Building Bridges and Making Soldiers

The Royal Engineers did anything the Army needed"€”from building bridges to crossing rivers, from building camps to clearing mines"€”so they needed to be tough soldiers. They ...

Madonna

Do Italians Do it Better?

That slogan on pop star Madonna's T-shirt "€œItalians do it better!"€ may date back to the 1980s but it is still popular with Italian men. They often deploy it to impress ...

Congratulations, Gov’nor!

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Dial 911 for Mommy

After leaving dinner with my in-laws here in Brooklyn on Monday, I saw two men standing on the curb looking very righteous. One was Asian and the other was white, which in this ...

Ray Bradbury

Someone Righteous This Way Went

Ray Bradbury is dead. For the past twenty years I have dreaded writing those words. The effusive homages to a man who was arguably America's greatest living writer are in full ...

Banksy

Royal Pains

After four days of royalist reverie, the imported Union Jacks are starting to sag"€”drooping disconsolately as the proud people who "€œnever ever shall be slaves"€ shake ...

Madonna, Don”€™t Preach

Always one to court controversy in lieu of talent, Madonna recently projected an enormous image of right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead à ...

The Undead & The Brain-Dead

Mass news reports last week of an impending “Zombie Apocalypse” proved that while the apocalypse may not have arrived quite yet, there are plenty of zombies waiting ...

The “€œF”€ Word

Although the adjective "€œfascist,"€ as George Orwell pointed out during and right after World War II, was a slur applied to "€œthose we don"€™t like,"€ the ...

Groping for Terrorists

Here are my experiences with airport security at various spots around the world during the past several years. CHICAGO It is a hot day in early September, and I"€™m standing ...

I”€™m With Stupid

While I was arguing about abortion recently with a pro-choice pal he said, "€œI just wish stupid people would stop having babies."€ This is a common sentiment among the smart ...

All the News That’s Not Fit to Print

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Napoleon Dynamite

My lifetime engagement with the pharmaceutical industry has been minimal. This, I know and regret, is un-American. Every red-blooded native-born citizen of this republic is an ...

Occam’s Butter Knife

MIT's Daron Acemoglu is a rock star among economists, one of the ten most cited in his profession. This is largely because of the paper the Istanbul-born Armenian cowrote in 2001: ...

Queen Elizabeth II

Diamond Jubilation

I love Queen Elizabeth. I love her pastel-colored outfits. I love her little black handbags. I love the regal look in her eye. I even love it when she has to wear her silly crown ...

The Vegetarian Personality

I have trouble accepting the idea that Hitler was a vegetarian. He just didn"€™t seem that pushy. Apparently others feel the same way. When I started typing “pushy ...


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