Many people have strong opinions on what’s the best place to live: city, suburb, or country? Yet, personally, I’ve enjoyed every place I’ve lived and would like to see each kind thrive. Hence, I’ve been vocally critical about ...

Like the colossal bore it has now become, Britain’s once-great national broadcaster, the BBC, seems to spend most of the time these days reporting endlessly upon nothing but itself. In the past month alone, we have had scandals ...

Our cleaning lady in France brings her dog with her. The dog has been a great solace to her during a difficult stage in her life. She bought her from a breeder who used her as a mother of puppies, but since she (the dog) was well past ...

In director Christopher Nolan’s campaign to save moviegoing from technological and social obsolescence, his latest ploy is his most clever yet: to lure grown-ups with three-digit IQs to see his Oppenheimer in numbers that had no ...

Yes, another parable! You guys liked the burning balcony one so much, I’m doin’ it again. In Paul Schrader’s 1978 film Blue Collar, there’s a scene in which Richard Pryor confronts two checkered-suit-wearing ...

Is Super Mario gay? The simple answer is “no,” although that distinctly camp mustache-and-dungarees combo does make him look rather like a lost member of the Village People. Nonetheless, as the megahit new Super Mario Bros. Movie ...

Some years ago, in Australia, I appeared on a platform with a prominent intellectual, many times more famous than I. We were asked what it took to be good. The famous intellectual, who had had a brilliant career, answered that in order ...

One of the most fervently held dogmas of the 1969 wave of feminism was that the only reason boys and girls liked different toys was due to sexist socialization. I was young in the early 1970s when androgynous “unisex” fashions were ...

Baby, it's hot outside. Right on cue, a New York Times headline links this surge in temperatures to "climate change." Temperatures have climbed to well over 100 F in Las Vegas, Arizona, much of Texas, and New Mexico in recent weeks. ...

Earlier this month, Elon Musk set up a new tech company, xAI, in order to “worry about a Terminator future” being accidentally facilitated by the ever-increasing powers of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). There has been much ...

It is said that there is a world shortage of bees, but it has not so far affected our house in France, where most summers, when we return, we find a swarm that has constructed a nest between one of the windows and its shutters. They ...

The Southern Poverty Law Center just released a report claiming there are 1,225 hate and anti-government groups in America. These groups cause "fear and pain (in) Black, brown, and LGBTQ communities." The SPLC lists such groups on its ...