Author: frank

  Making it easier for public figures to sue news media outlets for libel might sound like a good idea, especially if the public figure is someone we like and we think criticism is unfair, but it would be unconstitutional and undermine our democracy. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, an undeclared candidate for president in 2024,…

Who doesn’t have a stash of classified documents in their home or offsite office? It might be THE question in Washington these days in light of the mishandling of secret papers by President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and ex-Vice President Mike Pence. One shocking discovery after the other. What does it mean? The…

Advances in artificial intelligence has everyone freaking out. With the touch of a button, you can get a program called ChatGPT  to write a term paper, an op-ed piece in the New York Times, a speech or fill out a job application. Some of the job applications are supposedly better than the ones filled out…

I love books. The ones I have, the ones I’ve read, even the ones I haven’t read yet, because if they are worthwhile, there’s a gem of truth, a bit of humor, or a moment of clarity within the pages, maybe all in the same paragraph. Some are trashy, of course, offensive, disgusting, maybe even…

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know,” Ernest Hemingway wrote. He was right, of course. It’s the mark of every good writer. Take John D. MacDonald, the great fiction writer whose detective hero, Travis McGee, lived on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. “There are no…

    My cousin just emailed me a photo that she described in the subject line as “sad.” Devastating would be a better word. My grandparents’ beautiful old house, which had survived generations of winter storms roaring across the Illinois plains, kids running up and down stairs, and farmers shaking off dust and slamming screen…