Columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
Every so often, sitting down to your Cheerios, you open the New York Times to the crossword puzzle and find clues such as “_ Van Winkle” and “_ of 1812” and “Buried in Grant’s Tomb” and you finish the thing in five minutes flat feeling brilliant and unappreciated, some sort of national treasure, and then […]
Read MoreThe president has declined to talk about racism in connection with the carpet-chewers of the Right who are suffering road rage over his existence, and he’s wise to turn that one down. The country doesn’t need a sermon on race or civility right now. What it needs is to believe that our leaders are trying […]
Read MoreThe doctor who saw me in the ER wrote in her report: “nice 67 y.o. male, flat affect, awake, alert and appropriate.” I had appeared with slurred speech and a balloon in my head, had driven myself to United Hospital in St. Paul, parked in No Parking, walked in and was triaged right in to […]
Read MoreI caught part of a radio call-in show the other day on which a vet was fielding questions about Addison’s disease among basset hounds and a cocker spaniel’s hypothyroid problem and what can be done about a bulldog who snores (he needs to lose weight), and it was interesting to discover the excellent medical care […]
Read MoreA pleasant late-August Sunday in London, bright and breezy, the bells of St. Paul’s ringing wildly for 11:30 Sung Eucharist, like a sacred pinball machine announcing you’ve won ten bonus games, the square busy with people including Americans like me, whose business is being tourists. As the poet W.H. Davies wrote: What is this life […]
Read MoreA night flight to London crammed into seat 29A but asleep thanks to modern pharmaceuticals and fairly fresh and bright on arrival at Heathrow. Wrestled the bags aboard the train and cruised into the city and lugged the luggage up stairs and into a lovely quiet hotel. It’s in the financial district, near St. Paul’s. […]
Read MoreYou know it’s going to be a difficult day when you wake up with “Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera, Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera” going around and around in your head and it won’t stop. You know that probably you should not tackle health care reform today though brainlessness has not stopped other people from weighing in on it. […]
Read MoreLast week, we got several perfect days in a row in St. Paul — fresh and sweet in the morning, afternoons balmy, and evenings you could sit outdoors until midnight and talk extravagantly about life as you did when you were 25. I have no idea what it was like in Minneapolis, but St. Paul […]
Read MoreIt’s good to hear that the FCC is back in business, thinking about the Internet and wireless telecommunications and not so much about assessing huge fines to broadcasters who say “poop” on the air. The new chairman, Julius Genachowski, is a 46-year-old venture capitalist who is more interested in technological advances and bringing high-speed access […]
Read MoreA summer Sunday in an old Midwestern river town, walking down the avenue under the elms past yards burgeoning, with vinous and hedgy things and multicolored flowerage, the industry of each homeowner shown in the beauty offered to the passerby. The children of these homeowners may be telling their therapists harrowing tales of emotional deprivation […]
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