We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, consumed by self.  Quite obviously, we are always in our own company and, therefore, cannot help but place ourselves first in our own worlds.  It is inescapable.  The world at large, or macro-world, is an amalgam of the billions of individual, or micro-worlds, of which it [...]

For centuries, children have enjoyed blowing bubbles.  There is something enthralling in creating or witnessing a bubble as it grows, seemingly blissfully floats in the air, and ultimately pops.  Sometimes, the anticipation of a bubble popping becomes too much for us, and we puncture it, ending its existence before its natural life span has run.  [...]

In thumbing through the Orthodox English Dictionary the other day in search of a word, I came upon the definition for another word, “racism:”

a.)  the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race , especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or [...]

To the best of my knowledge, my grandfather Rocco Petruzzelli was born in Italy in 1865.  In 1896, he left his homeland and the village of Castelluccio Valmaggiore near Foggia / Apulia, Italy and set out for America, leaving his son and my father Donato – born a matter of months earlier on October 31, [...]

I have gotten quite accustomed to scams perpetrated via email.  For a number of years now, I have received notifications almost daily that I have won any number of lotteries (the Microsoft Lottery being the most frequent).  Additionally, I have been inundated by barristers (that’s lawyers to those of you unfamiliar with the nomenclature for [...]

In my thirty-plus years in the field of career services, I have met many talented individuals whose career opportunities were hindered severely because of deficiencies in their educational backgrounds.  Whether the missing credential was a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral degree or perhaps a Certificate in a particular discipline, the lack of an employer-required educational credential [...]

No doubt you have seen one of those long-running TV commercials touting the benefits of attorneys skilled in litigating cases involving Mesothelioma.  If you’ve wondered what mesothelioma is, you number among the lucky, healthy ones.  A form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure, this disease strikes approximately 2,000 individuals in the United States each year.  [...]

Consciousness is what separates mankind from most of the animal kingdom.  The consciousness of ourselves and the world around us shapes who we become as individuals, cultures, and societies.  What is referred to as the normative state of consciousness manifests the real world perceptions of most people who would be classified as sane (although one [...]

 
The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

Why do we still quote Shakespeare more than four centuries after the Bard first entertained theatregoers in England?  Why does the work of American poet Robert Frost, declared Poet Laureate during President Jack Kennedy’s administration, still strike chords with so many of us?  Why, when U.S. law stipulates [...]

The Afghan War may be the tip of the iceberg in the radical Islamic plan to conquer the world.  In the past year, we have witnessed not the emergence of homegrown terrorism on our soil, but something far more insidious and bone chilling: we have seen an increase in terrorism and attempted terrorism within our [...]