I flew—not literally—from Cairo, Egypt to Manama, Bahrain.  It was the worst flight of my life. There was no danger per se, but it was very uncomfortable in that cramped airplane with air so...