BRIARCLIFF MANOR, 7:20 AM
My backyard after last night’s rain, the second very large storm this week. It looks like a lot of water, but the mighty Pocantico is already receding.
Phenomena
SICK, SICK, SICK
Three cheers for Craig Ferguson, who explained on his program why he wasn’t going to make jokes about Charlie Sheen anymore, which is because the dud is mentally ill. (This isn’t my armchair diagnosis, but that of my fried Dr. Howard Samuels, the noted therapist. “Charlie Sheen is a hardcore drug addict,” he said last …
THE NEW FACES OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Stories In The New York Times How retro: 2011’s hot new trend is. . . anti-semitism! just today, in the front section alone: Yemen’s beleaguered president Ali Abdullah Saleh blames Israel and the US for uprisings in the Arab world; hotshit Dior designer John Galliano (now ex-) is going to face charges for saying that …
MYSTERIOUS, MYSTIFIED YOUNG MEN
Two very interesting, fairly contradictory stories about young men, have recently appeared. In Slate, Mark Regnerus says that while young men are struggling in the world, especially in contrast with young women, they are still finding it fairly easy to bed young women. “We keep hearing that young men are failing to adapt to contemporary …
A RARE FORAY INTO RELATIONSHIP ADVICE
I don’t know many unmarried women–unmarried women, as opposed to single women, are out of their twenties and would like to be married–but there was a column today on Huffington Post called “Why You’re Not Married’‘ that was funny and seemed kind of useful. (I know, I feel less credible giving relationship advice to women …
SECESSION BALL, CHARLESTON SC, DECEMBER 20, 2010
In Charleston last night, the 150th anniversary of the great slaveholders’ revolt that ended in America’s bloody Civil War was marked with a gala ball featuring dinner, dancing, and a theatrical reeanctment of the signing of the Ordinance of Secession. Protesters led by the NAACP gathered outside.
BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND
Jet fans could not take much pleasure in the thumping they received at the hands of the Patriots in frigid Gillette Stadium in Foxboro on Monday night, the sight of the wind playfully mussing Donald Trump‘s hair warmed my heart.
BRING ON THE HOLIDAYS!
Yesterday morning, driving in the midst of an drenching rainstorm, I heard “Christmas Rapping” by the Waitresses on the radio, and with that, my holidays had officially begun. (For more than 20 years, I mark the start of the season by the first appearance of that irresistible piece of pop perfection. In 2008, I never …
IF YOU WANT TO FEEL OLD. . .
. . .check out the The Beloit College Mindset List. You might be way ahead of me on this, but every year since 1998, when it was started by Professor Tom McBride and then-Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, folks at Beloit College in Wisconsin have been looking at emerging and fading cultural touchstones. This year’s …