Pockets! revisited

Posted on August 19, 2025 | 1 comment

In 2018, I wrote a post titled “Pockets!”  [https://susanjustwrites.com/2018/01/] 

I began with these words: “Women’s clothes should all have pockets!”

My focus: How important it was for women to have clothes with roomy pockets.  Why?  For a fundamental reason: Freedom.  The freedom men have, to carry possessions close to their bodies, allowing them to reach for essentials like keys without fumbling through a clumsy handbag.

Although I’ve often wanted to return to this focus, other critical topics have demanded my attention.  What has inspired me to return to this focus now?

In June, I came across a book review in The New York Times that made me aware of a leading women’s fashion designer I had never heard of:  Claire McCardell.  The review noted that, in this biography, Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, author Elizabeth Dickinson noted McCardell’s penchant for pockets. 

I quickly got a copy of this new book.  I learned that McCardell, a prominent designer in the 1930s, ‘40s, and early ‘50s, consistently added pockets to her designs of women’s clothes.  She was an ingenious and daring designer in other respects as well:  inventing mix-and-match separates, introducing hoodies, denim, and more.  She advocated wearing ballet flats instead of high heels, she banned confining corsets, and she insisted on pockets, even though male designers usually stood in her way.  As early as 1933, in her first real job, she wanted every dress and skirt to include pockets.  (Pants for women were still on the drawing board—a topic for another day.)

This book notes that pockets had been around since the 1600s.  Originally, in men’s breeches.  But men opposed pockets for women, largely because they feared that women might conceal dangerous or threatening items:  “The more a woman could stash on her person, the more freedom she had to act.”

When McCardell was growing up, “suffragists and dress reformers fought for pocket parity.”  In 1915, author and social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman noted that American designers “ignored the practical needs of women” and kept pockets out of women’s clothes.  McCardell took a stand against this history.  “She wanted pockets and believed that other women did, too.”  But she had to get her design ideas past the men who dominated the American fashion industry.  It became a constant struggle.  But as one journalist noted: “Because Claire’s basic principle of design is that the wearer should feel comfortable, she puts pockets into almost everything.”

In the 1940s, Diana Vreeland, the influential fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, shared Claire’s “love of pockets,” condemning bulky handbags: “Cigarettes, lipstick, powder, a small comb, money—it should all go into pockets,” she wrote.  “Real pockets, like a man has, for goodness’ sake.”  Vreeland added, ”Of course, you’d [need] much bigger pockets, and they’d be rather chic.”

According to author Dickinson, Claire has “never been forgotten by the world’s fashion designers….” Designer Tory Burch in 2022 created a spring collection inspired by her designs, and in 2023 the Costume Design Institute at the Met mounted an exhibit featuring women designers and celebrated Claire.  Dickinson concludes: “We are the inheritors of her brave risks, her experiments, and her singular focus.”

But what has happened to her focus on pockets?

Here’s what I wrote in 2018, revised just a little.  (I’ll follow it with a brief update.)

Women’s clothes should all have pockets. 

I admit it.  I’m a pocket-freak. When I shop for new pants, I don’t bother buying new pants, no matter how appealing, if they don’t have pockets.  Why?

Because when I formerly bought pants that didn’t have pockets, I discovered over time that I never wore them. They languished forever in a shameful pile of unworn clothes.

It became clear that I liked the benefits of wearing pants with pockets.  Why then would I buy new pants without pockets when those I already had were languishing unworn?

Result:  I simply don’t buy no-pocket pants anymore

Most jeans have pockets, often multiple pockets, and I like wearing them for that reason, among others.  [“They’re My Blue Jeans, and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” https://susanjustwrites.com/category/blue-jeans/.%5D Most jackets, but not all, have pockets.  Why not?  They all need pockets.  How useful is a jacket if it doesn’t have even one pocket to stash your stuff?

Dresses and skirts should also have pockets.  Maybe an occasional event, like a fancy gala, requires a form-fitting dress that doesn’t have pockets.  But how many women actually go to galas like that?  Looking back over my lifetime of clothes-wearing, I can think of very few occasions when I had to wear a no-pocket dress.  As for skirts, I lump them in the same category as pants.  Unless you feel compelled for some bizarre reason to wear a skin-tight pencil skirt, what good is a skirt without pockets?

Cardigan sweaters, like jackets, should also have pockets.  So should robes.  Pajamas. Even nightgowns.  I relish being able to stick a facial tissue into the pocket of a nightgown.  You never know when you’re going to sneeze, right?

By the way, I view fake pockets as an abomination.  Why do designers think it’s a good idea to put a fake pocket on their designs?  Sewing what looks like a pocket but isn’t a real pocket adds insult to injury.  Either put a real pocket there, or forget the whole thing.  Fake pockets?  Boo!

Despite the longing for pockets by women like me, it can be challenging to find women’s clothes with pockets.  Why?

Several women writers have speculated about this, usually blaming sexist attitudes leading to no-pocket clothing for women.  Those who’ve traced the evolution of pockets throughout history discovered that neither men nor women wore clothing with pockets until the 17th century.  Pockets in menswear began appearing in the late 1600s.  But women?  To carry anything, they were forced to wrap a sack with a string worn around their waists and tuck the sack under their petticoats.

These sacks eventually evolved into small purses called reticules that women would carry in their hands.  But reticules were so small that they limited what women could carry.  As the twentieth century loomed, women rebelled.  According to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, dress patterns started to include instructions for sewing pockets into skirts.  And when women began wearing pants, they finally had pockets.

But things soon switched back to no-pocket pants.  The fashion industry insisted on “slimming” designs for women, while men’s clothes still had scads of pockets.  The result has been the rise of bigger and bigger handbags (interestingly, handbags are often called “pocketbooks” on the East Coast).

Enormous handbags create a tremendous burden for women.  Their size and weight can literally weigh a woman down, impeding her ability to move through her busy life the way men can.  I’ve eschewed bulky handbags, often wearing a backpack instead.  Unfortunately, backpacks are not always appropriate attire.

Today (in 2018), many women are demanding pockets.  Some have advocated pockets with the specific goal of enabling women to carry their iPhones or other cell phones that way.  I’m a pocket-freak, but according to recent scientific research, cell phones emit dangerous radiation, and this kind of radiation exposure is a major risk to your health.  Some experts in the field have therefore advised against keeping a cell phone adjacent to your body.  So, advocating pockets for that reason may not be a good idea.  [Please see my update below.]

We need pockets in our clothes for a much more important and fundamental reason:  Freedom.

Pockets give women the kind of freedom men have:  The freedom to carry possessions close to their bodies, allowing them to reach for essentials like keys without fumbling through a clumsy handbag.

I propose a boycott on no-pocket clothes.  If enough women boycott no-pocket pants, for example, designers and manufacturers will have to pay attention.  Their new clothing lines will undoubtedly include more pockets.

I hereby pledge not to purchase any clothes without pockets.

Will you join me?

Update in August 2025:

I still endorse almost everything I wrote in 2018.  But I have a few new thoughts:

First, instead of keeping my previously-purchased no-pocket pants in a shameful pile, I’ve donated almost all of them to charity. My hope is that shoppers will find some use for these pants, possibly using the fabric alone to create something wearable.

Next, although I’m still concerned about the radiation risk posed by cell phones, my thinking evolved during the pandemic. Instead of carrying a handbag/purse, I carry all my valuables on my person. [Please see susanjustwrites.com/2021/08/06/outsmarting-the-bad-guys/ ]  This includes my cell phone, which I now put in a roomy pants pocket whenever I leave home.  I’ve reduced the radiation risk by invariably removing my phone from my pocket as soon as I return home, where I place it in a prominent place (and try to remember where it is). A backpack can sometimes be useful, but I still prefer pockets.

Third, I haven’t been doing much shopping for new clothes in the past few years, but one item I occasionally seek out is new black pants or jeans.  After all, pants do wear out.  And I’ve been delighted to discover that many more pants are now available with pockets!  Is it possible that my advocacy of a boycott on no-pocket pants has had some effect?  I’d like to think so, but I doubt it.  I simply think that the fashion industry has finally come to acknowledge that women want pants with pockets, and the bigger the pockets the better.  By purchasing more and more pants with pockets, women themselves are now influencing what’s for sale.

One more thing:  When I recently read a book describing the efforts of many Italians to resist the fascist takeover of their country in the 1930s and ‘40s, I learned that Italian women often sewed large pockets into their voluminous skirts.  They filled those pockets with items like guns and explosives that were passed on and used to resist the fascists ruling their country.  These brave women helped the resistance overcome the fascists and return Italy to democracy.  Brava!!  Their history is inspiring.  But I truly hope that, here in the United States, we can preserve our democracy without having to resort to using pockets in this very scary way.

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Declare your independence: Those high heels are killers!

Posted on July 3, 2025 | 1 comment

HAPPY JULY!  Following a tradition I began several years ago, I’m once again encouraging women to declare their independence this July 4th and abandon wearing high-heeled shoes. I’ve revised this post for 2025. My newly revised post follows:

I’ve long maintained that high heels are killers.  I never used that term literally, of course.  I merely viewed high-heeled shoes as distinctly uncomfortable and an outrageous concession to the dictates of fashion that can lead to both pain and permanent damage to a woman’s body. 

Several years ago, however, high heels proved to be actual killers.  The Associated Press reported that two women, ages 18 and 23, were killed in Riverside, California, as they struggled in high heels to get away from a train.  With their car stuck on the tracks, the women attempted to flee as the train approached.  A police spokesman later said, “It appears they were in high heels and [had] a hard time getting away quickly.” 

During the past few years, largely dominated by the global pandemic, many people adopted different ways to clothe themselves.  Comfortable clothing became popular, and many women abandoned wearing high heels.  Staying close to home, they saw no need to push their feet into high heels.  Venues requiring professional clothes or footwear almost disappeared, and few women sought out venues requiring any sort of fancy clothes or footwear.  

But when the pandemic began to loosen its grip, some women were tempted to return to their previous choice of footwear.  The prospect of a renaissance in high-heeled shoe-wearing was noted in publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.  According to the Times, some were seeking “the joy of dressing up…itching…to step up their style game in towering heels.”

Okay. I get it.  “Dressing up” may be your thing.  But “towering heels”?  They may look beautiful…BUT don’t do it!  Please take my advice and don’t return to wearing the kind of shoes that will hobble you once again.

Like the unfortunate young women in Riverside, I was sucked into wearing high heels when I was a teenager.  It was de rigueur for girls at my high school to seek out the trendy shoe stores on State Street in downtown Chicago and purchase whichever high-heeled offerings our wallets could afford.  On my first visit, I was entranced by the three-inch-heeled numbers that pushed my toes into a too-narrow space and revealed them in what I thought was a highly provocative position.  Never mind that my feet were encased in a vise-like grip.  Never mind that I walked unsteadily on the stilts beneath my soles.  And never mind that my whole body was pitched forward in an ungainly manner as I propelled myself around the store. 

But during one wearing of those heels, the pain became so great that I removed them and walked in stocking feet the rest of my way home.  After that painful lesson, I abandoned three-inch heels and began wearing lower ones. Sure, I couldn’t flaunt my shapely legs quite as effectively, but I nevertheless managed to secure ample male attention.  Instead of conforming to the modern-day equivalent of Chinese foot-binding, I successfully and happily fended off the back pain, foot pain, bunions, and corns that my fashion-victim sisters often suffer in spades.

I’ve been joined in my rejection of high heels by a prominent journalist, Sally Quinn.  In an opinion piece in The Washington Post on July 5, 2024, she wrote, “I never thought I’d abandon high heels. But I did. It wasn’t the pandemic. It was the pain.”  I wonder whether Quinn has taken notice of my opinion-writing on this topic because she echoes my thinking.  She admits that she liked the way her legs looked in high heels, but the pain she endured during a lifetime of wearing them finally pushed her over the edge.  I recommend reading her piece in the Post as another thoughtful rejection of high heels.

Until the pandemic changed our lives, I observed a troubling trend toward higher and higher heels.  I was baffled by women who bought into following the dictates of fashion and the desire to look “sexy” by wearing extremely high heels.  Watching TV, I’d see too many women wearing stilettos that forced them into the ungainly walk I briefly sported so long ago.  Women on late-night TV shows who were otherwise smartly attired and often very smart (in the other sense of the word) wore ridiculously high heels that forced them to greet their hosts with that same awkward walk.  Some appeared to be almost on the verge of toppling over. 

The pandemic no longer dominates our lives, but this phenomenon has sadly reappeared.  Otherwise enlightened women are once again wearing absurdly high heels.  Even one of my favorite TV journalists, Stephanie Ruhle, has appeared on her “11th Hour” program on MSNBC in stilettos.  C’mon, Steph!  Dump those stilettos!

What about the women, like me, who adopted lower-heeled shoes instead of following fashion?  I think we’re much smarter and much less likely to fall on our faces.  One very smart woman who’s still a fashion icon agreed with us long ago: the late Hollywood film star Audrey Hepburn.  

Audrey dressed smartly, in both senses of the word.  I recently watched her 1963 film Charade for the tenth or twelfth time. I once again noted how elegant she appeared in her Givenchy wardrobe and her–yes–low heels. Audrey was well known for wearing comfortable low heels in her private life as well as in her films.  In Charade, she’s seen running up and down countless stairs in Paris Metro stations, chased by Cary Grant, not only on those stairs but also through the streets of Paris.  She couldn’t have possibly done all that frantic running in high heels!

More recently, the Cannes Film Festival has highlighted a few Hollywood stars who’ve rejected stilettos. Julia Roberts walked barefoot in 2016 rather than wear them, and Kristen Stewart notably changed from heels to sneakers in 2018.  Stewart also appeared in sneakers on a late-night TV show in March 2024.

Foot-care professionals have soundly supported my thinking.  According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, a heel that’s more than 2 or 3 inches makes comfort just about impossible.  Why? Because a 3-inch heel creates seven times more stress than a 1-inch heel. A noted foot and ankle surgeon has explained that after 1.5 inches, the pressure increases on the ball of the foot and can lead to “ball-of-the-foot numbness.” (Yikes!)  He advised against wearing 3-inch heels and pointed out that celebrities wear them for only a short time, not all day.  To ensure a truly comfortable shoe, he added, no one should go above a 1.5-inch heel. 

Before the pandemic, some encouraging changes were afoot.  Nordstrom, one of America’s major shoe-sellers, began to promote lower-heeled styles. Although stilettos hadn’t disappeared from the scene, they weren’t the only choices.  I was encouraged because Nordstrom is a bellwether in the fashion world, and its choices can influence shoe-seekers.  Then the pandemic arrived and changed shoe-purchasing.  During the first year, sales of high heels languished, “teetering on the edge of extinction,” according to the Times. 

But because the pandemic has now dissipated to a large extent, some women may have resurrected the high heels already in their closets.  They may even be inspired to buy new ones.  I hope they don’t.

There is heartening news from bellwether Nordstrom.  In its brand-new catalog for summer 2025, it features pages of stylish sneakers and other flat-heeled shoes. A couple of low-heeled shoes appear, but stilettos are nowhere to be found.

Let’s not forget the Gen Z generation.  Most Gen Z shoppers don’t follow the dictates of fashion. They largely eschew high heels, choosing pricey and often glamorous sneakers instead–even with dressy prom dresses.

My own current faves: I wear black Skechers almost everywhere (I own more than one pair).  Sketchers “step-ins” are a welcome new addition.  I occasionally choose my old standby, Reeboks, for serious walking. (In my novel Red Diana, the protagonist laces on her Reeboks for a lengthy jaunt, just as I do.) I’ve added a pair of Ryka sneakers–so far so good.   And in warm weather, I wear walking sandals, like those sold by Clarks, Teva, and Ecco.

Any women who are pondering buying high-heeled shoes should hesitate.  Beyond the issue of comfort and damage to your feet, please remember that high heels present a far more serious problem.  As the deaths in Riverside demonstrate, women who wear high heels may be putting their lives at risk.  When they need to flee a dangerous situation, high heels can handicap their ability to escape. How many needless deaths have resulted from hobbled feet? 

The Fourth of July is almost here.  As we celebrate the holiday this year, I once again urge the women of America to declare their independence from high-heeled shoes. 

If you’re thinking about returning to painful footwear, think again.  You’d be wise to reconsider.  I urge you to bravely gather any high heels you’ve been clinging to and throw those shoes away.  At the very least, keep them out of sight in the back of your closet.  

And don’t even think about buying new ones.  Shod yourself instead in shoes that allow you to walk in comfort—and if need be, to run. 

Your wretched appendages, yearning to be free, will be forever grateful.

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So many things to write about

Posted on June 28, 2025 | 1 comment

Every day the constant barrage of news stories offers me a host of topics worth writing about.  My first choice for this month was to focus on the appalling level of gun violence in this country and the many efforts that are valiantly trying to reduce it.

A raft of other troubling topics keep me up at night.

But I’ve decided to go in another direction.  I want to focus on a more hopeful topic:  Success combatting the longstanding problem of plastic pollution.

I’ve written about plastic pollution before.  Years ago I asked “What shall we do about plastic bags?” https://susanjustwrites.com/2014/04/30/.  I lamented the horrific pollution those bags have created and highlighted a Nigerian artist who uses them in her artwork.

I later focused on the crusade against the use of plastic straws. https://susanjustwrites.com/2017/08/

But the problem of plastic pollution goes way beyond plastic bags and straws.  It’s now recognized as a global problem.  According to the NRDC, negotiations aimed at finalizing the first-ever international treaty to tackle the plastics crisis will resume this August in Geneva.  But that will be less than a year after a meaningful agreement at the last round of talks was “derailed by a coalition of nations closely allied with the fossil fuel industry.” More than a hundred countries had agreed to curb plastic production, but some oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, repeatedly blocked progress.

That sounds discouraging, doesn’t it?  But activists associated with groups like NRDC will be back in Geneva to push for a strong treaty reducing plastic production, phasing out the most harmful chemicals used in plastics, and eliminating the most toxic forms of plastics.  We have to hope they will be successful.

In the meantime, there’s another reason to hope for change.  We all know that current efforts to recycle plastic haven’t gone very far. Although glass and aluminum can be recycled endlessly, plastic cannot. 

According to Lindsey Botts, writing in the Summer 2025 issue of Sierra magazine, “Almost all the plastic ever created is still with us, polluting the planet.”  But he asks: “What if we had a better way to recycle it?”  His answer: “Nature may offer one solution.”

Here’s the hopeful part.  Botts notes that in 2016, Japanese scientists discovered tiny bacteria that were breaking down plastic in a pile of trash.  The bacteria were consuming one of the most common plastics, one that’s used in food wrappers, clothes, even water bottles.

We’ve since learned that other bacteria can do something similar.  One family of bacteria apparently munches on PET (a type of clear, durable plastic) in wastewater. And in a lab, scientists observed still another form of bacteria working on plastic in seawater.

Bacteria can’t actually eat plastic, but they can absorb it.  Some bacteria do this by producing chemicals that liquefy plastic.  They soak up the resulting goo and use some of it as energy.  What they don’t consume becomes a material that can be used to form new plastic.

Botts concedes that this process is relatively slow.  It requires the right temperature and amount of moisture, and creating those conditions outside of a lab can be challenging.  But a French company has found a way to process about 12,000 water bottles a day.  That will only scratch the surface of the half-a-trillion bottles people are using every year.  But it’s a start.

I agree with Botts’s conclusion:  More plastic is entering the world every day, and bacteria can’t clean up all of it.  Not yet. “The best solution” is still to “stop making and buying plastic.” 

I’ve been doing what I can, buying much less plastic in the past few years.  Here in San Francisco, we put our waste in three bins.  One of them holds trash that must go into landfill, but the other two take items for recycling and for composting.  And that makes things a lot easier.  Instead of plastic bottles, I opt for aluminum cans.  Instead of plastic plates and glasses, I use compostable paper ones or old-fashioned glass and ceramics. 

Even if you don’t live where you can do composting, you can still avoid using plastic as much as possible.  Instead of plastic, you can choose recyclable items made of aluminum or glass.

Of course, plastic has its uses.  It may be necessary, for example, in medical settings.  But even there, the amount of plastic can probably be reduced.

Instead of continuing to follow the lazy ways of our past, grabbing a plastic item and pretending that it doesn’t matter, let’s all adopt a different approach. 

Let’s think about the future of our planet. Until we can track down more and more helpful bacteria, let’s try to avoid buying plastic as much as we possibly can.

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Posted in August, bacteria, being lazy, drinking straws, plastic pollution, pollution, recycling, San Francisco

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Two thrillers and a mystery

Posted on May 14, 2025 | 1 comment

This month I’m primarily focused on trying to publish the nonfiction book I’ve been working on for the last few years.  It tells the story of my fight for reproductive rights when I was a young lawyer in Chicago.  It will be a terrific book.  But I need to find a publisher.

While I pursue this goal, I’ve decided to devote this post to describing my three novels, all stories blending “the law” with protagonists who find themselves in perilous settings but somehow manage to survive.

Please forgive my shameless plug, but I honestly think you’ll enjoy reading about my novels.

My first published novel, A Quicker Blood, takes its title from an Emily Dickinson poem about “escape.”  Dickinson wrote “I never hear the word ‘escape’ without a quicker blood.”  You’re right to conclude that the theme of this thriller is “escape.”

The protagonist, Karen B. Clark, is a young lawyer living in New York City three years after getting her law degree.  She’s already weary of life in NYC, disillusioned with her job on Wall Street, and fed up with her two-timing boyfriend.  (I named my protagonist Karen in honor of a good friend who worked on behalf of needy clients for many years before she died.  I’ve known many admirable women named Karen, and I think it’s deplorable to disparage women using the name Karen for no good reason.)

Karen Clark impulsively takes off for a lawyers’ conference in Chicago, where she meets another young woman named Karen B. Clark.  Karen decides to call her “K.B.”   K.B. has just finished law school and is about begin her legal career in the small town of Walden, Wisconsin, where a law firm has hired her, sight unseen.

When both Karen and K.B. are injured in separate mishaps, Karen awakens in a hospital, where she’s been identified as K.B.  She spies a newspaper report of the death of an unidentified young woman and realizes that K.B. must be dead.

Karen decides to seize the moment and turn her life around.  She’ll escape her life in NYC, assume K.B.’s identity, and try life as a small-town lawyer.  Once in Walden, Karen relishes her new existence and begins a sizzling romance, but she soon uncovers terrible secrets that lead her to fear for her life.

A Quicker Blood has garnered many 5-star customer reviews on Amazon.com.  You might want to read a few of them!  Almost every reader has loved this book and asked me to write another one like it.  I think you’d also love learning how Karen finds her way to Walden and deals with the challenges of assuming someone else’s identity. You’ll probably like reading about the somewhat dubious characters she encounters there, how she finds herself plunged into a perilous situation, and how she cleverly manages to survive.

My second novel, Jealous Mistress, is not a thriller but an old-fashioned mystery like the ones Agatha Christie used to write.  A dead body appears on the first page, so you know that there’s a mystery to be solved.

It’s October 1981, and the Reagan administration has just declared that ketchup is a vegetable.  Alison Ross has chosen to set aside her demanding career as a lawyer so she can spend more time at home with her two young children.  She’d like to find a good part-time job, but because “the law is a jealous mistress,” her search for part-time work has gone nowhere.

Early one morning, Alison stumbles across a dead body at her daughter’s nursery school. (Preschools were still called nursery schools in 1981.)  Because Alison saw the school janitor make a hasty exit, she reluctantly becomes emmeshed in the police investigation.  When the police charge the janitor with murder, Allison has doubts about his guilt and decides to find out what really happened.

Pursuing the real killer while she juggles life at home with her husband and kids, Alison uncovers a host of shocking secrets in the quiet suburb of East Winnette.

Lots of readers have written 5-star customer reviews for this novel, too. It presents issues that many of us have dealt with.  If we’ve had a demanding job before we had kids, how do we achieve work-life balance once we have kids? This may mean deciding whether to keep our full-time jobs or search for part-time work.  In this story, I also ask whether a supportive husband will help his wife solve a mystery that falls into their laps, or will he get fed up with her time-consuming efforts to solve it on her own?  Will the wife, in her search for the killer, find herself attracted to another man who offers to help her?  And how does life in an affluent suburb affect Alison, who’s among its less affluent residents?

I had fun writing this story, which deals with all of these questions.  At the same time, I delved into the time-honored phase, “the law is a jealous mistress.”  What does it mean for lawyers today?  I also liked flirting with the term “jealous mistress” as a term with a double meaning.  If you read Jealous Mistress, you’ll come to your own conclusions.

My third novel, Red Diana, is something of a sequel to A Quicker Blood.  Karen Clark reappears twelve years after we left her at the end of A Quicker Blood.  She has moved to San Francisco with her 8-year-old daughter Davida (called Davi) and loves her new life there.

One terrible day, Davi is abducted on Market Street, just outside the office building where Karen works.  It’s summer and Davi has pleaded with Karen to spend a day at Karen’s office.  After buying M&Ms at a 7-Eleven, Davi is suddenly grabbed by someone wearing a mask, and Karen is gripped by fear.  Davi is returned unharmed the next morning and Karen begins to relax, but she soon finds a threatening note pinned to Davi’s shirt: “Karen, you’re next.”

Karen must find out who grabbed Davi—and why.  Her only clues are Davis’s recall of a brown sofa and the words “Red Diana.”  With the help of SFPD detective Greg Chan, Karen begins her relentless pursuit of the cruel abductor who now threatens her own life.

Set in San Francisco, with flashbacks to Chicago and New York, this chilling psychological thriller explores a bunch of themes: The desire for revenge, the burden of guilt, and the tyranny of unethical lawyers and corrupt judges.  It also touches on the shattering pain of losing a loved one—and the many routes survivors take to deal with their loss.

Above all, the book focuses on the intense love between parent and child–what one psychoanalyst has called “indestructible, the strongest relationship on earth.”

Karen’s search for the abductor leads her to a charming San Francisco Victorian, where she confronts a disturbed killer who puts her life in peril.

Like my other two novels, Red Diana has earned many 5-star reviews, and I think you’ll find it an absorbing read.

To sum up:  Please forgive my shameless plug(s) and think about choosing one of my novels as a better-than-ordinary “beach read” this summer.  You can zip through all three of them pretty fast, and I think you’ll be pleased with the sharp writing style you’ve come to like in my blog posts.

Happy reading!

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THE BEEKEEPERS//KEEPING BEES

Posted on April 22, 2025 | 2 comments

I’m not a big fan of action films, but I find some of them worth watching.  I recently watched such a film, “The Beekeeper,” starring English actor Jason Statham.  (Hint: TV-viewing is better for almost any film but especially for action films because you can fast-forward through the most harrowing scenes.)  Statham is well known for playing tough characters who don’t shy away from violent behavior if it will benefit good people.

In this film, Statham portrays Adam Clay, a retired government assassin who has changed course and lives a quiet life taking care of his beehives on property owned by kindly Eloise Parker.  Parker falls for a phishing scam that wipes out her savings, leading her to commit suicide. When Clay finds her body, he’s enraged and sets out to seek revenge against those who have caused her death.  The complicated plot involves a group called “The Beekeepers,” but I’ll stop here, adding only that I liked the way the film ended.

One endearing feature of this story is Clay’s devotion to his bees. That kind of devotion leads to a much more serious (and appropriate) story for today, Earth Day:  The threat to our country’s bees.  I recently read a scary update from one of the environmentally-concerned entities I support, Earthjustice.

Earthjustice is concerned with many threats to the earth’s environment, including the human-made biodiversity crisis that is causing the “die-off” of a number of species. One of the most critical is the current threat to honey bees, who pollinate our “superfoods,” foods that are rich in vitamins and nutrients.  Earthjustice warns that without these pollinators, “our nation would lose one-third of its crops as well as our food security.”  But extensive use of pesticides in industrial agriculture has led to massive die-offs of honey bees.  We simply can’t afford to lose them.

Earthjustice, whose slogan is “because the earth needs a good lawyer,” believes that the law is the most powerful tool we have to protect our natural world.  In the case of honey bees, its lawyers are fighting the key drivers of this crisis.  Notably, they recently won a victory in California that prohibits the use of an insecticide, sulfoxaflor. This victory should help to protect bees across the country. 

Earthjustice plans to continue to protect the diversity of plant and animal life on which we all depend.  Let’s support its efforts and those by other hard-working groups committed to preserving our planet, especially the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

We can begin by fighting to save our honey bees!

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Serbia? Seriously?

Posted on March 20, 2025 | 2 comments

How many Americans know anything about Serbia?  My guess? Very few.

I’m one of those very few.  In 2016 I took a Danube River trip with an affable group of fellow travelers.  Halfway through our trip, we made a stop in Bratislava, the charming capital of Slovakia.  [FYI: After Czechoslovakia broke up in 1993, about half of the former Czechoslovakia became the country of Slovakia. The other half became the Czech Republic.]

Our tour left Bratislava and went on to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. [FYI:  Serbia is one of several smaller countries that formerly made up Yugoslavia.  Even though Yugoslavia broke up in 1992, Serbia didn’t opt for independence until 2006.]

Belgrade turned out to be a surprisingly beautiful and sophisticated city.  As our tour guide led us through the Belgrade Fortress and other tourist sights, I spied an interesting sculpture—that of Nikola Tesla. 

Tesla, the scientist and inventor whose work with electricity rivaled that of his American competitors, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, is a celebrated figure in Serbia.  In 1884, he left Europe for America, where he led a complicated life, ending alone in a NYC hotel room with a history of unpaid bills.  Sadly, his formerly-respected name has become anathema to some Americans, thanks to current political developments that Tesla himself had absolutely nothing to do with.

Why talk about Serbia today?  Because its current political situation has become headline news, news seriously worth our attention.

According to the AP, over 100,000 people—maybe as many as 325,000–joined a mass rally in Belgrade last weekend to culminate months-long protests against Serbia’s current President Aleksandar Vucic and his nationalist right-wing-inspired government.  “Large crowds of flag-waving protesters clogged the downtown area…despite occasional rain, with people hardly able to move,” many of them unable to get close to the actual protest venue.

University students have been leading peaceful protests in Serbia for the past four months.  The protests began when the canopy of a railway station collapsed, killing 15 people.  Many blamed the allegedly corrupt builders, allied with the government, as responsible for the canopy’s shoddy construction.

The protests have continued because of fierce opposition to the autocratic government, not merely among students but also among the rest of the Serbian population.  According to a survey reported in The New York Times, only one-third of Serbians approve of President Vucic’s leadership.  As the Financial Times quoted one protest leader, “it is time for this regime to end.”

On Wednesday, March 19, the protests had a demonstrable impact, forcing Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, an ally of President Vucic, to resign, giving the President 30 days to choose a new Prime Minister.

Without elaborating further on Serbian politics, I’ll close with this:  It’s heartening to see young people rise up to protest what they view as corrupt and destructive behavior by their government’s leaders.  Here in the U.S., I’m heartened to see that both young and older citizens have begun to stand up against the current leadership of our own government.  Recent town halls held in a number of congressional districts have highlighted the outspoken protest by those who’ve shown up.  

I hope we don’t have to wait for the 2026 midterm elections to change things.  Some special elections, like the Supreme Court fight in Wisconsin, loom in the next few weeks. 

Let’s fight for the survival of our democracy.  Let’s lend our support to current leaders who have earned it.  Let’s support new leaders who will continue the fight for democracy.  I’m doing what I can to support them, and I hope that you will, too.

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Let’s be scent-sible

Posted on February 22, 2025 | 1 comment

While I try to ignore the stench dominating the news from our nation’s capital, I’ve decided to focus on some of the more positive scents that dominate in the rest of our world. 

Here’s a story about “scents” I came across in the winter issue of National Parks, a magazine devoted to protecting America’s national parks and public lands.

Author Maggie Downs likes to hike through our now-sadly-endangered national parks, beginning her story with a hike through Arches National Park, where “the air is alive” with scents like the crisp aroma of pines and junipers.  She notes that these scents are different from those in Joshua Tree National Park, where desert aromas permeate the air.

Downs goes on to describe the scents that connect her to each destination she explores, highlighting the significance of scents.  Flowers, for example, rely on fragrance to lure pollinators, while predators like wolves use scent to mark territories, find mates, and track prey.

But Downs worries that many national park “scentscapes” are under threat because of climate change and pollution.  Although we have long treasured our parks for their beauty and their quiet, their “vital aromas” haven’t gotten the same level of protection.   

Will Rice, a professor at the University of Montana, has studied how natural smells are increasingly relevant to tourists in our national parks.  These natural smells “play a key role in what grounds us to a place,” he says.  “Scent…plays a role” in visitors’ strong attachment to the parks,” he adds.  “National parks are places where you can smell natural smells, and that’s increasingly difficult [to find] in a developing and industrial world.”

Maggie Downs adds, “Unfortunately, climate change is already affecting scentscapes…. It threatens native plant species with drought and wildfires, and it disrupts blooming scents, which throws plants and pollinators out of sync.”  She notes that “flowering plants are losing their fragrance,” and air pollution can mask natural scents.

We can’t be sure about the future impact of climate change and pollution, but we should try to protect nature’s smells while we still can.  Will Rice suggests that legislation can help.  The Marine Mammal Protection Act helped seals make a comeback in Cape Cod.  Their return has restored their scent along the beach, a scent Thoreau smelled when he walked up the Cape Cod coast.  And while that smell disappeared for a long time, it has now happily rebounded.

So let’s be scent-sible and protect the natural scents that still surround us.  As I often say (with no originality whatsoever), “Better late than never.”

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All the Presidents’ Men: an update

Posted on January 24, 2025 | 2 comments

A few weeks ago, I plucked an old movie from my TV playlist and re-watched the 1976 award-winning film, “All the Presidents’ Men.”   I found it not only the riveting film I remembered but also a remarkably relevant film to watch right now. 

In this fast-moving story of two intrepid journalists working at The Washington Post in 1972, the media world at that time gradually became aware of what became known as “Watergate.”  Although President Richard Nixon had a commanding lead in the polls and was about to be reelected in a landslide in November 1972, his sense of insecurity and inferiority led him, along with his cronies, to sponsor a break-in of Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office building in June 1972.  The break-in was less than totally successful.  Moronic criminal-types made a couple of foolish errors that led to the detection of the break-in and their arrest by DC police.

At The Post, the two young journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, faced innumerable obstacles as they tried to ferret out the truth of exactly what had happened and why.  The story ultimately focused on WHO:  Who were the players in the Nixon administration who were pulling the strings behind the Watergate break-in? 

To see the whole story play out, you may want to watch the film yourself.  But whether you watch it or not, please keep in mind just how relevant it is today.

Watergate was only one of the “dirty tricks” Nixon and his cohorts employed to undermine his political opponents.  On January 20, a president demonstrably worse than Nixon was inaugurated.  After a campaign replete with disinformation, he has already begun to effect enormous change in our country.  More than ever, we need brave and intrepid journalists like Woodward and Bernstein to ferret out the truth behind any possible wrongdoing.

The role of The Washington Post is central in both eras.  In 1972, Woodward and Bernstein had to persuade their reluctant editor at The Post to support them as they pursued the truth.  He finally relented and allowed them to publish their findings.  But if they had faltered in the face of opposition, the truth may never have come out.

In 2025, journalists at The Post have taken a different route.  A popular columnist, Jennifer Rubin, loudly spoke out against her editors and her publisher, Jeff Bezos, whom she saw as kowtowing to the incoming administration.  She and her colleagues decided to quit working at The Post, proclaiming that it was no longer seeking the truth.  On January 20, she wrote:

“The American people certainly will not be front and center at Trump’s inauguration. It’s all about him and his billionaire cronies, including the media owners who have buckled to his will. ‘Big-name billionaires are lining up to strengthen their relationships with incoming President Donald Trump during next week’s inauguration festivities,” Forbes reported.  When you add in [others] whose combined wealth dwarfs many countries’ GDP’s—you get a vivid tableau of the new oligarchy. We usher into office today a government of, by, and for the billionaires.” 

Rubin and other like-minded journalists decided to create a new entity, The Contrarian.  Norm Eisen explained how it started:

“Jen and I agreed to launch [this] venture, rounding up…over two dozen contributors in a matter of days.  We kicked off with … Jen’s Post resignation letter. While we had high hopes, we never could’ve imagined what happened next. A quarter of a million subscribers poured in … And the engagement was through the roof, with over 1,000,000 views per day.” 

Rubin proclaimed that the new venture hoped to be “a…space where independence is non-negotiable. Here, you won’t find cozy alliances, half-measures, or false equivalences. We bend the knee to no one, vigorously challenge unchecked authority, and champion transparency and accountability.  In a nation awash with noise and growing disinformation, The Contrarian cuts through the static to deliver sharp, uncompromising insights…. Our loyalty is to … the truth, and to our democratic ideals—many of which are currently under threat.”

I’ve signed up to get The Contrarian delivered to my inbox.  I hope it will stick to its commitment to the truth.  But I haven’t given up on the “legacy media”–mainstream publications like The Washington Post, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Standard.  All of them still land in my inbox every day.  (I also watch TV news programming when it appears to report the news fairly.)  I think that all of these publications include at least a few brave journalists, like the now-legendary Woodward and Bernstein, still searching for the truth, still speaking out to report wrongdoing in DC or elsewhere. 

I’ll be watching to make sure they don’t falter, hoping that, despite editors and publishers who may stand in their way, they’ll continue to live up to their role as journalists and tell their readers the truth.

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Those tempting holiday treats

Posted on December 16, 2024 | 1 comment

December means one delicious holiday treat after another.  We’re all tempted to indulge.  But before you start munching, you might want to know the results of a couple of studies related to those holiday sweets.

First, if you love chocolate, you may already be aware of the virtues of dark chocolate.  But an important new study has just confirmed that only dark chocolate is associated with lowering the risk of developing diabetes.  This 30-year-long study, conducted at the Harvard Chan School Department of Nutrition, focused on almost 200,000 people who started out free of diabetes. When the study ended, nearly 20,000 had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. A lot of them reported specifically on their dark and milk chocolate intake.

It’s interesting, first of all, that those who ate at least 5 ounces of any kind of chocolate had a 10% lower risk of developing T2 diabetes than people who rarely or never ate chocolate.  But significantly, dark chocolate had a much bigger impact than milk chocolate.  Participants who ate dark chocolate had a 21% lower risk, with a 3% reduction in risk for every serving of dark chocolate eaten in a week.

At the same time, milk chocolate was NOT associated with reduced risk even though it has a similar level of calories and saturated fat.  Why?  According to the researchers, it’s the polyphenols in dark chocolate that may offset the effects of fat and sugar.

So before you bite into a mouthwatering chocolate dessert, try to find one made of dark chocolate.  I’ve been sampling some new dark chocolate candy bars, and they’re delicious.  It’s really no great hardship to switch from milk chocolate to dark.

You might also want to know about new research into one feature of the sweets we love:  their frequent dependence on high-fructose corn syrup.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have found that dietary fructose promotes the tumor growth of certain cancers in animal models.  The finding in this study, published December 4 in the journal Nature, could open up new avenues for care and treatment of many types of cancer.

“The idea that you can tackle cancer with diet is intriguing,” said Gary Patti, a professor of chemistry, genetics, and medicine at the WashU School of Medicine.  The culprit seems to be fructose, which is similar to glucose.  Both are types of sugar, but the body seems to metabolize them differently.  Both are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and grains, and both are added as sweeteners in many processed foods. But the food industry has favored fructose because it’s sweeter. 

Consumption of fructose has escalated dramatically since the 1960s, and Patti pointed out that the number of items in your pantry that contain high-fructose corn syrup, the most common form of fructose, is “pretty astonishing.”  “Almost everything has it,” he added.  This includes foods like pasta sauce, salad dressing, and ketchup.  “Unless you actively seek to avoid it, it’s probably part of your diet.”

The problem is that fructose apparently impacts the growth of tumors.  I’ll skip the technical stuff, but what’s important is that we should avoid dietary fructose as much as we can.  While investigators at WashU Medicine and elsewhere around the world continue to look into possible connections between the surge in fructose consumption and the increasing prevalence of cancers among people under the age of 50, let’s try to avoid this problem.

Here’s my advice:  If you plan to indulge in some yummy holiday treats, try to find those made with dark chocolate and those that don’t include high-fructose corn syrup.  If you can.

Happy holidays!

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JFK

Posted on November 22, 2024 | 4 comments

Today is November 22, a day forever marked by an American tragedy.  On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

As a young kid, I was inspired by Kennedy’s appearance in my world when the media focused on his candidacy for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic Convention.  A vivid contrast to Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, he was a youthful and vigorous U.S. Senator who advocated positive changes in our country.  Along with many others in my generation, the emergence of JFK on the political scene intensified my interest in American politics.  Later that year, my sister gave me a copy of “Profiles in Courage,” Kennedy’s book about political heroes in American history.  I treasured that book and eagerly read and re-read it.  Over the years, I’ve continued to collect books about JFK.  My collection includes my original copy of “Profiles in Courage.”

After his election as President in 1960, Kennedy continued to inspire me.  And on June 11, 1963, he spoke out in favor of equal justice for all Americans.  I had returned to my home in Chicago after my college graduation at WashU in time to watch the televised speech he gave that day.

JFK began by noting Alabama Governor George Wallace‘s refusal, despite a court order, to allow the admission of two Black students to the University of Alabama.  He went on to say that “difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety.”  This statement, and others, were important.  But I was mainly moved by these words: “The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”  After noting the special problem of racial discrimination, he added: “[T]his Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

He said he planned to ask Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans “the right to be served in facilities…open to the public,” including hotels and restaurants, and to authorize the federal government “to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education” and “greater protection for the right to vote.”  (His efforts eventually led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.)  He closed by asking for “the support of all our citizens.”

I sat transfixed in front of the TV, totally in awe of this speech, and I became an ardent supporter of the same ideals. 

Thanks to JFK, as a young person I developed a consuming interest in politics, and I began to think about a future where I could be involved in politics in some way.  One possible path occurred to me:  Attending law school and becoming a lawyer.  As I wrote in my handwritten journal in 1958, “I have developed a keen interest in law, and at the moment, I am busily planning to study law if possible.  At one time I believed I would be a writer….  Now, law and politics beckon, and…I am trying to convince myself that nothing is impossible and that if I want it badly enough, I will get it!”  Still a teenager, I wasn’t ready to make the leap to law school, but I did look forward to a future somehow focused on government and politics.  So I majored in political science in college and went on to be a graduate student in that field before abandoning it in favor of law school.

JFK’s assassination on November 22, 1963, traumatized me and probably most other Americans at the time.  It was truly shocking.  Looking back, I realize just how much it affected me.  As I wrote in my handwritten journal on the day after he was assassinated: “When the news of [his] death … was announced, I was too stunned to cry, too horrified to do much of anything but say the words echoed over and over by seemingly everyone…. I can’t believe it!  It’s incredible!  How could anyone do such a thing? And why?”  I added: “I was mourning the personal loss of an individual who had brought such vigor, such excitement, such brilliance, such intelligence, such energy…to everything he ever did in his life.  [He] was a personal icon to me, a hero, a leader to follow…who has always stood, in my eyes, for everything that was right in politics and government, and in the pursuit of power for noble aims, and who, I am certain, played a large part in motivating me…toward a life in politics and government for myself.  The result is perhaps a ‘new’ resolve…my resolve to dedicate my own life, as [he] dedicated his, to what is not always the easiest but what will surely be the most rewarding for me…a life of devoted public service to my country.  If I can, I will pursue legal studies for the next three years to prepare me [or else immediately devote] myself to the ideals of hard work and sacrifice in the public interest.” 

I’d grown up in an era when political assassinations happened only in “banana republics.”  Seeing a young, vital, and inspiring political leader like JFK cruelly shot down changed forever my view of America as a place where political transitions always occur peacefully.  The later assassinations of other American leaders (like Martin Luther King, Jr., and RFK) further traumatized me and others in our country. 

But although I lost him as our president, JFK had motivated me to pursue the study of American politics as well as the study of law.  At a pivotal moment, I chose to leave academia with the goal of becoming an activist via the study of law.  

After graduating from law school, I did become an activist.  I was in the vanguard of lawyers who fought to secure women’s reproductive rights.  My co-counsel and I won a hard-fought victory, invalidating the restrictive Illinois abortion statute in 1971 (Doe v. Scott, 321 F.Supp. 1385 (N.D.Ill. 1971).  As part of that lawsuit, I represented a Black teenage rape victim, winning a TRO in the appellate court that enabled her to have a legal abortion in March 1970.  This lawsuit is the focus of my forthcoming book, tentatively titled On the Barricades.

Throughout my life and my varied career, I’ve maintained my enormous interest in politics, government, and law.  Although I now view myself primarily as a writer, I continue to enthusiastically follow all of that today, whether current trends align with my personal views or not.

I will forever be indebted to JFK for inspiring me to follow this path.

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