Jonathan F. Putnam Aside from the opportunity to hawk my books that the outdoor market at Manalapan has afforded me, it has been it has been a thoroughly enriching experience for the fascinating, and sometimes illustrious, people I have met. On Sunday, I met several authors, including a Lake Worth woman who holds a doctorate […]
Kathleen Parker Riffling through a haphazard array of papers left unattended on my desk for longer than I care to admit, I didn’t find what I was looking for, but happened upon a newspaper column from a couple of months ago that I’d intended to share. It’s by Kathleen Parker, an alleged conservative who, […]
The Grammar Grouch has been so busy lately venting his spleen on our sorry excuse for a president and a GOP Congress afraid to counter him that the grousing over grammar has been put on the back burner to simmer. Alas, a spate of miscues in the Grouch’s local news organ has aroused him from […]
Humana, my health insurer, called the other day with a recorded message urging me to get a flu shot. It ran through a little survey: Did I get a flu shot yet? No. Did I intend to get a flu shot? No. Then I was asked to choose the best reason from a list. One […]
Tampa Bay In 1973, only months after my first wife and I moved from Milwaukee to Tampa, we drove across Tampa Bay one Sunday afternoon to the beach in Clearwater. Returning in early evening, we were entertained by the radio sermon of a Southern preacher fulminating about the evils of “the fullness of bread.” […]
Governor Rick Scott Last week, the Palm Beach Post carried two stories on the same day. The headlines were: 1) “Scott seeks tax cuts despite budget strained by Irma”; 2) “Why good teachers quit.” You know the elections are drawing nigh when politicians start talking tax cuts. Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, whose term […]
Hooray for independent bookstores like Book Cellar! It opened in early October in the perfect location, an abandoned space at the corner of Lake Avenue and J Street in quaint downtown Lake Worth. The proprietors, who own a similar store in Colorado, reviewed my book MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died, and […]
Yippee ki-yah ki-yah ki-yo! My new novel is done. Finito. Fini. Das Ende. The End. All that remains is the editing and choosing a final title. Plus, of course, a publisher. These days, a lot of authors create titles that include keywords, so their books will come up when readers enter the words in Google […]
Republican leadership Throughout my long adult life, I have never considered myself a political ideologue. Rather, I like to think of myself as a pragmatist: whatever works best for the most people, while showing compassion for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. But it has become abundantly clear that, in general, the […]
President Obama Despite all of the cautionary advice against it, President Obama several days ago used the N word. No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about Nazi. A number of voices in the media have in the past criticized a tendency to compare politicians or political actions with Nazis or Nazism. But […]