Book Review: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

It has been so long since I read “The Hunger Artist” or “The Trial” that I cannot remember why Kafka’s work is important. And, admittedly, I have never read anything among his vast collection of essays. I know Franz Kafka has long been the literary darling of notable authors such as W.H. Auden, Vladimir Nabokov, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, all of whom have had no impact at all on my work as a writer. In fact, I rather detest these writers, which is fodder for another type of writing that I might indulge in but would rather not waste my time. 

 

On to The Metamorphosis….

 


Trump’s Playbook to Win Regardless of Election Night Results

Should Donald Trump lose the initial and final vote tally, he still has a game plan to win the election and has set it in motion. Election deniers (defined by USA Today as those who have publicly denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election) are positioned as election officials to scan the ballots to challenge their validity.


October 2024 Magazine

This month we focus on environmental concerns. Barbara Lloyd McMichael writes a feature article about the “Trinity” Act that would support wildlife protections for America’s Bison, Grizzly Bear and Wolves. For the past six months, we have published Dr. Peter Corning’s series of six linked essays UNITE OR DIE. Dr. Corning describes why climate change is worsening, but he also offers solutions to this growing problem. To read all of Dr. Corning’s linked essays in this six-part series please go to Dr. Corning’s website. Our featured book review, written by Barbara McMichael, covers “The Air They Breathe” by pediatrician Dr. Debra Hendrickson. My essay On Stewardship examines the essence of truth, beauty, and garbage. –Patricia Vaccarino

 


Risk, Duties, and Rights

A useful definition of operational risk comes from the world of banking, where the Basel Accords defined it as the potential for financial loss caused by systems, by inadequate or failed internal processes, by people, and/or by external events. Operational risk continues to present an unusually large number of challenges in a fractured world. Risk is the big tent that holds such practices as cybersecurity, business continuity, disaster recovery, privacy and ethics.


“Trinity” Act Would Support America’s Bison and Other Keystone Species

For more than a quarter of a century, the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) has been working in the Greater Yellowstone Bioregion to protect the last wild, free-ranging herd of bison in the United States. Although the nearly 3500 square miles of Yellowstone National Park offer some protections, even that expanse is not enough to offer sufficient winter forage for the Park’s herds of deer, elk, moose, and a bison population that ranges between 3,000 and 6,000 animals.  

 


Book Review: Vintage Munro

Alice Munro’s technique as a writer is clean, crisp, and plain spoken. No unnecessary frills dot her stodgy landscape, where the characters are ready to retire before they have reached their prime.


Book Review: The Road To Character

David Brooks takes the reader on a journey to the past, to a time when self-sacrifice conjoined with self-effacement created a moral ethos that was the de facto standard for the American culture. He homes-in on the principles of rendering good service, of doing what is good for the community, and paying homage to the greater good. 


NOTES FROM THE ROAD: On Stewardship

I was walking on 1st Avenue, south of the Pike Place Market, when I heard two men talking loudly. They were close enough to make me turn and look. The guys were burly, not in the best of shape, not old, but not young; it’s hard to tell someone’s age. What caught me by surprise was that they were making disparaging remarks about my city.