Thursday, August 14, 2008

Please allow me to introduce myself

Hello,
This is my first blog. I've been thinking about doing something like this for many years, but I've always found excuses. Among them: I'm not too comfortable with high technology (never took a programming class, for example); I'm a late bloomer; the plants needed watering.
But now that I have more time on my hands than I want, having been laid off from the job I held for the past ten years, all my excuses are gone.
I'm not sure yet what this blog will center on. Perhaps like many new blogs, it will serve as a forum for whatever is buzzing around my brain at the moment. Such as how to cope psychologically with being laid off after a certain age. Or what it was like growing up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, during the 1950s.
Most likely future subjects will include politics and economics; journalism (especially responses to columnists); food (everybody in my family of four is a foodie); and books.
So let's start with the latter. The three most important books I have read in the past few years are Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America; Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation; and John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. That should give some sense of my political leanings.
More on this tomorrow. Or next week. See you all then.