Prodigious amounts of illegal drugs are transported across the USA’s southern border by cartels despite the best efforts of law enforcement. These shipments generate hundreds of millions in cash profits – profits the cartels would like to reinvest in legitimate business ventures on this side...
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Time is the toll extracted by the vagaries of fate that plague our daily existence - bad weather, lines, traffic jams, and the host of demands imposed upon us by our fellow travelers on the road of life. Since writing is a time-consuming endeavor (I...
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Most people have no reason, thankfully, to set a trap or ambuscade in the course of their daily affairs. A trial lawyer, in contrast, lays traps all the time as part of his or her trial strategy. Such stratagems are often necessary to extract the...
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Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are two of my favorite books. As a child, I was mesmerized by the heroic and tragic tales woven together in these great works. As an adult and a history buff, I was intrigued by the possibility that some of these...
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“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.” (“Julius Caesar”, by William Shakespeare). Sage advice, but which is the right “tide”...
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I am writing a scene where a city in Celtic Briton is under siege by the invading Saxons. Since I have never experienced such a horrific event, even in the smallest measure (and surely have no desire to), I am drawing upon my history books...
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In the 2002 movie “Time Machine” the Uber Moorlock says to Alexander, the protagonist: "You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?” I suspect we all are. Who has not considered what the present would be like had a different path been...
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If I had a dollar for every time I heard the admonition “follow your heart” – a favorite of graduation speakers – I would be a wealthy man. It’s not bad advice. Who can argue with the proposition that one should pursue his or her...
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Writing “The Return of Sir Percival: Book I – Guinevere’s Prayer” was a labor of love, but also a formidable and often frustrating task. When I began the endeavor, the characters were already traveling the byroads of my mind, as if my imagination were their...
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(Warning: This post is not about the present-day arguments over this subject matter, but rather the importance of walls in medieval society, and, in my humble estimation, why they will always be necessary.) When I was eighteen years old, I toured colleges throughout the country, including...
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