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
School is winding down and small children are staring out the windows at freedom and counting the days until the heavy hand of grammar and spelling will be lifted from their backs. My sandy-haired daughter dove into the pool on Memorial Day and has been amphibious ever since. She loves swimming and has to be […]
Read MoreThree-hundred thousand bikers spent Memorial Day weekend roaring around Washington in tribute to our war dead, and I stood on Constitution Avenue Sunday afternoon watching a river of them go by, waiting for a gap in the procession so I could cross over to the Mall and look at pictures. The street had been closed […]
Read MoreThe Current Occupant tossed Nazis into a speech last week, something he rarely does since it only reminds people of Dick Cheney. He likened those who would negotiate with terrorists to those who tried to appease the Nazis, an awkward comparison, since Nazis were self-defined and wore the swastika proudly, and terrorists are anybody we […]
Read MoreThe beauty of May is that the whole country is more or less on the same page, called Spring, and Spring is Spring, in Minnesota or California or Georgia or Vermont. Slightly different birds and flowers, same feeling. April is blowing snow up north, and by June my friends in Georgia will be chained to […]
Read MoreThe last time I witnessed a woman becoming a mother, it wasn’t anything like the frilly sentiments of Mother’s Day. She lay on her back, perspiring heavily and yelling, “Oh my God, why did you do this to me? I’ll never forgive you in a hundred years. I hope you hurt like this someday. Give […]
Read MoreA cabdriver picked me up outside the Waffle House in Little Rock last Sunday and said so sweetly, “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast” — elongating the “joy” slightly and slurring the k in “breakfast” — and I said yes, but honestly, I don’t really associate breakfast with enjoyment. It’s chow. It’s a standardized meal […]
Read MoreApril is a propulsive force in the north. Snow melts and the flotsam of spring appears, a child’s mitten in the mud, a soap bubble ring, the lilac bushes bud, a light haze of green shows in the tops of trees. The cry of the lawn mower is heard. Mating begins, females ruffling their tailfeathers, […]
Read MoreI flew to New York on the day spring arrived and all along 90th Street a lovely blue flower called Pushkinia blossomed which is named for the poet who, according to Russians, cannot be translated into English, but Tchaikovsky made a gorgeous opera of “Eugene Onegin,” which is some consolation, and then there is the […]
Read MoreFor some people, the urge to compete is very, very strong, such as the tall red-haired woman last Sunday morning at LaGuardia who cut in front of me at the boarding gate and did it so smoothly, expertly, no body contact, you have to assume she’s been acing people out all her life. She was […]
Read MoreAs our story continues, we find Senator McCain resting in his tent, plotting his fall campaign, as the Democrats continue the longest primary in human history, which has left the pundit club and the blogoswamp with nothing new to say whatsoever. You might as well write about your sock drawer. Hillary Clinton is a great […]
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