Author Archive for Jim

Why We Worry about Vaccines

Even as doctors try to reassure the public, and TV news anchors get their swine flu shots on the morning news, there remains a great unease about vaccinations in the US.  People hesitant to take the needle are marginalized as anti-vaccine nuts, regardless of the many justifiable reasons to distrust giant pharmaceutical producers and government [...]

I’m Scared, Ma

At McGrath Elementary up in Michigan we were learning a lesson no other generation of children had ever been taught.  Our school was new and the paint smelled fresh and the metal trim of the windows shined even on the innumerable gray days. The desks we had been given had separate chairs and glassy Formica [...]

The Roses of October

When we lived in our little white rented house a few miles north of the big river there were two bushes that grew in a corner of the back yard.  They struggled because an old cottonwood and two orange trees took most of the sun and when the slanted rain came in off of the [...]

The Real Health Care Scare

In all of the white-hot vitriol being spewed over a national health care plan, very little attention is being directed at the pharmaceutical companies and the potential conflicts of interest involving the doctors doing their research.  In America, we are generally of the belief that by the time a drug or vaccine has made it [...]

The Lies of Texas Are Upon You

“Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell.  The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.” – Butch Hancock, Texas Musician, The Flatlanders

A friend called to talk about [...]

The Other Time It Never Rained

When western writer Elmer Kelton passed away over the weekend, Texans lost his intimate understanding of the land and the nature of the American west.  Writers with greatness in them all seem to have an innate connection to a place and access to the language needed to help grasp the depth of that relationship.  In [...]

In the Time of Man: A Novel, Ch. 20 (Final Chapter)

(Author’s note: Chapters 19 and 20, the last chapter, were both posted on the same day.  Consequently, 19 is linked in the column to the right of this.)
After he had cleared security at LAX, Elliot Anders found a relatively quiet spot and called Phil Traynor’s parents in Illinois.  Phil’s mother, Elaine, who was only in [...]

In the Time of Man: A Novel, Ch. 19

The road was long and tiring but Elliot Anders had nowhere else to go.  After he had lost contact with Phil Traynor in Africa, Elliot had called both the U.S. State Department and several African nation embassies in Washington in an attempt to get a special exemption to travel to the continent.  None, however, was [...]

In the Time of Man: A Novel, Ch. 18

Around the end of August, Clint Peeler always got his first sense of the coming winter.  The south wind of summer across the high plains abruptly shifted and cool air cascaded down off the Front Range of the Rockies and weakened the strength of the sun.  A visitor might never notice the difference but it [...]

In the Time of Man: A Novel, Ch. 17

Phil Traynor had stopped taking notes and doing interviews for his research project on the Dogon.  There no longer seemed to be much point to his work.  About four weeks previously, Elliot Anders had called to relate his experience with journalists when he tried to deliver the Dogon data.  His professor’s allusions in that conversation [...]