Sunday, October 09, 2005



There is no better exercise for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
- John Andrew Holmes

A guy was in a cave, looking for treasure. He found an old lamp, rubbed it, and a genie came out. The genie sai "I will grant you three wishes, but your ex-wife will get double." The man agreed, and said "I wish I had a mans on." The genie granted it, and his ex-wife got two mansions. The man said "I would like a million dollars." The ge ie again granted it and his ex-wife got two million dollars. Then the man said, Scare me half to death.
We dislike in others those qualities we have not accepted in ourselves. Letting me be

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: What If Gene Were a Genius?
What if Shakespeare had been born in New Jersey in 1973?

Critics sometimes complain that my columns lack intellectual depth. So today I thought I would examine fundamental epistemological questions of life in a contextual fashion, by postulating alternative realities and extrapolating likely results. What if Freud had been a woman?
Sex would not be considered the primary force that drives human behavior. Instead, it would be Fear of Having a Large Behind. All men would be haunted by a condition known as "penis shame." The mind would not be divided into the Id, the Ego and the Superego but the Shoe-Desire Region, the Weeping Center, and the If-You-Don't-Know-What-You-Did-Wrong-I'm-Not-Going-to-Tell-You Lobe. Also, sometimes a dried apricot is just a dried apricot.


What if [Crime and Punishment The rape of more than a million German women by Russians was a strictly guarded postwar taboo Now the world knows; Popes and preachers were once the main beneficiaries of human gullibility. We humans are naturally gullible ; Neves, a lithe woman wearing knee-high white boots, tiny shorts and a singlet, has suspended herself upside down from a smooth steel pole on the dancefloor Generation sex]
• · Rationale of the Dirty Joke A joke, unlike a tale, wants to be brief. As Freud observed, it says what it has to say not just in few words but in too few words: I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother The history of jokes and those who collect them ; E.L. Doctorow began his writing career with a spectacular failure The Time Travels Of E.L. Doctorow
• · · Passing on the Love of Journal Writing ; It was unusual that a matter concerning a parliamentary question was entrusted to an assistant to the Chief Clerk, but there was the haunting fear that the question would, one year, be rephrased in a manner that would, Heaven forbid, call for a variation in the Minister's reply Westminster Underground
• · · · In honor of a theme of memoir, this issue’s contest allows you a chance to write your own short work of memoir about masks Autobiography of a Face Masking It ; A history of Wall Street from the inside What Goes Up: The Uncensored History of Modern Wall Street as Told by the Bankers, Brokers, CEOs, and Scoundrels Who Made It
• · · · · Are McMansions Going Out of Style? ; Politics, professionalism & the pleasure of reading
• · · · · · Reading Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading was for me like the uncanny experience of looking into a mirror and seeing someone else's face Book Lust ; Great non-fiction gets slimmed down ; I wanted to read 'adult' books was the impression that YA books were like medicine. They were moralistic, and you were supposed to read them to learn something Debut YA Novel Crosses Boundaries