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
It was a good Fourth of July where I was — no Republicans or Democrats, just a crowd of sunburned people sitting on the grass, and a brass band played amid the smell of hot dogs, and Clarence and Ralph, two World War II vets, described their European tour of 1944-45 from Normandy through the […]
Read MoreI walked the length of the westbound Lake Shore Limited as it left Albany last Sunday, six crowded coaches, and counted three Twitterers and a couple of phone texters, six laptoppers (two of whom were watching movies), four video gamers, and 27 people reading books. Books made of paper! Turning the pages with their fingers […]
Read MoreOne short weekend, so much to do — an invitation to go swimming at night by moonlight, the Iran protest march downtown with our mouths taped shut, a dance at the Eagles Club with a hot horn band playing ’70s funk that propels people onto the dance floor as if shot from guns — but […]
Read MoreDon’t bother calling to wish me a Happy Father’s Day because I won’t be here, kids, I’ve got the day off. I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. But I’m in Minnesota. […]
Read MoreThis world belongs to the young and the daring, the avid, the adventurous, and that’s why one follows the saga of corporate bailouts with a certain trepidation. We’re mortgaging the future and we are rescuing the stubborn and stupid. The cost of a good college education for the young and daring is stupefying, meanwhile the […]
Read MoreThe driest May in Minnesota since the Dust Bowl. Venerable GM slides into bankruptcy and you shudder for the old Pontiac dealers and the retirees in Michigan. In the middle of the night, an Airbus drops out of the air into the Atlantic Ocean and the veteran traveler shudders to think of it. And the […]
Read MoreMemorial Day in Washington, and geese swimming in the great reflecting pool that reflects the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial, depending on where you are standing, and busloads of tourists pulled up to the curbs. Heroic architecture everywhere, bas-relief sculptures of heroes, men on pedestals, monuments to Fidelity and Sacrifice and Devotion, and a […]
Read MoreI come to London for the signage (“Danger: Men working overhead”), and to pick up a tube of Euthymol toothpaste and devour a cup of Mr. Whippy lemon ice and a package of chocolate HobNobs, and to enjoy the roomy taxicabs and the cabbies’ no-hesitation style of driving, their bold U-turns, and to observe the […]
Read MoreOnly one out of five Americans is willing to describe himself or herself as a Republican these days, and frankly I am tempted to become one of them. For the variety, and because they need me and because when I heard former Vice President Cheney talk about the meaning of Republicanism the other day — […]
Read MoreI was going to visit my mother on Sunday and bring her a jonquil and a ballpoint pen for Mother’s Day, but that’s all off thanks to my brother, who is awaiting trial for mail fraud. His lawyers have asked me not to discuss his case, and so I won’t, except to say that he’s […]
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