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
So now we have thrown some rascals out and left some rascals in power and sent some new folks to Washington to learn the art of rascality, and what in the end, after all the hoopla, will really change? Or will the town drunk continue to run the municipal liquor store? Perhaps there will be […]
Read MoreIt took me an hour to turn the clocks back an hour, coordinating all watches and digital alarm clocks and oven clock and kitchen clock and car clocks to Central Standard Time, during which a man starts to question the entire concept of promptitude, meetings, appointments, etc., which leads to thoughts of retirement, the End […]
Read MoreWe are engaged in a struggle between freedom and the forces of terror, my little macacas, and mostly I side with freedom, such as the freedom to look at big shots and stick out your tongue and blow, but of course terror has its place too. The dude strolling down our street at night does […]
Read MoreI was misunderstood growing up and have often been misunderstood since, but then so is everyone else. People are busy, and you can’t expect them to drop everything and try to understand you. If you want to be understood, practice kindness and mercy. Kindness is seldom mistaken for anything else. Small kindnesses reverberate a long […]
Read MoreOctober 12th, the traditional Columbus Day, is a day to reflect on the nature of celebrity. Columbus was a pirate and tyrant who sailed off and bumped into the Bahamas, had no idea where he was, and to his dying day believed he had reached the Indies. By the time he arrived in the New […]
Read MoreOctober is a month for intellectual clarity. Try to keep that in mind. Cold is a stimulant, heat a depressant. The chilly month of October is when the Reformation began. Our guys in Germany were walking around enjoying the fall colors and the beer and the madchens and they thought, “Hey, why am I paying […]
Read MoreMy sandy-haired gap-toothed daughter likes to snap my picture on a cellphone as I’m eating my bran flakes in the morning and brooding over the front page of the Times, over which there is now more to brood than ever. She is 8 and she looks stunning in pictures, and I look stunned, as if […]
Read MoreI wish the pope had talked to me before he gave his “evil and inhuman” speech that got Muslims so testy at him. I could have told him, “Don’t quote some old emperor’s thoughts about Muslims unless you’re willing to have people confuse his views with yours.” You don’t tell a Mormon, “My neighbor used […]
Read MoreAnd now you can’t bring your cup of coffee on board the airplane. It’s the latest new rule laid down by the nation’s security wizards. Everyone knows it’s ridiculous – the notion that you can toss together a few liquids and make an explosive is a fiction from late-night movies. You might as well prohibit […]
Read MoreGrowing up in the fifties, we imagined our country defended by guided missiles poised in bunkers, jet fighters on the tarmac and pilots in the ready room prepared to scramble, a colonel with a black briefcase sitting in the hall outside the president’s bedroom, but September 11th gave us a clearer picture. We have a […]
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