I’m a writer and lawyer based in New Jersey.

“Nick took the cork out of the grasshopper bottle and a hopper clung to it. He picked him off, hooked him and tossed him out. He held the rod far out so that the hopper on the water moved into the current flowing into the hollow log. Nick lowered the rod and the hopper floated in. There was a heavy strike. . . .”

Humans are not very logical creatures. The beliefs that we hold usually don’t come from spreadsheets and peer-reviewed science journals, but from the stories we tell each other. This has always been the case. . . .

A word always has at least some history behind it, rather than a single, simple one-to-one meaning. That history can be long and dynamic, and it continues to evolve, just like language itself. . . .

As Russian tanks roll across Ukraine, and Putin raises the threat of nuclear war, I wonder (dare I?) if the rise of authoritarianism, Putinism, and Trumpism in the United States is finally reaching its logical limit. . . .

There are two types of people in the world: adrenaline junkies and the rest of us. But even among adrenaline junkies, a spectrum of risk tolerance (or rather, risk pursuit) exists. . . .

A lot of people probably view poll taxes as racist ancient history that has nothing to do with today. But history is never dead and buried in this country. . . .