Every few weeks I find myself in the second-class cabin of an airplane. This has been going on for years. I have been flying, on a regular basis, throughout most of the age of airline deregulation. It’s not as much fun as it used to be. Don’t get me wrong – after thousands of air […]

Have you ever been to Tuvalu? Have you ever heard of Tuvalu? I’ve been asking around lately. One friend said, “You mean, like the honey? That’s tupelo.” No, not tupelo, Tuvalu. Tuvalu is one of the smallest nations on earth. It consists of nine atolls in the southwest Pacific Ocean. In the rank of nations, […]

Right now, in various cities around the United States, Frito-Lay is test-marketing potato chips made with a synthetic product that tastes like fat, but is not “fattening,” to use my mother’s word. The product, “olestra,” is made by Procter and Gamble and is designed to pass through the digestive system without being digested. The alleged […]

The newspapers of late have been full of portentous events, from the artificial, such as the Pathfinder landing on Mars, to the natural – volcanoes in Mexico and on the island of Montserrat. Approximately half the citizens of Montserrat, in the Caribbean, have fled the island, which is a good idea – when you share […]