If 9/11 “Truthers” are wacky for believing the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government, what about the conspiracy theorists who tried to convince Americans that 9/11 was orchestrated by Saddam Hussein? For starters, the 9/11 Truth conspiracists have arguably more circumstantial evidence for their case than men like Stephen Hayes or Dick Cheney ever did for theirs. But the … [Read More]

I never meant for this half-arsed attempt at a blog to be a chronicle of my private life; the world really can do without another navel-gazing self-flagellating self-important repetition of a normal life’s banalities. But I really must make an exception for this one. I was meeting a friend in a bar in Brooklyn, and we were having a pretty interesting … [Read More]

I am not really “with it.” My taste in clothes—formal or otherwise—runs the gamut from 1920 to 1960, as does my taste in cocktails, bars, and restaurants. Reasonably au courant in literature, my taste in music is hopeless: big bands, Strauss waltzes, the “American songbook,” and folk music, particularly Celtic and early American. Worse still, I’ve been this way as long … [Read More]

I received a very interesting email from a reader. He said he is helping a friend’s daughter write a college essay on xxxx speech, and “after much mutual painful time spent, she still didn’t seem to grasp it—not the language, but the principle and its application.  They were only sentences to her, not statements she could understand. She is an honors … [Read More]

. . . That’s when she told me a story About free milk and a cow. She said, ‘No hug-ee, no kiss-ee, Until I get a wedding vow.’ —“Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” The Georgia Satellites, 1986 Laura Gallier, who runs a Texas-based abstinence education program, was dumbfounded by the news that bidding in the online auction of a California woman’s … [Read More]

I guess I’m supposed to be shocked and dismayed by the clips, released this weekend, of Prince Harry using some rather mild racial language and generally acting like a buffoon while his First Mechanized Brigade’s tours Iraq. But for some reason I wasn’t much offended at all.  Sure, it’s best not to call a member of your own brigade “our little … [Read More]

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, ladies, you are being oppressed, exploited, abused, beaten, enslaved, murdered and raped. This evil is being perpetrated by the patriarchy, and Barack Obama is part of it. Oh, also Dolce & Gabbana, Levis, Wrangler, Jimmy Choo, BMW, Corona beer, and Captain Morgan rum. This is the message of a remarkable video produced by the Gabriela … [Read More]

I went to Bath & Body Works at the mall one morning just before the Christmas shopping season. There I was, an adult with a good job and a career, and I was scrounging for sales and coupons so that I could spend $10 and get items worth $33. In the checkout line there was a woman and her daughter—the girl … [Read More]

She calls herself “Melissa Beech,” and if we take her thumbnail biography at face value, she’s a college senior, living in Philadelphia—and living in lavish style, thanks to her wealthy boyfriend. A successful media professional, he pays her rent, showers her with gifts, and takes her on expensive vacations. This “mutually beneficial arrangement” costs her beau something like $5,000 a month … [Read More]

This weekend I attended an engrossing production of The Seagull on Broadway—and I was lucky enough to be accompanied by the intelligent and beautiful great granddaughter of Manfred von Richthofen, the German ace of the Great War. And though I was much affected by the bourgeois tragedy unfolding on stage, my thoughts tended towards the Red Baron and his lovely scion. … [Read More]