If you never compare yourself to someone else, you can stop reading. For the rest of us, how many times do we need to hear that hackneyed phrase — compare and despair? Psychology Today called this The Comparison Trap in a recent article. Finding the balance between admiring and envying another, between being inspired by someone else’s success and being resentful, aspiring or self-defeating — this is the work of a lifetime for many of us. The Peacock was complaining to Juno, Goddess, the peacock said, it’s not without reason I’m complaining. Yes, I’m muttering. The song you gave me displeases all in nature. Compared to the nightingale, that scrawny weakling, whose sounds are as sweet as they are resonant; to him alone falls the…

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The NRA has perpetrated a fraud on the Second Amendment. So former Supreme Court Justice Stevens reminds us in a New York Times Op-Ed calling for that amendment’s repeal. Let’s go further. However we interpret the Second Amendment, it enshrines a gluttony for violence that is contrary to all that democracy aspires to be. Wolves eat like gluttons. A certain wolf at an amusement park ate so much with such haste, they say, that he thought he might die. A bone was stuck in his throat. The wolf, who couldn’t even cry out, was in luck; a stork passed nearby. The wolf signaled the bird. She came running. Here is our operator at the task in a flash. She pulls out the…

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There’s a whirlwind of staff turnover in the Trump administration. How much does he instigate with his sow-utmost-confusion management style? Who is whispering in Trump’s ear? What perceived insults come to his attention, and how? What is clear — infighting is a prime blood sport Trump enjoys. A decrepit lion, gouty and near his end, wanted to find a remedy for old age. Try telling a king that something is impossible; you’re sure to be abused. This is so across every species. So call the doctors, there’s every kind. Doctors came from far and wide for the lion. From every side, there were those offering recipes. Amidst all this visiting, the fox did not come. He kept quiet and to himself. The…

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