In politics, words are often elusive things. Definitions change from speaker to speaker and writer to writer and age to age. Well do I remember, in the palmy days of the 1970s and 80s, mainstream columnists talking about “conservatives in the Kremlin.” This was a phrase that meant something to a degree, but was also an oblique slap at others who … [Read More]

Last month marked the fourth anniversary of what must be seen as the most exciting event in the Catholic Church in this writer’s lifetime: the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. At that time I was doing commentary for ABC on the various ceremonies connected with the death of one Pontiff and the emergence of another. The outcome … [Read More]

Hats off to Larry, he broke your heart Just like you broke mine when you said we must part He told you lies now it’s your turn to cry cry cry Now that Larry said goodbye to you ~Del Shannon Arlen Specter is a detestable swine. Next to Teddy Kennedy, he, for me, is the most loathsome creature ever to lurk … [Read More]

Fear and longing for the 1970s. Most of us, I suspect, are rather nervous these days. One cannot help but wonder, if we are, indeed, experiencing the 21st century equivalent of 1929 or 1930—and if 1939 isn’t too far away. There is a strange feeling of disconnect in the air: for those of us who do not share the optimism (or … [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]

It has never ceased to amaze me that, as our stalwart editor commented to me, “it reveals much about our age that the term ‘adult fun’ evokes pornos and strapons and not black-tie outings and champagne.” Indeed it does. As this writer lamented in an earlier piece, there seems to be an absolute hatred on the part of the Boomers, and … [Read More]

The Damn Boomers Are Ruining All the Fun! In the midst of all the bad news—political, economic, and military—clustering around the memory of 2008 and the first few weeks of 2009, this writer received several shocks which—trivial as they may seem—have as great significance as anything else to hit the headlines. In this past year, the nearby French restaurant, La Parisienne, … [Read More]

As all the world knows, the Writers’ Guild of America is on strike against the studios and the networks. This television season is a wreck; next year’s is apparently over before it has begun.The Golden Globes were reduced to a terse news conference, similar in format to Mr. Blackwell’s annual unveiling of his Ten Worst Dressed List (though without the entertainment … [Read More]

A Republic, Not an Empire is a splendid work by Mr. Pat Buchanan bemoaning the “Imperial” tendencies of recent administrations. It boasts a well argued thesis, but is dependent upon two givens: that Empires are inherently bad, and that the “Old Republic” was inherently good. It seems to me that neither of these are actually proved; so what I would like … [Read More]

I am a Franco-American. By that moniker, I am not claiming kinship with the brand of canned spaghetti, but rather am using a somewhat antique term for descendants of the French-Canadians who flocked into New England between the Civil War and World War I. My Great-Grandfather, Joseph Coulombe, was born in Rimouski in the Province of Quebec, and arrived here in … [Read More]