Newt Gingrich, that amazing political combination of great intelligence and great recklessness, is thinking of running for president. I kind of doubt that even with the intelligence he possesses he will be able to overcome his years of mistakes and the great liability of a messy private life. But he cannot have helped himself with …
Our visit to Lexington wasn’t all college services, matriculation, basketball, and Wildcat tchotckes. As it turns out, a fortuitous left hand turn plopped us into the middle of beautiful, charming Historic Lexington, where we saw the home of John Hunt Morgan, the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy, one of rebeldom’s dashing, glamorous, gallant, and ultimately ineffectual …
Months ago Cara chose the college where she will spend the next four years, and there really wasn’t a second choice: Cara fell in love with the bluegrass of the University of Kentucky, and the good news is that apparently Kentucky returns the affection: they have offered her a $40,000 scholarship. (Please don’t anybody tell …
Thanks so much to my new friends at the Civil War Forum of Metropolitan New York, who invited me to speak at the monthly meeting last Wednesday evening at the Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington Avenue. It was terrific to meet so many people who were so well-read and so insightful about the Civil War. …
The usually sharp-minded Michael Falcone and Amy Walter at ABC News’ The Note embarrassed themselves today by allowing themselves to be manipulated by notorious celebrity presshound Donald Trump into spreading his totally self-serving, self-promoting nonsense that he is considering running for president. Trump, who is trying very hard to pump life into his nearly exhausted …
Complimentary words from Matthew J.X. Malady in Slate: “A few weeks ago, Kurt Andersen tweeted the following: “Google’s digitized every issue of Spy magazine. Half up now, the rest soon. (The internet has justified itself).” Media nerds and pop culture junkies rejoiced. Spy, which Andersen co-founded in the mid-1980s with current Vanity Fair editor Graydon …
In The Atlantic this month, Graeme Wood has an article about a study undertaken by Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. It’s a study about how the rich feel about being rich, “an extraordinary sample of confession, memoir, and apologia” from the super-rich, as the center’s director, the sociologist Paul G. Schervish, puts it. …
Great Britain is conducting its national census this month, which save for the war year of 1941, the government has done every decade since 1801. According to an article by Jon Henley in the Guardian, the count costs £482 million, and because it “is expensive, inaccurate and inefficient,” it is likely to be the last …