Wisdom
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Four years ago, I listened to a radio interview with Markwayne Mullin, a new member of the House of Representatives from eastern Oklahoma, and was absolutely flabbergasted. Astonished and dismayed, I wrote a few paragraphs about him. Here''s what I said then: "It wasn't that he was inarticulate or stupid. It was that he was…
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By all rights I should have been attending to the intricate areas of my face while shaving, but I lapsed into a reverie. My obsession of the moment–the beard. Why? Why in the world do human males grow hair on their faces? What's the point? The beard is completely valueless except to Gillette and Schick…
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On the main street of Estes Park (Gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park), a sign outside the restaurant advertised "deepfried oreos." I was both flabbergasted and thunderstruck, not believing my eyes. But here's the evidence: Just above ice cream and below "funnel cakes" (but that's another story). Is it a hoax, or can there be…
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Last Saturday, we hiked to the multiplex to hear and watch the Met's HD performance of Idomeneo. Once again, the opera did not disappoint. Early Mozart and glorious, especially the rousing choruses, while soprano Nadine Sierra was a luminous Illia. A silly story, of course, but for once there was a happy ending–a young man and…
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I wrote the following long ago, republished it once. Here it is, relevant again. What Doesn't Dick Cheney Commit Suicide? Why doesn't Dick Cheney put a bullet in his brain? It would do him (and his reputation) a world of good. What could possibly stand in his way? Once he sprinkles the ratsbane on his porridge —…
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One of the most joyful of nursery rhymes, and a personal favorite, is this brilliant piece of poetry: Crosspatch, Draw the latch. …
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Elsa Morante, the distinguished Italian novelist, spent the war years in what might be called internal exile, holed up, hungry, with her friend and later husband Alberto Moravia in a one-room hut in Sant'Agata (both Morante and Moravia were half Jewish). After Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were arrested and shot, hung upside down…
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I asked some friends how they understood Senator Marco Rubio's very blunt statement that "Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers." I received a variety of answers. My linguistically conservative friends asserted that we obviously need grammarians more than either philosophers or welders, because Rubio doesn't respect the difference between…
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Last night there was no moon and no clouds. It was so bright and clear that I couldn't resist going out to take a gander at the stars. It was, once again, a brilliant and dazzling spectacle. I can never remember whether there are two hundred million or two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way. Both numbers…
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Yesterday, and for the last week, there were two mallard in the pond: a buff-brown female trailed incessantly by a shiny green head. Courting, if not already nesting. But today there's just one, the female, and she's swimming round and round, quacking, quacking. What happened to Mr. Mallard. Where is he? Eaten by fox or…