Bowdlerizing is Back
Ever hear of Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825)? He was an English physician and philanthropist who once published The Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of the Bard’s works edited by his sister,...
View ArticleIn Defense of Student Commencement Protesters
Has America entered a Bizarro world in which money equals speech but speech itself gets labeled intimidation? That’s not a far-fetched conclusion to draw in a political culture that has unleashed...
View ArticleNot Just a Pretty Face
Last week I was in New York to attend the founding meeting of the Professional Speechwriters Association. While there, I managed to take in a play at Manhattan’s Irish Repertory Theatre. Sea Marks: An...
View ArticleRandom Remembrances Of Dad
Dad didn’t go to college. He served in the U.S. Navy in the Philippines. He was in the Seabees. He helped survey and build the Subic Bay Naval Base. He once caught and cooked a wild jungle boar. Dad...
View ArticleA Woman Against World War I
This summer marks the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. As we remember the jingoism, militarism, intrigue and paranoia that combined to produce one of history’s bloodiest debacles,...
View ArticleMore Alice Deals? There’s a better deal
The concern over why we've fallen behind other countries seems reasonable. How can U.S. students test behind those from 33 countries? Behind Croatia! But that's not because all American schools fail....
View ArticleBrat — The protesting Protestant?
There's an early Philip Roth story about a bunch of Jewish kids in Hebrew school trying to figure out whether Jesus lived or not. "The Catholics," Itzie Lieberman says, "they believe in Jesus Christ,...
View ArticlePlease manipulate me
What do you call it when media try to manipulate your feelings without first asking for informed consent? Tuesday. Example: The average Facebook user sees only 20 percent of the 1,500 stories per day...
View ArticleEncore for Proprietary Medical Schools?
Conventional wisdom holds that America faces a growing physician shortage and that one way of responding is by creating new medical schools. Starting a new school is an expensive proposition which...
View ArticleWar, Liberalism, Trust in Government: The Many Casualties of LBJ’s Gulf of...
Fifty years ago, on August 10, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed what is known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. It is a day that should live in infamy. On that day, the President gave himself the...
View ArticleSave Elves Chasm!
Last Sunday, as I was reading the New York Times, I came across an opinion piece by writer Kevin Fedarko called, “A Cathedral Under Siege.” It was about two proposed developments that threaten the...
View ArticleRemembering Todman
The August 17 Washington Post carries a fine obit on Terence A. Todman, deceased August 13. No quibbles with Emily Langer’s synthesis of this remarkable man, my first boss in 1986 in the Foreign...
View ArticleThought’s Colors
There we go, forty years almost to the day, when I registered in a seminar with John Hawkes in Providence. The New York Times of August 24 cites these seminars somewhat playfully in its book review...
View ArticleThe news summer from hell and the end of optimism
By this point in the summer, a sane person could reasonably conclude that the world is going nuts. Spiraling out of control, descending into darkness, making optimism a delusional last recourse –...
View ArticleBelieving is Seeing
September 10, President Obama rolled out his new anti-IS intentions. Meanwhile two high-octane intellects separately discussed their appraisals of Obama’s foreign policy. I won’t say “tautology,”...
View ArticlePlease, No More “Latte Salutes”
I watched the video of President Obama saluting his Marine escort with a coffee cup in his right hand. Then I watched it again. And again.
View ArticlePresident Obama’s UN Speech: Negotiating with Terrorists
The speech by President Obama at the UN General Assembly this year did not please everyone...
View ArticleA People’s Holiday of the United States
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, October 14, 2014
View ArticleIt’s a MAD, MAD, MAD World
Way back during the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union were locked in a tense face-off for decades. Both sides had huge arsenals of thermonuclear devices. But there was a doctrine of military...
View ArticleHard to Split Cloud, Silver Lining
Teasing out the link between moderation in health spending and subpar economic growth is a daunting but important task that could have a big and unpredictable impact on the American economy in the...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....