The economy is on the rebound. Oil prices are down, down, down. So, what’s with that Putin face, Punky? It’s bad. It’s bad. So say analysts who point to all that oil-patch activity now screeching to a halt. It’s a calamity. Oh, the humanity. Bad? Tell that to the average motorist. Gasoline prices…
DetailsMaster curmudgeon H.L. Mencken wrote, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Mencken wrote this knowing that, as societies go, ours is a beacon of higher thought and inquiry. At the same time, he bemoaned “the virulence of the national appetite for bogus revelation.” Which brings us to…
DetailsWhen he noticed weird stuff floating in his right eye, he didn’t blink. He called an eye doctor. The next day, 24 hours after the abnormality introduced itself, he had eye surgery – a vitrectomy — that very likely spared him the loss of sight in that eye from a detached retina. If…
DetailsIt’s 2015, you know, and a tea party fantasy looks to be realized. No, we’re not talking about Republican control of both houses of Congress. We’re talking about the fantasy that begat a sequel to “Back to the Future.” If you recall, the last lines in this first movie came from old Doc…
DetailsThe dryer went kaput. We ordered a new one, but the pile of laundry couldn’t wait until a way-past-New Year’s Eve delivery. So my bride and I ushered in 2015 at the laundromat. I wished Mitt Romney could have been with us, there among the people who pay a penalty every day for…
DetailsThe Cuba embargo sounded like a good thing in 1960. So did the hula hoop, and Bobby Darin. You can still find a hula hoop, but it has long since stopped being state-of-the-art childhood fare anymore — except maybe in Cuba, where the 1959 Chevy remains king of the road. Sadly, life…
DetailsIf a war on Christmas actually exists, it began with Bing Crosby and a Jew. Crosby and composer Irving Berlin didn’t mean to wage war on Christmas. They meant to have a hit song. “White Christmas” was that. In a PBS documentary about Crosby, biographer Gary Giddens calls the song, the most popular…
Details‘Tis the season. Long before “holiday giving” became a catch phrase, a group sought to slow down America’s No. 1 infectious killer, one penny at a time. So began Christmas Seals – the campaign which in 1907 set out to conquer the “white plague.” A few readers will guess what that plague was,…
DetailsPolice did not kill Michael Brown. One policeman did. Black people did not burn down buildings in Ferguson, Mo. A few idiots did. It is our sad nature to assign the acts of one, or of a few, to the many (see: Islam) and that’s one reason why we appear to be going…
DetailsMaybe the most insidious modifier in the ongoing disservice we call education reform is “outcome-based.” As in, “To make students voracious readers, use this method.” As in, “To prepare students for four-year colleges, use this method.” Usually “outcome-based” methods are described as “evidence-based.” Bring out the charts and graphs. “Outcome-based” sounds…
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