My Word's
Worth:

a weekly column by
Marylaine Block

Subject Index

Words and Language -- Books and Magazines -- Libraries
Technology and the Internet -- Mind and Thought -- Teaching
Kids and Teens -- Men, Women, and Relationships -- Cats -- Fun Stuff
American Culture -- American History -- American Politics
All About Me -- None of the Above


A word of explanation. I began this column as the American correspondent for a British online magazine, explaining various oddities of American life and politics to the British. In 1997, the magazine suspended publication, and I moved the column back to the US and started explaining American oddities to Americans instead.


WORDS AND LANGUAGE

  1. Word Child -- August, 1995. Growing up on puns and word games.
  2. On Finally Achieving Perfect Copy -- September, 1995. On the perils of Spell-Check
  3. Waiting for Webster's To Catch Up -- October, 1995. On a few words the language could use
  4. Remotely Funny -- November, 1995. Playing channel-changing roulette
  5. Sensible Lizards -- December, 1995. On the names of rock groups
  6. Tar Baby January, 1996. On word associations and other mysterious workings of the mind
  7. Naming Names -- February, 1996. On the names we give our children.
  8. We Will Rock You -- April, 1996. On poetry in rock music
  9. Legal Speech, Stupid Speech --April, 1996. Just because we CAN say it doesn't mean we should
  10. Practical Cat Names -- June, 1996. Why give your child a silly name when you can inflict it on a cat?
  11. Dixieland Thought -- July, 1996. On good conversations
  12. Fitter To Print -- July, 1996. What would newspapers be like if writers, not journalists, turned them out
  13. It's Like This -- April, 1997. On metaphors
  14. And Now for Something Completely Inconsequential -- May, 1997. On e-mail games
  15. Words To Be Wise -- August, 1997. What if you don't know enough words to think with?
  16. Winning the Title -- March, 1998. On the art of coming up with titles that intrigue and suck a reader in.
  17. Roses by a Different Name -- May, 1998. Yes, we are still inventing proverbs.
  18. Scribbles on Pages -- June, 1998. On the eternal question readers ask writers--how do you do it?
  19. Grammar Matters -- July, 1998. Maybe diagramming sentences wasn't such a waste of time.
  20. The Wrong Words -- September, 1998. Words are dangerous. Don't censor them; answer them.
  21. Crossing the Wide Semantic -- February, 1999. Who would have thought that the Lewinsky story is fundamentally about semantics?
  22. Limited Success -- March, 1999. Without formal rules and limits, can poetry or art exist?
  23. Pun Pals -- April, 1999. Another e-mail game made entirely of puns.
  24. Making Time Stand Still -- August, 1999. What compels writers and artists to try to capture experience, get it down on paper?
  25. Teach the Children Well -- February, 2000 -- if I was going to teach for one year, I'd teach second graders to love language
  26. A Game of Names -- March, 2000 -- an entertaining way of coming up with appropriate pseudonyms
  27. Change a Word, Change a World -- March, 2000. Replace words that have meaning with fancier terms that do not at your peril.
  28. The Game of the Name -- February, 2001. Being the first one to name a problem forces everyone else to discuss it in your terms.
  29. Moving Target -- April, 2001. My 8th rule of information: things can be true and nonetheless wrong.
  30. Talk To Me -- June, 2001. One of the essentials of life is conversation.
  31. Telling It Slant -- June, 2003. Why writers must use stories, metaphor and irony to tell a truth.


Return to Top of Page

BOOKS AND MAGAZINES

  1. Hard Copy -- July, 1995. On history in old magazines
  2. The Naming of Books -- August, 1995 -- on the books you buy because you can't resist the title.
  3. Mindchangers -- January, 1996. On the books that mattered to me in 1995
  4. Target Market -- March, 1996. On direct mail
  5. America in 9 Innings -- April, 1996. On baseball novels
  6. Me and a Book -- May, 1996. How books made me what I am
  7. Computer Shy -- July, 1996. What novels tell us about our feelings about computers
  8. Fitter To Print -- July, 1996. What would newspapers be like if writers, not journalists, turned them out
  9. What Does a Woman Want -- August, 1996. Find out by reading romance novels
  10. The Dilbertizing of America -- October, 1996. 3 books that tell us what's happening to America.
  11. Read Alouds -- December, 1996. The best possible gift for a child is a book you read aloud
  12. That Was the Year That Was -- January, 1997. The books that mattered most to me in 1996
  13. The Cat in the Book -- April, 1997. On the strange affinity between cats and readers
  14. Without Skin -- May, 1997. A tribute to Anne Lamott
  15. Let's Assume -- June, 1997. How speculative fiction reveals our assumptions about the world
  16. Becoming a Book, Part One -- June, 1997. If we lived in Fahrenheit 451, what books would I save?
  17. Becoming a Book, Part Two -- June, 1997. What books would my readers save?
  18. A Death in the Family -- September, 1997. On a beloved bookstore done to death by discounters and road repair.
  19. Something Wicked This Way Comes -- October, 1997. On the enduring appeal of Stephen King.
  20. My Year in Books -- January, 1998. The books that shaped my thinking in 1997.
  21. Making Monsters -- February, 1998. Bernard Lefkowitz's book Our Guys shows us how monsters are created by societies that refuse to protect children against the bullies.
  22. A Sharing of Books -- April, 1998. In honor of National Library Week, my readers and I tell each other about books we love.
  23. Getting to Solla Sollew -- June, 1998. In my Almost Perfect State, parents will read Dr. Seuss to their children.
  24. Hammock Reading -- July, 1998. When it's too hot to do anything else, you can always read an unputdownable book.
  25. The Look of Life -- December, 1998. One of the endangered species worth saving is surely the general interest magazine
  26. 1998: My Year in Books -- January, 1999. The rest of the really neat books I read in 1998.
  27. How I Became a Fairy Godmother -- February, 1999. What happens when you put a book page up on the net.
  28. Meddling with Wizards -- May, 1999. Why is it that in so many books about fighting ultimate evil, we send children to do battle?
  29. They've All Come To Look for America -- June, 1999. What books would you give new immigrants to tell them what they need to know about America?
  30. Like a Message in a Bottle -- August, 1999. On the things we leave in books to mark our places.
  31. Must Be 50 Ways To Fix Our Country -- September, 1999. My responses to the George book, 250 Ways To Make America Better.
  32. Transitional Lives -- November, 1999. Reflecting on a book about women like me, raised to become June Cleaver just as June's world was vanishing forever.
  33. 1999: a Good Year for Books -- January, 2000.
  34. My Favorite Books of 2000 -- January, 2001.
  35. Afraid of Harry Potter -- May, 2000. By protecting our children through censorship we miss a golden opportunity to teach them
  36. But We Know What We Like -- September, 2000. A book about national tastes in art leads me to ponder why we like what we like.


Return to Top of Page

LIBRARIES

  1. Hard Copy -- July, 1995. On history in old magazines
  2. Thank the Ludd -- March, 1996. Some things to think about before we throw away those books and journals
  3. To Find or Not To Find -- April, 1996. On cataloging and key word searching
  4. From Books to Bytes -- November, 1996. How a book sort of person became a woman with four web sites
  5. Visigoths--and the new cultural enemy is: your librarian
  6. To: Lions/From: Christians -- April, 1997. On librarians, the net and the first amendment
  7. Mail by the Ton -- June, 1997. On sorting the library's junk mail
  8. Borders Skirmish -- June, 1998. Should we try to make libraries more like the big chain bookstores?
  9. Borders Skirmish Revisited -- August, 1998. My readers' answers to that question.
  10. Data Connector -- September, 1998. Data is meaningless until acted on by human intelligence.
  11. Guessing Game -- March, 1999. How much of what we do at an information desk is handing out answers, and how much is handing out better questions?
  12. That Little Old Smut Peddler Me -- September, 1999. Dr. Laura calls us smut peddlers because we think we are better at protecting children than filters are.
  13. Change a Word, Change a World -- March, 2000. Words matter. There are worlds of difference between a librarian and an information scientist
  14. Afraid of Harry Potter -- May, 2000. By protecting our children through censorship we miss a golden opportunity to teach them


Return to Top of Page

TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET

  1. Hard Copy -- July, 1995. What old magazines have that the net can never quite capture.
  2. Mostly Progress, Maybe, Sort of... -- August, 1995. What we'll gain and what we may lose with the net
  3. Thank the Ludd -- March, 1996. Some things to think about before we throw away all those books and journals.
  4. To Find or Not To Find -- April, 1996. On catalogers and key word searching
  5. Computer Shy -- July, 1996. What novels tell us about our feelings about computers
  6. Dogs on the Net -- August, 1996. On meeting people on the net
  7. Wild Kingdom -- October, 1996. On the shy people who seek companionship on the net
  8. Afraid of the Net -- November, 1996. Why the news won't tell us anything but horror stories about the net
  9. From Books to Bytes -- November, 1996. How a book sort of person turned into a woman with four web sites
  10. The Enchanted Toy Shop -- February, 1997. The best places on the net to have fun
  11. Visigoths -- April, 1997. And the new cultural enemy is: your librarian
  12. And Now for Something Completely Inconsequential -- May, 1997. The e-mail games people play
  13. To: Lions/From: Christians -- May, 1997. Librarians, the net and the first amendment
  14. Half Wired -- August, 1997. Good and not so good things about geek culture.
  15. The Internet Made Me Do It -- October, 1997. And now the net is responsible for last-minute shoddy term papers?
  16. The Price of Free Gifts -- October, 1998. You can get almost anything you want free on the net, and all you pay for it is your identity.
  17. a Christmas Card, 1998 -- December, 1998. Christmas thoughts on a technology theme.
  18. That Little Old Smut Peddler Me -- September, 1999. Dr. Laura calls librarians smut peddlers because we think we are better at protecting children than filters are.
  19. Here Comes a Regular -- March, 2000. On our need for casual gathering places and good conversation; sometimes maybe we have to go to the net to find it anymore
  20. Down Computer, Down I Say (twotwo) -- April, 2000. What I said to my voice-recognition software versus what it insists I said
  21. Longing To Believe -- March, 2001. Why are we such suckers for e-mail scams?
  22. A Shrinking Menu -- August, 2001. On the drawbacks of "free" content.
  23. What Is NOT on the Net -- July, 2002. Why I estimate that only about 15% of the world's entire historical knowledge is on the net.
  24. Dare To Be Dummies -- August, 2004. Computers freed us to admit how little we understand the world we live in.


Return to Top of Page

THE MIND AND THOUGHT

  1. Tar Baby -- January, 1996. On the strange workings of the mind
  2. Dixieland Thought -- July, 1996. Good conversation is like jazz.
  3. Only Humans -- August, 1996. Since humans seem to need to believe we're unique, here are a few ways we are.
  4. The World Inside Your Head -- March, 1997. Our ideas about how the world works determine what we can see and experience of it
  5. It's Like This -- April, 1997. On metaphor
  6. Let's Assume -- June, 1997. Speculative fiction shows us what our assumptions are
  7. Attention Deficit -- January, 1998. The scarcest commodity around may well be attention.
  8. Ask Better Questions -- February, 1998. If you don't like the answers you're getting, try asking different questions.
  9. Categorical Denial -- March, 1998. Use your mental categories cautiously.
  10. Roses by a Different Name -- May, 1998. Yes, we are still inventing proverbs, folk wisdom.
  11. A Field of Dreams -- May, 1998. On the oddity of spending an entire life in a university
  12. Arguably Better -- June, 1998. If we figure out how to do it in a civilized manner, argument can be a useful way of solving problems.
  13. A Reaction-ary -- August, 1998. Pay attention to your reactions--they'll show you who you are.
  14. Never Jam Tomorrow -- September, 1998. Short-term thinking is mucking up our life and our politics.
  15. Is It Live or Is It Memorex? -- October, 1998. What our minds record is not the same as what our cameras record
  16. What You Do with Falling Apples -- November, 1998. On machine intelligence and human intelligence
  17. On Orbiting Things -- January, 1999. Is it harder now for us to have Jeffersonian breadth of interests and knowledge?
  18. Sense and Sensibility -- January, 1999. on the strengths and limitations of common sense.
  19. Crossing the Wide Semantic -- February, 1999. Who would have thought that the Lewinsky story is fundamentally about semantics?
  20. Guessing Game -- March, 1999. how much of what we do at an information desk is handing out answers, and how much is handing out better questions?
  21. We're All with Stupid -- May, 1999. On putting our minds on autopilot, and using our manual overrides.
  22. Planting Memes -- August, 1999. How ideas spread and catch on.
  23. Secret Lives -- August, 1999. We all have secret lives, not necessarily because we want to hide ourselves, but because nobody pays enough attention.
  24. When Fair Play Isn't Fair -- October, 1999. How the American penchant for fairness can be used to trick our minds.
  25. And That's the Way It Isn't -- October, 1999. On media-created realities.
  26. Polishing Our Tools -- October, 1999. On honing our minds to make decisions intelligently.
  27. But We Know What We Like -- September, 2000. A book about national tastes in art leads me to ponder why we like what we like.
  28. Not Replaceable -- October, 2001. As a librarian, I grieve not only for the lives lost on September 11 but for the irreplaceable unique knowledge lost as well.
  29. Down from the Count -- November, 2001. Why we need to question the numbers that are used as weapons in public arguments.
  30. We DO Need Cave Paintings -- November, 2002. Art is not a frill but a basic human impulse.
  31. Negative Pleasures -- May, 2003. The least appreciated pleasures may be those that come from the absence of something.
  32. Scriptwriters All -- October, 2003. What happens when our mental scripts for what's supposed to happen don't pan out?


Return to Top of Page

TEACHING

  1. Lighting Candles -- December, 1997. Of good teaching and great teaching.
  2. Testing, 1,2,3,4 -- January, 1998. On the drawbacks of assessing merit on the basis of tests.
  3. Teach the Children Well -- February, 2000 -- if I was going to teach for one year, I'd teach second graders to love language
  4. Let Me Entertain You -- May, 2000. On teaching as a performance art.
  5. Why We Gotta Know This Stuff? -- October, 2001. Why teaching should start by connecting what we want students to learn with their special interests and talents
  6. Learning by Accident -- April, 2002. Our discussion of public education assumes schools are the only place we learn.
  7. The New College Try -- May, 2002. It's not that good an idea to insist every child should go to college, no matter where their interests and talents lie.


Return to Top of Page

KIDS AND TEENS

  1. Why Kids? -- April, 1996. What children do for us
  2. Read Alouds -- December, 1996. The best possible gift for a child is a book you read aloud
  3. Why Kids? -- April, 1996. What children do for us
  4. Learning To Be Plaid -- July, 1997. Getting past the rigid categories.
  5. Making Monsters -- February, 1998. Bernard Lefkowitz's book Our Guys shows us how monsters are created by societies that refuse to protect children against the bullies.
  6. Getting to Solla Sollew -- June, 1998. In my Almost Perfect State, parents will read Dr. Seuss to their children.
  7. Meddling with Wizards -- May, 1999. Why is it that in so many books about fighting ultimate evil, we send children to do battle?
  8. Teach the Children Well -- February, 2000 -- if I was going to teach for one year, I'd teach second graders to love language
  9. Afraid of Harry Potter -- May, 2000. By protecting our children through censorship we miss a golden opportunity to teach them
  10. Poseable Dolls -- July 1999. America has a way of treating children as parental property rather than small people with special emotional and physical needs.
  11. Bastards of Young -- July, 1999. Perhaps the young aren't much interested in news because it depicts them as lazy, ignorant, and dangerous, and ignores everything they care about?
  12. That Little Old Smut Peddler Me -- September, 1999. Dr. Laura calls us smut peddlers because we think we are better at protecting children than filters are.
  13. Night Vision -- October, 1999. On protecting children
  14. Of Freaks and Geeks -- February, 2000. A TV show reminding us what adolescence was really like.
  15. Not Clones -- June, 2000. Our children are not supposed to be exact replicas of us
  16. The Present Value of One -- December, 2001. What kinds of things a child could still buy for a dollar.
  17. Growing Like Weeds -- June, 2003. The art of survival for weeds and humans may lie in not knowing they're supposed to be lesser life forms
  18. The Boredom Machine -- July, 2005. On the boring, hemmed-in world we've fashioned for our kids.


Return to Top of Page

MEN, WOMEN, AND RELATIONSHIPS

  1. All Reasons Great and Small -- September, 1995. Why I am a feminist
  2. In Praise of Men -- February, 1996.
  3. What Does a Woman Want? -- August, 1996. Find out by reading romance novels.
  4. Beauty and the...Rest of Us -- April, 1997. On the complicated feelings women have about beauty
  5. Survey of Men 101 -- May, 1997. My male readers tell me what they want in a woman
  6. Take a Good Look -- July, 1997. On the secret lives of older women.
  7. Half a Human -- August, 1997. On learning how to act our gender.
  8. Advice for Desperate Men -- November, 1997. How to buy gifts for women
  9. Sexual Harassment -- June, 1998. On trying to figure out some intelligible rules.
  10. Lighting Out for the Territory -- January, 1999. On men who walk out on their lives.
  11. Transitional Lives -- November, 1999. Reflecting on a book about women like me, raised to become June Cleaver just as June's world was vanishing.
  12. Someone Else's Planet -- March, 2000. Of hardware stores and masculine competence
  13. A Deal Is a Deal -- June, 2002. On writing, remembering, and keeping your wedding vows.
  14. No Country for Old Men -- November, 2004. Like no other nation, the US has been shaped by the virtues and flaws of young men.
  15. A Perfect Valentine -- February, 2005. The greatest valentine gift may be the ability to recognize your mate's flaws and still find them perfect.
  16. At Play in the Fields of the Fathers -- June, 2006. On fathers passing on their love of baseball to their children.
  17. Better than Roses -- May, 2007. The nicest thing you could possibly do for your mother on Mother's Day.


Return to Top of Page

CATS

  1. Practical Cat Names -- June, 1996. Why give your child a silly name when you can inflict it on a cat?
  2. The Cat in the Book -- April, 1997. On the strange affinity between cats and readers
  3. The Mouse Police -- October, 1997. Of cats and kittens, treasures and pests.
  4. The Cat's Christmas -- December, 1997. Did you perhaps think those Christmas decorations were there for YOUR benefit?


Return to Top of Page

FUN STUFF: VERSE AND WORSE

  1. On Finally Achieving Perfect Copy -- September, 1995. On the perils of Spell-Check
  2. Remotely Funny -- November, 1995. Playing channel-changing roulette
  3. Merry Christmas, 1996
  4. And Now for Something Completely Inconsequential -- May, 1997. On e-mail games
  5. Playing Hooky at the Start of School -- September, 1997. A guest column of poems by my son.
  6. The Cat's Christmas -- December, 1997. Did you perhaps think thos Christmas decorations were there for YOUR benefit?
  7. Pun Pals -- April, 1999. Another e-mail game made entirely of puns.
  8. A Game of Names -- March, 2000 -- an entertaining way of coming up with appropriate pseudonyms
  9. Mail by the Ton -- June, 1997. On sorting the library's junk mail
  10. Down Computer, Down I Say (twotwo) -- April, 2000. What I said to my voice-recognition software versus what it insists I said
  11. a Christmas Card, 1998 -- December, 1998.
  12. Merry Christmas, 1999 -- December, 1999.
  13. Christmas Card, 2000 -- December 12, 2000.
  14. Christmas Card, 2003 -- December, 2003.
  15. Christmas Card, 2004 -- December, 2004.
  16. Christmas Card, 2005


Return to Top of Page

AMERICAN CULTURE

  1. O.J. (On Justice) -- October, 1995. On the Simpson verdict.
  2. Light Out -- October, 1995. Americans would rather move away from problems than stay and solve them.
  3. Remotely Funny -- November, 1995. On channel-changing roulette
  4. Sensible Lizards -- December, 1995. On names of rock groups
  5. Something Amyth -- January, 1996. Americans need better stories to explain who we are and what we stand for
  6. Naming Names -- February, 1996. On the names we give children
  7. Target Market -- March, 1996. On direct mail
  8. America in 9 Innings -- April, 1996. Understanding America through baseball novels
  9. We Will Rock You -- April, 1996. On poetry in rock music lyrics
  10. Ad Lib -- June, 1996. What advertising does to us and for us
  11. Folkways of the Iowans -- July, 1996. On the Bix, RAGBRAI, and Iowa in July.
  12. Carless and Carefree -- September, 1996. On surviving without a car in America.
  13. Unifying Vision -- October, 1996. Were these really the 100 greatest TV moments?
  14. Mail by the Ton -- June, 1997. On sorting the library's junk mail
  15. Saved by Katharine Hepburn -- August, 1997. A tribute to screwball comedies.
  16. Shiny Happy People -- October, 1997. Can we ever possibly be as happy as those people in commercials?
  17. Drawing with a Skewer -- December, 1997. Political cartoonists say more with no words than any columnist does with thousands.
  18. Oh, Do You Know the Muppet Man? -- January, 1998. A loving tribute to one of the great creative geniuses of our time: Jim Henson.
  19. The Queen of Touchy-Feely -- April, 1998. There are times when letting it all hang out may be ill-advised.
  20. The Woman from F.I.B.S. -- April, 1998. A tribute to singer/songwriter Christine Lavin.
  21. Roses by a Different Name -- May, 1998. Yes, we are still inventing proverbs.
  22. Rock of Ages -- July, 1998. On VH-1's top 100 rock performers of all time.
  23. The Face That Launched a Thousand Cartoons -- August, 1998. Exaggerating people's most identifiable features is the life blood of editorial cartoons.
  24. Steadily-Depressin' Low-Down Mind-Messin' Workin' at the Porn-Shop Blues -- October, 1998. On some truly depressing things Americans do to make a living.
  25. Pushing Our Barns -- November, 1998. On all the stuff we fill our lives with.
  26. Vampires -- April, 1999. We have become emotional voyeurs, preying on the real life emotions of celebrities and victims.
  27. The Finger-Pointing Circle -- June, 1999. The media and the gunmakers need to take responsibility for their decisions, too.
  28. And That's the Way It Isn't -- October, 1999. On media-created realities.
  29. Achieving Frivolity -- November, 1999. It took a long time for Americans to learn to have fun that isn't uplifting or educational.
  30. Tales Like These -- November, 1999. On our two guiding American myths: Norman Rockwell and the marlboro Man.
  31. Here Comes a Regular -- March, 2000. On our need for casual gathering places and good conversation
  32. Yesterday's Gone -- April, 2000. On the disappearance of TV antennas and some other changes that happened without us noticing
  33. Non-Programmable Function -- June, 2000. How media sells the illusion of choice.
  34. Real Reality -- October, 2000. Some ideas for "reality television" that would appeal to me.
  35. Mechanical Fix -- December, 2000. On the American preference for machines over human judgment.
  36. Report Cards for Grown-Ups -- January, 2001. Thoughts on better ways to measure success than money, fame and power.
  37. Longing To Believe -- March, 2001. Why are we such suckers for e-mail scams?
  38. New Ways To See -- July, 2001. Art forces us to really see, to think, to feel, and, maybe, to change.
  39. Rites of Spring -- March, 2004. If you wish to understand America, go to a baseball game.
  40. To a Tee -- May, 2004. On the vital communication function of t-shirts.
  41. Safe as Houses -- June, 2004. We changed, and the kinds of houses we chose to live in changed with us.
  42. Dare To Be Dummies -- August, 2004. Computers freed us to admit how little we understand the world we live in.
  43. No Country for Old Men -- November, 2004. Like no other nation, the US has been shaped by the virtues and flaws of young men.
  44. Over the River and through the Woods -- November, 2004. Why Americans pack highways and airports on the holidays.
  45. The Boredom Machine -- July, 2005. On the boring, hemmed-in world we've fashioned for our kids.
  46. Beneath Our Costumes -- October, 2005. Why are all the grownups dressing up for Halloween?
  47. Common Cents - January 7, 2006. Where do you draw the line between mad money and real money?
  48. At Play in the Fields of the Fathers -- June, 2006. On fathers passing on their love of baseball to their children.


Return to Top of Page

AMERICAN HISTORY

  1. Light Out -- October, 1995. Americans would rather move away from problems than stay and solve them.
  2. Staying on the Map -- November, 1995. On the people who do the day to day maintenance that keeps us on the map
  3. Something Amyth -- January, 1996. Americans need better stories to explain who we are and what we stand for
  4. Thank the Ludd -- March, 1996. Next time, could we think about the consequences before we adopt a new technology?
  5. Flower Children -- April, 1996. On my youth in the sixties as a too-old-to-be-a-flower child
  6. Son of Flower Children -- April, 1996. More details.
  7. The Daily Mawgid -- July, 1996. On American journalism
  8. History Story -- September, 1996. What is your favorite true story from history, and why?
  9. The Dilbertizing of America -- October, 1996. 3 books that tell us what's happening to America
  10. Baxter in Charge -- December, 1996. On American foreign policy
  11. Bar None -- December, 1996. What might the world be like with fewer lawyers?
  12. The Ghost of Christmas Future -- March, 1997. Christmas then, and Christmas now
  13. Plan Ahead -- March, 1997. On a world grown more impatient.
  14. New and Improved -- March, 1997. On some ways things are better now than when I was a kid.
  15. One of a Kind -- March, 1998. Americans want their individual uniqueness to be recognized
  16. All by Myself, or "Self-Made in the USA." March, 1998. On all the help the self-made man had to pull himself up.
  17. The Customer Is Sometimes Wrong -- November, 1998. What happens when we adjust our society to unreasonable expectations?
  18. Design for Living -- May, 1999. We have abandoned our town squares and designed ourselves into isolation.
  19. Real Tinsel -- April, 1999. On one difference between the Gilded Age and our own.
  20. Time Machine -- April, 1999. If you could go back in time, what place and time would you choose?
  21. The REAL News of the Century -- May, 1999. Sometimes the biggest news is not an event but a sea change.
  22. Thoughts While Weeding -- June, 1999. Gardens and civil societies thrive only with constant attention.
  23. They've All Come To Look for America -- June, 1999. What books would you give new immigrants to tell them what they need to know about America?
  24. A Sense of Who We Are -- August, 1999. At last Americans are beginning to make an effort to keep and remember our past.
  25. Night Vision -- October, 1999. On protecting children
  26. Interesting Times -- December, 1999. The 20th century has seen some impressive changes, but nothing like the quantum changes of the 19th century.
  27. R-E-S-P-E-C-T -- January, 2000. We don't get much of it, and we should demand more
  28. Try Trusting Us -- January, 2000. When the experts can't agree on what to do about an urgent public issue, maybe they should ask us.
  29. Credit Risk -- April, 2001. How credit cards changed the world.
  30. Not Replaceable -- October, 2001. As a librarian, I grieve not only for the lives lost on September 11 but for the irreplaceable unique knowledge lost as well.


Return to Top of Page

AMERICAN POLITICS

  1. Just Stand There -- November, 1995. A horrified look at our destructive politics
  2. No Government Day -- December, 1995. What would happen if we spent a day with no government of any kind?
  3. Draft Dodger -- January, 1996. On Bill Clinton's bad conscience about VietNam.
  4. White Whine -- January, 1996. On affirmative action
  5. Legal Speech, Stupid Speech -- April, 1996. Just because you can say it doesn't mean you should
  6. Conventional Wisdom -- August, 1996. Explaining political conventions to my (then) British readers.
  7. Mean and Stupid -- September, 1996. Another look at our congress at work
  8. Dr. Death -- September, 1996. On Dr. Kevorkian and assisted suicide
  9. Immoral Certainty -- November, 1996. The certainty we're right keeps us from understanding each other,
  10. Visigoths -- April, 1997. And the new cultural enemy is: your librarian
  11. To: Lions/from: Christians -- May, 1997. On librarians, the internet, and the first amendment
  12. Give Me Liberty -- September, 1997. What libertarians are forgetting.
  13. Remote Control -- September, 1997. What libertarians are right about.
  14. Drawing with a Skewer -- December, 1997. Political cartoonists say more with no words than any columnist does with thousands.
  15. Testing, 1,2,3,4 -- January, 1998. On the drawbacks of assessing merit on the basis of tests.
  16. Starr Chamber -- February, 1998. On the prosecution of a president.
  17. Ghetto Blaster -- April, 1998. How welfare reform could work through making the community work.
  18. The Face that Launched a Thousand Cartoons -- August, 1998. A pundit suggests cartoonists should not make fun of people's appearance
  19. Strange Bedfellows -- August, 1998. The Republican Party is on a collision course with itself.
  20. Never Jam Tomorrow -- September, 1998. Short-term thinking is mucking up American life and politics.
  21. The Wrong Words -- September, 1998. Words are dangerous. Don't censor them; answer them.
  22. The Meaning of Never Again -- October, 1998. Of Kosovo and genocide and monsters.
  23. Crossing the Wide Semantic--who would have thought that the Lewinsky story is fundamentally about semantics?
  24. It HAS Happened Here -- March, 1999. Overruling an election with money, lawyers, and obedient journalists
  25. Must Be 50 Ways To Fix Our Country -- September, 1999. My responses to the George book, 250 Ways To Make America Better.
  26. When Fair Play Isn't Fair -- October, 1999. How the American penchant for fairness can be used to trick our minds.
  27. And That's the Way It Isn't -- October, 1999. On media-created realities.
  28. Riders of the Purple Sage -- November, 1999. The "sagebrush Rebellion" is about loading up on more free goodies from the taxpayers.
  29. Tug of War -- January, 2000. On the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez and the cravenness of politicians
  30. Whose Weeds -- August, 2000. In which my urge to chop down somebody else's weeds becomes a parable.
  31. Beauty Is a Choice We Make -- November, 2000. The difference it makes when everyone has access to our natural wonders.
  32. Christmas Card, 2000 -- December, 2000. My own solution for the 2000 election cliffhanger.
  33. Hunting Good Will -- January, 2001. On the meanness of our public dialogue
  34. The Game of the Name -- February, 2001. Being the first one to name a problem forces everyone else to discuss it in your terms.
  35. Hearts and Minds -- September, 2001. Why governments have to be open and accountable if they want citizens to trust them.
  36. The Value of the Public -- September 16, 2001. How the hideous events of September 11 showed the importance of good public servants.
  37. Down from the Count -- November, 2001. Why we need to question the numbers that are used as weapons in public arguments.
  38. Short Memory -- February, 2002. If we don't remember our history, we have no defense against the people who want to misrepresent it to sell us a bill of goods.
  39. No Account -- February, 2003. What would corporate accounts look like if they accounted for the services they got for free from the public sector?
  40. Growing Like Weeds -- June, 2003. The art of survival for weeds and humans may lie in not knowing they're supposed to be lesser life forms
  41. The Man Behind the Curtain -- August, 2003. Personal responsibility should not be an excuse for corporate irresponsibility.
  42. Vote Back -- September, 2004. I offer a truly American reason for voting: the certainty someone really doesn't want you to.
  43. Death and Taxes -- April, 2004. On the estate tax.
  44. You Be Me and I'll Be You -- September, 2005. On our inability to think about our problems from other people's viewpoints.


Return to Top of Page

ALL ABOUT ME

  1. Introducing Myself -- July, 1996. My debut column
  2. Never Middle-Aged -- July, 1995. At least, not in my mind
  3. Word Child -- August, 1995. On growing up on word games
  4. Every Other Inch a Lady -- August, 1995. On my mother
  5. The Good Life -- September, 1995. Who I'd like to be when I grow up
  6. All Reasons Great and Small -- September, 1995. Why I am a feminist.
  7. What Genes Have Wrought -- October, 1995. On my son
  8. We Hold These (Small) Truths To Be Self Evident (To Us) -- February, 1996. My philosophy of life, such as it is
  9. Me and a Book -- May, 1996. How books shaped my life
  10. Flower Children -- May, 1996. My life as a too-old-to-be-a-flower child
  11. Son of Flower Children -- June, 1996. More details on my life in the sixties.
  12. Son Rise -- August, 1996. On my son
  13. Driven to Distraction -- September, 1996. On driving my son and all his belongings to Boston
  14. From Books to Bytes -- November, 1996. How a book sort of person became a woman with four web sites
  15. The Four Seasons -- February, 1997. Why, in spite of ice and snow, I'd never move to California
  16. The Ghost of Christmas Future -- March, 1997. Christmas then, and Christmas now
  17. Plan Ahead -- March, 1997. On a world grown more impatient.
  18. Patron Saint of Dustbunnies -- May, 1997. On my housekeeping, such as it is
  19. Two Years before the Masthead -- July, 1997. Reflections on the second anniversary of My Word's Worth
  20. Things That Make Me Go "Huh?" July, 1997.
  21. While You've Got It Flaunt It -- October, 1997. Life is too short, so take the time to savor it.
  22. the Almost Perfect State -- November, 1997. The perfections and imperfections of my personal utopia, part one.
  23. Thanks for Christmas -- December, 1997. The things I love about Christmas
  24. How I Spent My Summer Vacation -- May, 1998. My first trip to the mountain west.
  25. Scribbles on Pages -- June, 1998. My answers to the eternal question readers ask writers--how do you do it?
  26. The Eight Commandments -- September, 1998. If
  27. Shy? No. Retiring? YES!!" -- July, 1999. Thoughts after my first week of retirement.
  28. It Was a Wonderful Life -- November, 1999. A celebration of my sister's life. you were starting a religion from scratch, what would your commandments be?
  29. Slowing Down -- April, 2000. Why My Word's Worth is becoming an occasional column instead of a weekly one.
  30. Life Without a Plot Line -- December, 2000. In which I realize how much my life has hinged on accidents.
  31. Winter at the Cardinal Cafe -- March, 2002. What I discovered outdoors after I added an all-glass sunroom to my house
  32. Voices from the Attic -- May, 2005. The clutter in our attics may be our family's history trying to speak to us.
  33. The End - in which I announce that this time, I'm really retired, and point out some of the pieces I'd like to be remembered by.


Return to Top of Page

THE FUNDAMENTALLY UNCLASSIFIABLE

  1. Folkways of the Iowans -- July, 1996. On Bix and RAGBRAI and July in Iowa
  2. We're Number 300! -- August, 1997. Reflections on placing last in Money's survey of the most livable towns.
  3. Power Failure -- November, 1997. Might we actually like feeling powerless?
  4. To Serve You Better -- December, 1997. What companies do in the name of serving us better.
  5. Stuck Together with God's Glue -- February, 1998. What we gain from our losses.
  6. Five Letter Word -- March, 1998. We work too hard to become responsible adults to see that word used to mean sleazy.
  7. Just Desserts -- July, 1998. What do we deserve, and why?
  8. Chocolate Raspberry Amaretto Truffle -- November, 1998. We are all "32 flavors and then some," in a world that wants us to be vanilla.
  9. 'Tis the Season To Buy Fruitcake -- December, 1998. Your grocery store reveals what season and holiday is upon us.
  10. A Game of Pinball -- February, 1999. Why life doesn't go according to our nice neat plans.
  11. Within the Sound of Silence -- March, 1999. Americans are not at home with silence.
  12. Connecting the Dots -- May, 1999. How are professors to pass on their love of learning to a resistant consumer generation?
  13. Loco Motion? -- September, 1999. On the biological imperative of laziness.
  14. Besetting Virtues -- July, 2000. What if the things about us that drive people nuts are our virtues, not our flaws?
  15. Without Means of Support -- September, 2000. In which I wonder how a country can get by without basic infrastructure.
  16. Drifting into Virtue -- October, 2000. In which I ponder on a moral infrastructure that makes it easy to be virtuous.
  17. Pieces of the Puzzle -- February, 2001. Each person's memories are pieces of the puzzle we call history.
  18. Hole To Fill -- March, 2001. On finding the hole in the universe that only our unique abilities and passions can fill.
  19. We Don't Need To Be Heroes -- September, 2002. On the value of ordinary lives.
  20. Broken Circles -- January, 2005. We live on past our physical death because those who loved us remain to tell our stories.


Return to Top of Page




My Word's
Worth Archive
Current column
Marylaine.com/
home to all my
other writing


NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

I'll write columns here whenever I really want to share an idea with you and can find time to write them . If you want to be notified when a new one is up, send me an e-mail and include "My Word's Worth" in the subject line.