The phrase of the day is “Grand Bargain.” Balderdash! The first issue this raises is: why do we need a title? This evil practice hies  back to the days of the Iran hostage crisis, when a pusillanimous president cowered in the White House, allowing American diplomats to remain captive by the heirs of the Barbary […]

The city of Fall River, Massachusetts (most renowned  for its famous axe-wielding citizeness, Miss Lizzie Borden) defaulted on its municipal bonds early in the last century and was managed by a creditors’ committee for twenty eight years. The creditors eventually got their money back. We should be so lucky. Fiscal armageddon impends. Within the last year, four […]

Swine before pearls. Well, diamonds, actually. Rihanna, a chanteuse of renown, wore two megabucks worth of jewelry to the Grammy awards, including 100 carats on her bracelet, 30 carats on  her earrings, and who knows how much on the various rings that covered her fingers. (A side note: “grammy”is derived from “gramophone,” an early brand […]

The quality of early childhood education is in free fall. No more do we initiate our children to the sublimities of the English language with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” which uses words that are actually used by adults. In fact, we barely use words at all. The decline can be traced […]

Pre-civilization, we all lived in packs and helped each other. But as civilization advanced, we learned better, and for many years screwed each other over in a ferocious Darwinian duel which led to vastly improved living standards. Unfortunately, the last generation or two has attempted to undo this important social advance. We are now enjoined […]