Unemployment is now at six percent, a nine-year high. Times are hard, they may get harder. How will people make ends meet? What will they do to get by? I spent a good part of the 1990s traveling around America, missing most of the tourist spots. My travels took me to the Rust Belt, towns […]

On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Simply stated, there’s no doubt Iraq now has weapons of mass destruction.” There’s a reason Dick Cheney spends most of his time in hiding and it ain’t national security. What Mr. Cheney said was not qualified, it was not tentative, it was not equivocal, but it […]

How polite should one be to a telemarketer? I can always tell when they’re calling. First there’s the long pause, then the tired voice mispronouncing my name. What follows must be my mother’s doing, early years of training in being polite to strangers on the phone, even though I know full well the stranger in […]

Mr. Eliot, the poet, predicted the world ends not with a bang, but a whimper. Or perhaps he was referring to the Iraq war. First the president said Saddam was no longer in control, then Don Rumsfeld said the major engagements were over, then George popped in again to say “mission accomplished,” this time wearing […]