Suprise Me

New Leaf Over the years we’ve thrown some big milestone parties –  for my husband Danny’s 30th birthday, our 25th anniversary,   Danny’s 60th at Yankee Stadium,  two big housewarmings,  my retirement,  my 70th,  and of course our son Noah’s bar mitzvah.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family) Then a few years ago on a glorious… Read More

Daisy was a wonderful singer and taught me many songs, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody." Read More

“Do you think my hair is falling out?” my sister asked. After going through a round of chemotherapy for lung cancer, hair loss would not be unexpected. She raked her fingers through her hair as she asked, and we both noticed  the silver strands she now held in her hand. After a moment, I asked… Read More

He must have noticed that the word “kidnapping” shocked us. He took the time to give us the word-for-word definition from the California Criminal Code: “Moving another person a substantial distance, without the person's consent, by means of force or fear.” Read More

How is the Ku Klux Klan still a thing? In old movies we see those white-sheeted ridiculous-looking figures riding on horseback through the countryside, carrying fiery torches, setting the shacks of poor black people ablaze and leaving burning crosses to light up the night. But this is in the past, right? Wa-a-a-ay in the past!… Read More

Monday, June 9, 2008. Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. I awake early and hear my hostess Shirley Randell swimming in her pool. The goat outside my window bleats. A bit later Shirley, dressed in the sari that’s her daily costume, is rushing off to work. I arrived yesterday, bleary and beat. Shirley was on the… Read More

I recently heard Nicco Mele, head of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, speak. He doesn’t use the term “Fake News” to describe the hi-jacking of truth by our president, Russian hackers, trolls and bots who spread lies or disinformation via Facebook and Twitter, or the abundance of verifiably false… Read More

My parents loved most of the game and quiz shows that were popular when I was growing up. Read More

Decades of slow progress towards gender and racial equality seem to screech to a halt, leaving ugly orange skid marks on the potholed highway to equality. Read More

Every time I have seen the phrase “teenager in love” – starting with the first time this prompt appeared in Retrospect two years ago – I have read it as teen-A-ger, with the accent on the second syllable, rather than TEEN-ager, the usual pronunciation, with the accent on the first syllable. In contrast, if the… Read More