Maybe it’s like dancing, I don’t know. I’m not very good at that either. Justin, my web guru (whose Green Galoshes is linked down there to the left), sat me a down over a cup of coffee last fall and tried, as he periodically does, to help me improve this page. He told me to […]
Forgive me. Accept my apologies. For the first time in 11 years, I missed not one, but two weeks in a row. I was overtaken by events and in the midst of the overtaking, I realized this is a signature symptom, perhaps the signature symptom, of contemporary life. So I’m trying to fight against it, […]
I watched the houses and trees fade as if into a glass of milk as the airplane ascended into the cloud. I watched the whiteness grow brighter and brighter as we climbed through the bank and broke into the sunshine above. Then I turned back to my book, a collection of essays by Orhan Pamuk, […]
My father had just celebrated his 14th birthday and was sitting in a movie house in White Plains, New York watching “The Swiss Family Robinson.” The film stopped, the lights came on and a man walked down the aisle. Turning to face the audience, he said in a loud voice, “The war is over!” It […]
Before the New Hampshire primary, John McCain had his now-famous colloquy with a voter in which he said he doesn’t care if American troops are in Iraq for 100 years, provided those troops are not getting killed or wounded. There are a number of Republicans running around now, saying Mr. McCain never said that, but […]
Let us now bash Paris Hilton. Why not? She’s a vapid, entitled blemish on the face of American culture. Born to wealth and privilege, Ms. Hilton is “famous for being famous,” attracting America’s attention with “reality” shows in which she and ex-friend Nicole Richie attempt, and fail with “hilarious” results, to live like ordinary Americans. […]
Still Doubting?
One of my more frequent and controversial topics of comment is peak oil. It was nine years ago this week that I first wrote of the phenomenon. For those of you who may have missed all those commentaries, here’s a quick recap. “Peak oil” is the term used to describe the situation that will occur […]