D. RANDALL FARO

“I swear! I swear on a stack of Bibles, I’m telling the truth! Cross my heart and hope to die, I am not lying to you.” You’ve either...

Charles Dodgson. It’s very likely you have read one or more of his books. His first one has been translated into one hundred seventy-four...

The German medical doctor and avocational artist, Carl Gustav Carus, wrote nine letters to an anonymous “Ernest” between 1815 and 1824....

“Guilt. It’s a very powerful emotion. It can motivate or it can suffocate.” So writes Alan Jacobson in Hard Target. An ongoing debate I...

NO MORE Benjamin Franklin said it: “There was never a good war, or a bad peace.” A short list of words associated with war: evil –...

“Imagine trying to live in a world dominated by dihydrogen oxide, a compound that has no taste or smell and is so variable in its...

Small, tiny even, does not necessarily mean weakness or the inability to do great things. Consider flying couriers of misery. Much of my...

Patriotism (appreciating and a commitment to one’s country) is not the same as nationalism (believing that one’s country is better than...

Life is relatively easy for some. For others it can be difficult. For many it can be hard-to-imagine hard. When finding oneself in the...

Nineteenth century Swedish playwright, August Strindberg, corresponded with Helena Nyblom, a Danish-born author who married a Swede and...

In a recently watched TV show a man and boy were fishing. The boy asks the man why the fish pull so hard against the line when it just...

It happened a quarter of a century ago but is as fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. The setting was the most prestigious and...

MAYBE I SHOULD JOIN A JIM 18 June 2020 Maybe I should join a jim. Working out at gyms has been a regular and intense part of my life...

Holy is a good thing, yes? Some fraction of one percent might say no, but they would be in the wingnut ultra-minority. This is especially...

Greg Iles is one of my favorite authors. If he has written a novel that I haven’t read it’s because I don’t know about it. His latest,...

A recent issue in a periodical to which I have subscribed for decades included an ecological article on the relationship between human...

“Knowledge is power.” So said Francis Bacon. A statement of undeniable veracity. Our old buddy, Daniel (as in Webster), defines knowledge...

UNUNDERSTANDABLES 21 May 2020 Things one doesn’t understand. Ununderstandables. If that’s not a word, it should be. Maybe...

They called her Ginny. That was not the name she was given by her parents upon her birth in Senegambia (present day Senegal and The...

MEANINGFUL GRAVE 11 May 2020 In David Guterson’s (of Snow Falling on Cedars fame) book, East of the Mountains, one of the characters...