Category Archives: Commentary

Everyone’s Doing It

1/24/2002 – 1:55 pm

I have a friend, let’s call her Wilma. Last year, Wilma started a company that would, among other things, conduct international transactions. Starting a business, like buying a house, means your name appears on all sorts of mailing lists. Among the many solicitations Wilma received was a bulky envelope from Nicosia, Cyprus. The envelope was […]

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Princes, Presidents, Pretzels

1/17/2002 – 1:53 pm

Prince Harry, third in line to the throne of England, has been discovered drinking beer and smoking pot. Average behavior for a 16-year-old, and it would have been strictly a family matter if only the family in question wasn’t so bloody famous. It’s legal for 16-year-olds to drink in England and while smoking pot is […]

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Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina

1/10/2002 – 1:51 pm

In the 1980 Republican presidential primary, candidate Ronald Reagan promised both tax cuts and a huge military buildup. Rival candidate George H. W. Bush ridiculed the idea, calling it “voodoo economics” and saying it would lead to budget deficits. As is often the case in politics, rhetoric triumphs over reason. Mr. Reagan’s rhetoric overwhelmed Mr. […]

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On Thin Ice

1/3/2002 – 1:50 pm

On New Year’s Day, I was skating with friends on a frozen pond. The sun was bright, the wind was crisp and we would have been frost-bitten were we not so well-dressed and well-exercised. The pond is about a mile long and half a mile wide. As our skates clicked over the dark-gray surface, we […]

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Two Down, Ten to Go

12/27/2001 – 1:48 pm

Today is the third day of Christmas; your true love should be giving you three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree, but probably will not. Traditionally, the Christmas season lasts 12 days, from Christmas Day until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the magi were supposed to have […]

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Let It Snow, Let It Snow

12/20/2001 – 1:47 pm

We have an affinity for snowflakes in Vermont. About this time every year we import a googol or two from Canada. We’ll be enchanted by our snowflakes for the next three months, but the flakes will outlast our enchantment, sticking around until April. It was a Vermonter, Wilson Bentley, from over in Jericho, who took […]

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A Nice, Clean Fight

12/13/2001 – 1:45 pm

“War – what is it good for?” the old song asks. “Absolutely nothing,” comes the reply. That song was not written by a defense contractor, because war is the best live-action research and development program a weapons maker could ask for. The current conflict in Afghanistan has been a boon for the arms industry, particularly […]

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