The United States has suffered immensely from Donald Trump's psychological issues for the past three years. The man lies as easily as he breathes, he lives in a fantasy world where he is in any way an exceptional individual, he takes responsibility for none of his failures, and he seems driven by an immense innate cruelty that few others can match. He also has the emotional stability of a three-year-old child. When faced with criticism, his reflexive response is to lash out in a tantrum on Twitter. None of this is breaking news. However, there is a question that needs... Read more →

Racism has dominated the headlines recently in light of a number of high-profile murders, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among others. The flames of animosity have been furthered fanned by Donald Trump, who is counting on racial discord to help him win a second term in the White House. Black Lives Matter protests are being held across the country and consistently met with pushback in the form of "All Lives Matter" chants. At first glance, it seems pretty easy to distinguish the "bad" guys from the "good" guys. The problem is that drawing that line allows all... Read more →

Actor Maurice Benard is known by soap opera fans around the country as Sonny Corinthos, the longstanding mob boss of Port Charles on General Hospital. He's been a central character on the show for almost 30 years and has seen it all: enemies, wives, children, you name it. In addition to all of that, Sonny suffers from bipolar disorder which has been a recurring storyline for years. There's no doubt that's the biggest opponent Corinthos must face. The diagnosis hits close to home for Benard, who has been dealing with bipolar disorder for most of his life. It's taken Benard... Read more →

There once was a young girl known as Ace who traveled through space and time with the 7th Doctor (known to her as "Professor.") The two had many exciting adventures together, but the Doctor had a strong manipulative streak that eventually led to them parting ways after a terrible incident. Thirty years later, the former Ace is now known as Dorothy McShane, a millionaire philanthropist who runs the organization, "A Charitable Earth." She's moved on with her life after saying goodbye to the Doctor. However, something is pulling her back to an otherworldly danger, as well as to the newest... Read more →

Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Consider This: Moments In My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different (out now) is largely a writer's guide for beginning fiction authors. There's a nuts and bolts review of fundamental story components like the passage of time, the establishment of authority, clear and effective dialogue, and the creation and maintenance of tension. That primer is paired with guidance about how to use those and other building blocks to make your writing more powerful. It's a MFA-quality "intro to writing" course at an affordable price. The information is undoubtedly useful for professional writers. However, the book... Read more →

The last few weeks have been somewhat challenging. It's probably a combination of mixed feelings about the holidays and the fact that it gets dark at 4:00 in the afternoon, because that's just a drag. As a result, my daily thoughts seemed to be steadily narrowing. It's not just that I couldn't think outside of the box. I was only staring at the center of the box, which is no fun. Having had enough of that restriction, I took a trip to the bookstore hoping to find something that might help me shake things up like a snow globe. The... Read more →

Demi Moore began her career as a model. She then started her climb to fame as an actress in the early 1980's with a role on the soap opera General Hospital. She eventually came to be known as part of the "Brat Pack," a group of young actors and actresses who were the "it" kids at the time and appeared in a number of movies together, including St. Elmo's Fire. The group also included stars like Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez (who was engaged to Moore at one point.) From there, the actress had... Read more →

Journalist Ronan Farrow has been in the headlines for the last few years, due to his 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose on disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's long history of sexual assault and harassment. It was a tale known for decades by many in the entertainment industry, but his victims and others with knowledge of his behavior were afraid to speak publicly because of fear of retribution. Farrow was able to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, but he ran into unexpected resistance from his bosses at NBC. The network killed the piece and then eventually fired Farrow.... Read more →

Journalist/filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas was 12 years old when his mother sent him from the Philippines to live with his grandparents in California, where she would hopefully join him soon thereafter. Adjusting to life in the United States was enough of a challenge by itself, but the stakes became much higher when Vargas discovered, while applying for a driver's license at age 16, that he was an undocumented immigrant. That revelation sent Vargas on a path where he was forced to hide basic elements of himself from almost everyone around him while trying to figure out where he existed in... Read more →

Hi everyone, Welcome back! How are you? Hope you're able to enjoy the long weekend. I had a pretty productive day on Sunday, especially considering how badly I slept. Got some exercise, did some errands, and then spent most of the afternoon/early evening in the garden alternating between weeding and reading. It was everything I could ask for out of the day, really. However, my back issues flared up again at the end of the night, and long story short, I was up at 4:45 this morning. I let BDH and Little Buddha sleep until the alarm went off, though.... Read more →