One of 2011’s hottest trends is middle-aged pundits announcing that compared to the good old days when they were spry, nothing much is changing anymore. Or at least nothing ...

You remember the $600 toilet seat. How could you forget? Back in the 1980s, reporters, cartoonists, and comedians relished the revelation that the Pentagon paid that much for an ...

Hollywood would not be Hollywood without recurring scandals. Tinseltown always struggles to remain relevant, and in light of the Penn State affair, she has once again managed to ...

The most surprising news story in recent weeks was that of Emma West, a young lady of the type sneeringly referred to as “chav” (white working class, not fully trained in ...

A few days ago, Fox News dared to imply the new Muppet movie is another example of pedantic liberal dogma. “Follow the Money” host Eric Boiling said, “liberal Hollywood ...

Walking around central Moscow, the thing you notice is the Russians—I mean, the near-total absence of non-Russians. There is, of course, a tourist element. Appearance is not ...

The movie industry’s clean little secret is that it could be even more vastly profitable if only the participants were as mercenary as they enjoy claiming they are in their ...

For men and women who’ve voluntarily joined an organization that demands (legally) blind obedience and counsels its minions to “Embrace the Suck,” American ...

A perennial golden nugget of maudlin Christmas fare is the famous 1897 editorial in The New York Sun where an omniscient editor reassures an eight-year-old girl that “Yes, ...

I’ve seen too many friends and acquaintances leap into “lightning marriages”—I am borrowing from the Italian phrase matrimoni lampo—as well as all the horrifying ...

NEW YORK—Today’s protesters could learn something from Sophocles. A man before his time (496-406 BC), Sophocles was a schoolmate of mine, although he was a few years ...

A few years ago I received a telephone call from a college fundraising creep looking for a handout. I don’t have any money to spare, but I innocently inquired how they’d ...

During this cozy holiday season it’s worth taking a step back from the football game and having a good hard stare at the baby boomers who made you. What is with these people? ...

I am a pessimist, for reasons I have expatiated upon at book length. In that book’s first chapter, I distinguished two usages of the key word: I’m using the word ...

It has been a common maxim for the past few thousand years to “seize the day.” I have never advocated this indulgent philosophy. Too often it results in giving away all ...

The Descendants, with George Clooney as a Hawaiian land dynasty’s 1/32nd-Polynesian scion, has fans asking where writer-director Alexander Payne has been since 2004’s ...