Odd Jobs
When I read that the United Arab Emirate’s Minister of Tolerance had been accused of sexual assault, I could not help but smile. The account of the assault itself, if true, was not at all funny, quite the reverse, but ...
When I read that the United Arab Emirate’s Minister of Tolerance had been accused of sexual assault, I could not help but smile. The account of the assault itself, if true, was not at all funny, quite the reverse, but ...
"Trying to organize right-wingers is like herding cats!" During the years I ran the Republican Party Animals organization, I can"t even tally the number of times I was told that. Conservatives, from soft right ...
The Master, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in a period piece very loosely based on the origins of Scientology, is a sumptuous viewing experience. Yet nobody at the Hollywood ArcLight theater applauded ...
As the most tumultuous year in memory fades into wintry darkness, we face the giant black wall of 2012—The Year It’s All Supposed to End. An Indian guru prognosticates that 2012 will usher in Kali Yuga’s postmenstrual ...
They started screaming about miscounted votes, but when the votes were recounted, he had still ...
President Trump, every Republican senator, and the GOP majority in Speaker Paul Ryan’s House just put the future of their party on the line. By enacting the largest tax cut since the Reagan administration, the heart ...
The environmental movement is predominantly liberal, which means its thought process works backward. They start at the end with a wishful thought""Don"t make this animal sad""then promptly moonwalk off a ...
“The Barbarian cannot make ... he can befog and destroy but ... he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.” Hilaire Belloc’s ...
There comes a time in life when one is more interested in the past than in the future. In my case, I reached it very early: I cannot remember a time when the past was not more alluring to me than the future as a subject of ...
America has been at or on the verge of war with Iraq for as much of my life as I can remember. Now, the John Doe currently known as Barack Obama is bombing the Iraqi insurgency formerly known as al-Qaeda. The whole hubbub ...
When Gen. Michael Flynn marched into the White House Briefing Room to declare that “we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he drew a red line for President Trump. In tweeting the threat, Trump agreed. His ...
NEW YORK—They just passed a new policy at Under Armour, the giant sports-apparel company with the cool corporate headquarters facing Baltimore Harbor: No more business lunches at strip clubs. Well, actually, ...
As the herds of wildebeest migrate in October and November, when the short rains come, from the grasslands of the Masai Mara to the breeding grounds of the Ngorongoro Serengetti, so do herds of American nouveaux-riches load ...
BROOKLINE, Mass.—Let me put this in context so you don’t think I’m an idiot. I like to read. I like words. I don’t shrink from difficult texts. I’ve read Ulysses, although I probably won’t reread it. I’ve ...
We do not live in a golden age of the four cardinal virtues; perhaps there never was such an age, which is why life has always been such a mess. But we have gone further than our predecessors. I suspect that most of us ...
I think I'll direct a series of low-budget movies with names like "Tobacco Madness," "Gun Madness" and "White Male Madness." The plots will be exactly the same with, alternately, cigarettes, guns or whiteness causing high ...
Sailing in Homer’s wine-dark Aegean Sea is the best antidote I know to the brouhaha over the “Squad.” And traipsing all over the Acropolis and the marvels of antiquity makes these four publicity-seeking, opportunistic ...
Those who live under public scrutiny, whether they wish to or not, would do well to learn an axiom concerning the media: The news cycle can be your friend or an enemy to be feared. In the event of a potential scandal, ride ...
Lately I"ve been hearing more and more dribs and drabs of the depressing controversy over whether literature has any empire left over pop culture. Well, that depends on what you mean by "literature." Up till ...
Last week I examined the phenomenon of MAGA rightists who, in their zeal to advance the Wuhan lab Covid origin theory and vindicate Trump, have embraced the CCP propaganda line that Covid is an American bug and the Chinese ...
Clive James is weak on health but very strong on intellect, and it’s good to read his pithy television criticism for the Telegraph. Clive recently praised Richard E. Grant for pointing out in his program on the ...
PORT ORCHARD, Wash.—So, yeah, it’s kind of obvious why Robert Mueller’s “secret questions that he wants to ask Trump” got leaked to the New York Times. I could have written these questions. Because . . . I read ...
They were completely fake, they were mostly unlovable, other people wrote their songs"and they were still better than The Beatles. I don"t give The Monkees much thought, but surely one must have a heart of stone ...
With that almost infallible instinct for making the wrong decision possessed by the British government, headed by nullity-made-flesh Theresa May, Britain has refused the request of Asia Bibi for asylum. If ever there were a ...
