To My Daughter,
I've always known the day would come when you would casually mention getting your first tattoo, just as I've known that there would be little I could do to impact your decision. Still, I feel a maternal responsibility to weigh in before you permanently mark up your beautiful body.
I say do it. I support you completely... under one condition. (Come on. You knew that was coming.)
As an infant, you wanted so badly to hold your head up long before your neck was strong enough to carry the load. So, I supported you.
As a cruiser, you wanted nothing more than to strut right over to the couch and steal the remote months before your little legs could carry you there. So, I supported you.
As a toddler, you wanted to remove the side rail on your big girl bed long...
Lifestyle
Dear Secretary Hagel:
It has come to my attention that the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is now reviewing proposed changes to Air Force Instruction (AFI) 1-1's policy on religious neutrality. I have copied you on my previous correspondence to Air Force senior leadership regarding the Military Religious Freedom Foundation's (MRFF's) concerns about these proposed changes. I would like to pass along to you MRFF's additional concerns regarding these proposed changes which have recently come to our attention. I recommend that you seek your General Counsel's (GC's) and OSD Personnel and Readiness's (P...
2,558
Dear Parents,
Thank you. Thank you for trusting us with your whole world, because we know that's what you've handed us -- your whole world, and your trust along with it, and we're grateful.
You should know, we think your kids are the coolest. The coolest. With all their quirks and their gifts and their challenges and their unique qualities, we think your kids are just the coolest, and we're excited to be their friends. For the time we have them, your kids are our life.
We're here because there's no place we'd rather be this summer than with your kids. We're here because we LOVE this. We train for this. We live for this. We work for it. We're exhausted by it. We're energized by it. Because we understand your kids are worth it. Every bit. Deeply, deeply worth our time and our interest...
2,500
Fellow fiction writers,
Let's be frank: we're not the healthiest-minded bunch. If we were we'd spend our days doing something more pleasant than writing fiction. But lately we seem to have taken a turn for the worse. We look out at the shifting landscape of publishing - e-books rising, big publishers quaking - and obsessively ask, both publicly and privately, Is the novel dead? Is it all Fifty Shades of Twilight from here on out? Are we going the way of the poets, soon to be read by only each other?
The fear is palpable in any group of fiction writers larger than zero. (Non-rhetorical question: how often do you come away from a literary gathering without some new tidbit of doom? The famous writer who couldn't sell her new novel. The legendary editor who's been canned.) The effects...
2,372
Dear Mr. Selig:
A question: How can you allow a growing number (16 at last count) of your Major League Baseball teams to promote all-you-can-eat tickets at their stadiums while simultaneously claiming "the health and welfare of the country's youth is a top priority for Major League Baseball?"
A little over two years ago, you made that statement while making a big splash by announcing that Major League Baseball (MLB) was supporting First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! fitness and nutrition campaign to attack childhood obesity.
Since that time, you and the majority of MLB teams have become junk food pushers of the worst kind.
The "all-you-can-eat" deals your teams typically offer include hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, nachos, soda, ice cream and popcorn. Some of these...
2,622
Dear Amal and George,
This is an open letter (obviously as it is on the Huffington Post).
I have to inform you Amal, for pure disclosure reasons, I too could have been George's wife. Alas, I am also Druze.
But I'm very happy it's you, because you have an incredible intellectual pedigree that I urge you to help me with.
I was made in Syria, born in Australia. My heart aches as I watch a country I have spent so much time in disintegrate into rubble and destruction.
I am frustrated by my voice's inability to amplify and stop this horror.
I am irrationally fearful of the fate of Palmyra and what its potential loss could be to civiliasations to come.
I am terrified by ISIS's advances into southern Syria where the Druze reside.
I'm not going to go on and on: the facts...
2,373
Dear Tootsie Roll Industries:
You've probably forgotten about me by now, but I am certain you remember my work. I'm the "Tootsie Roll girl." That kid who sang the jingle in the 70s. The one that goes: "Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie Roll to me." Yeah, that one.
There was another kid who sang the rest of the song with me, but I had the solo. The iconic solo. The solo that helped to sell your product for nearly four decades now. The solo from the jingle featured on your website, a Food Network special, a rap song, and embedded in the brains of three generations.
I am not sure where I heard this, but I understand that jingle is the longest running cartoon commercial in the history of the world. It's probably true.
To be perfectly upfront, I wasn't hired by you. A...
3,012
Dear Pessimists,
I know the drill. I was you, once. I remember what it was like. I was 390lbs, sitting in a cubicle at a software farm all day every day. I ate pizza pretty much three meals a day. I hated my job. But I was allowed to wear what I wanted, bring toys in, and decorate, so there was at least a semblance of controlling my own life and destiny.
When it came to fitness, I made the jokes about fit people. I laughed at Bill Hicks's routine about Jim Fixx, laughing about how this guy ran every day of his life and died of a heart attack relatively young while others drink and smoke and have tons of sex and snort coke and live to be 100. I laughed at the marathon stickers that say 0.0 -- Running Sucks.
When it came to dreams outside of affording whatever prison I'd just...
2,645
My dear atheist friend,
I have been actively involved in the education of Jews of all stripes (especially those with a built-in apathy or antipathy to theology) for the last 11 years. I have had a lot of time to reflect on your position and I'd like to offer a few general observations that I've culled from my experience over the years - not to convince you to change your mind (which, I've discovered, is close to impossible) and not to judge your choices, but rather so that we can understand each other better and possibly "walk back" some of the clamorous dialogue. Certainly we can open by agreeing that all human beings should be respected and, assuming no egregious misdeeds, treated with civility.
The first point I'd like to explore is that there really are no true atheists. It...
2,349
Dear Stranger Who Called Me a Girl,
You may not remember me. I'm forgettable; I've learned to live with it. To refresh your memory, a few months ago we were on the N train heading towards Queens. I was going to a friend's party and I think you were on your way home from shopping with your grandson as evident by your Gap shopping bag. I was a little tipsy, thanks to an unlimited mimosa brunch in Hell's Kitchen. I hopped onto the N train on that gray afternoon without a care in the world. I didn't have a seat, but it's the N train on a Saturday. I wasn't expecting a miracle. I was just gleefully observing the other passengers and writing notes down in my weather-beaten journal. It's incredible how introspective unlimited mimosas can make you.
I glanced over at your grandson, who was...
2,507