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
Back in the day, we fundamentalists didn’t mess with angels, sensing that Catholics owned the angel franchise, part of their dim smoky world of bead-rattling and hocus-pocus and lugubrious statuary, so instead we focused on the Holy Spirit who dwelt in all of us true believers and told us what to do and what to […]
Read MoreLet’s take a break from the presidential primaries and talk for a moment about the bad cold that got its talons into me last week and is hanging on despite an onslaught of pharmaceuticals. My gosh, I have thrown fistfuls of acetaminophen, pheniramine maleate, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, dextromethorphan, prednisone, azithromycin, doxycycline, at the situation, plus herbal […]
Read MoreAnother fine political year is upon us with seesaw races and fresh-baked dramas daily, high dudgeon, flights of fancy, tireless flesh-pressing, and thanks to the Web, you can feast on it anytime night or day, no need to sit by a TV and wait for the show to start. If reality has any bearing on […]
Read MoreI went to see “Sweeney Todd” last week and the high point was after the movie when I headed for the men’s room, passing a long line of women waiting to get into the women’s, and when I got inside the men’s, a tall woman in a long black coat emerged from a stall and […]
Read MoreThe cure for nostalgia is to read history, and the cure for holiday sentimentality is to listen for twenty-five minutes to an old friend telling you in a deep mournful voice how desolate his life feels to him right now with the air full of sugar and spice and musical bonhomie and him stranded on […]
Read MoreBETHLEHEM, Pa. — I woke up in New York this morning — a good thing, since I had gone to bed in New York last night — and dressed and packed and hustled off to the subway. On the sidewalk on 86th Street and Central Park West, a newspaper vendor stood with big stacks of […]
Read MoreIt was Christmas in the New York subways last week, musicians heading off to play Christmas gigs, and in the Times Square station a wild-haired old man out of a George Price cartoon pounded out “Winter Wonderland” on an electric organ, a rhythm attachment going whompeta-whompeta-whompeta, and two crazed battery-powered Santas dancing the boogaloo, nearby […]
Read MoreAnd so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart and became a friend and benefactor to all and also got his hair and eyebrows trimmed. He made Bob Cratchit a partner, and an orthopedic surgeon fixed Tiny Tim’s gimpy leg so he could jump and run, and Scrooge & Marley became ScratchitInc and got out […]
Read MoreI got to teach Episcopal Sunday school last week, a rare privilege, and it was in a New York church so the kids had plenty to say. Teenagers, and if you expect them to sit in rapt silence as you tick off points of theology, you’re in the wrong place. They made plenty of noise, […]
Read MoreThe sudden rise of Mike Huckabee in the Republican jousts is a cool plot turn, one that makes you lean forward and turn up the sound. An amiable, well-spoken Southern conservative with a Gomer Pyle face challenging the teeth-baring Giuliani and the sleek Romney. You watch him field questions for a few minutes and the […]
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