Fads, Follies, Frauds, and Floccinaucinihili….

You can count me sympathetic to the Tea Party. I think they're a good ...

James Toback

Toback Redux

NEW YORK—He came from a wealthy background but was always in trouble. His parents were not particularly religious, but nevertheless they insisted that little Jimmy read the ...

Mudgeon at the Bat

The curious affair of Fred Mudgeon began in 2015 when he, age 67 and largely blind, walked onto the field of the Washington Miquetoasts, the capital's football team, and announced ...

Earl of Chesterfield by William Hoare

A Whining Pretension to Goodness

I had to smile the other day on finding out about the "€œrepurposing"€ of a favorite quote. The quote is from Dr. Johnson, one of the most quotable men that ever lived. The ...

The War Against Offensive Team Nicknames

Offensive sports team nicknames are yet again in the news and, as usual, the Washington Redskins are the target of attention. Slate.com (owned by the Washington Post) has ...

Across the River and Into the Past

Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees was published in 1950 to terrible reviews, but I recall that at some point in the past I thought Across the River was ...

Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler

Robot Hookers of the Near Future

Jean Harlow’s final, deliciously pre-Code exchange with matronly Marie Dressler in 1933’s Dinner at Eight endures as one of cinema’s choicest comedy ...

Janet Yellin

Another Scary-Looking Janet

When Janet Reno's face came up on my TV I always had to restrain a powerful urge to dive behind the ...

Miley Cyrus

It’s Not Miley’s Problem, It’s Ours

If you find yourself asking, “Who cares?” when pop culture is discussed, the answer is, “Everyone but you.” As Nick Gillespie once said to me, ...

Nathan Bedford Forrest

The War Against the Past

Here is a thing that happened in the Civil War. If you know your Civil War minutiae, it"€™ll be familiar to you, in which case I beg your pardon. I can"€™t resist a good ...

In Search of Sexier Scientists

Continuing its blanket coverage of the problems of people who don’t really have problems, The New York Times turns from the plight of female Harvard Business School students ...

Fifty Shades of Green

Talk about “carbon dating”! I guess I’ve been asleep under a rock, but “dinosaur porn” is supposedly, as the young people today like to say, a ...

Elton John and David Furnish

The Week That Perished

The Week’s Most Inspirational, Sensational, and Confrontational Headlines PSYCHOSIS ON THE POTOMAC Washington, DC, currently in a state of partial suspended animation ...

American Opossum

Errata

My sniveling apologies to the residents of Northern Virginia. Let's hope that will stop Robert E. Lee's spinning in his grave ...

New York

Olighastly

NEW YORK—The trouble with driving into the city is nostalgia. Manhattan Island looms into view and it always induces the same wonderment it did long ago. Once walking the ...

Children and Guns: The Hidden Dads

On Sunday, the front page of The New York Times featured a dad holding a .22 with his kid under the headline, "€œChildren and Guns: The Hidden Toll."€ What a bunch of ...


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