A Tale of Two Riots

Buildings and cars burning, mobs looting, outnumbered police incapable of restoring order—London in 2011. As I watch the news on television and the spilling of civil unrest into ...

No Chimp Left Behind

Summer blockbuster movies often allow the popular imagination to engage metaphorically with topics that aren’t discussed honestly on the editorial page—topics such as IQ, ...

God’s Views on Pregnancy, Going Abroad to Leave a Broad, & Baby Talk Among Adults

GOD’S VIEWS ON PREGNANCY Dear Delphi, My husband and I have been married since we were 25 and I have been trying to get pregnant for the past five years. I want to try in-vitro ...

The Tournaments of Tottenham

In 1653, the year Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, there appeared the first edition of what would become a classic—Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler. A country then ...

Charlie Gilmour

Modern English

Dear old England. What a wonderful country we live in. Change and decay in all around I see. Europe is in a state of near-collapse. Chaos and rioting have run rife throughout the ...

A Bright Future for Pessimists

It’s said that no news is good news, but the problem is that there’s plenty of news, and all of it’s awful. I scanned my memory banks to try and remember the last time I ...

Amazon Horned Frog

10 Unchecked Theories I Cherish

A couple of weeks ago, I was ragging on conservatives and wanted to include how Tea Partiers pretend to be all about spending cuts but won’t touch the two biggies, Social ...

Giacomo Casanova

Great Seducers and Common Creeps

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—The smell of pine wafting from the shore and the sight of sun-bleached terracotta houses shimmering in the midday heat remind me of the simple island life ...

Downtown Los Angeles

Angelenos Ask: “Dude, Where’s My Subway?”

LOS ANGELES—When you say, “Don’t worry about me, I’ll just jump on the subway” to someone in El Lay, you get one of the following responses: “Excuse me, would you ...

Brendan Gleeson

The Guard: Prejudice and Xenophobia Can Be Fun!

Perhaps no movie this year generates more concussive laughter from audiences than The Guard. This low-budget, highbrow Irish comedy stars redheaded character actor Brendan Gleeson ...

The Effluent Society

It is summer in the city and the smell of trash rises from the hot streets. There is trash on the sidewalks, trash in the bookstores, and trash in the movie theaters. It is, as it ...

Americans, Canadians—What’s the Difference?

Writing about the differences between Canadians and Americans isn’t as easy as it used to be. In 2004, for instance, the night before George W. Bush made his first visit to ...

Amy Winehouse

We Just Lost Another Junkie

I hate when a famous junkie dies and we get empty gestures like, “We just lost a legend the likes of which we will never see again.” Why not say, “That cute English girl who ...

Peloponnese

The Eurocrooks Are Sinking Us

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—The thickly pined forested hills form a perfect backdrop to the not-so-wine-dark waters off the Peloponnese. Soft greens and blues are Edward Hopper ...

Chimp Bites Woman, Talks About It

Project Nim is a critically praised documentary about Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of one of those attempts to teach American Sign Language to an ape, a fad that ...

Hooters Casino Blues, Lowballing How Many You’ve Balled, and My Brother the Cockblocker

HOOTERS CASINO BLUES Dear Delphi, My best friend of more than twenty years and I decided to have a boys’ long weekend in Vegas just for laughs before we get any further into our ...


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