Blog
Last Friday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani referred to Israel as a “cancer” in the Middle East. He accused Israel and the United States of trying to “sterilize” the Arab Spring. But what happened last week in “non-cancerous” countries? Sunday: Six hundred Syrians fled besieged Homs under attack by snipers… A Pakistani family of eight…
I check out Facebook. What I often notice—beyond dining and vacation photos—are aphorisms. These witty sayings reflect a variety of interests and concerns ranging from the human spirit to women’s issues to politics. They give the people who post them a chance to vent. They also get me to thinking about how fearful parts of…
My short story “White on White” in Summerset Review in a way suggests the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations shepherded by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The tale offers an updated example of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” So do the negotiations. According to Tom Friedman in the January 29 New York Times, Mr.…
Can a novel be too ethnic? More particularly, can it be too Jewish? These are reasonable questions given that this Sunday I’m launching my new novel The Boy Walker. A 12-year-old English Bulldog narrates. He’s not the first dog to narrate a novel, but he’s certainly one of a very few Jewish dogs to do…
The Declaration of Independence enshrines in American consciousness life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But what makes Americans happy? And what if that which makes us happy causes other people—maybe millions of people—unhappiness? The answers to these questions reveal a lot about what we, as individuals and a nation, really value. In this light,…
Nelson Mandela’s funeral is several weeks behind us. As it happens, now is a good time to consider how Mandela’s philosophy of looking forward finds antecedents in the Talmud and the Book of Proverbs. Mandela’s greatness was in thinking that while great wrongs had been done to black South Africans, hatred and recrimination serve no…
Michelle Holstein’s family had no history of cancer until 2003. At age 40, Michelle, raised in San Antonio and a longtime Bay Area resident, was diagnosed with Stage IIb breast cancer. Multiple surgeries, chemo and radiation followed. She expected a full recovery. One of her oncologists described her experience as a “bump in the road.”…
What’s ahead in 2014? I polished my Swarovski crystal ball, and here’s what I saw… — President Obama hands over healthcare.gov to Amazon. The revised website also offers medical supplies, vitamins and supplements, books and periodicals, hairpieces for men and women, and a button for making donations for site maintenance. — Sarah Palin and Michelle…
Nine-Eleven shocked America. I remember my own disbelief and anger viewing images of smoke bellowing from the Twin Towers then the Towers collapsing, the damaged Pentagon and United Flight 93, headed for the White House, having crashed in Western Pennsylvania. The disaster proved equally eventful for Ameena Jandali. A Colorado native and resident of the East…
Showtime’s Homeland offers something unusual this season. The CIA employs a young woman savvy in technology and banking to entrap a senior member of Iran’s intelligence service. The character Fara Sherazi (Nazanin Boniadi, born in Tehran, raised in London) is a Persian-American Muslim who wears a hijab—a headscarf. This Hollywood tale about Muslim bad guys…