Fun & Games

What do they want to call it if not “civil war”?
“Chaos”?“Calamity”?“Disaster”?“Catastrophe”?“Monstrosity”?“Ruination”?“A Crime”?
And how lovely that Joe Rambo Lieberman continues hot against video game violence. The irony is surely lost on him that his embrace of actual violence, human violence, bloody violence, mindless violence in his axis with Richard Cheney and George Bush in Iraq is, [...]

Here We Go Again

Should have known Manny was in trouble when the Red Sox trotted out their pet scribes to launch the demolishing process.
Here’s a team with two hitters only, and a bunch of flops and singles-pokers fleshing out the line-up around Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. There is quite simply not another hitter in the lineup likely [...]

Think or Thwim Tank

Almost predictably the wiseguys have arched up the eyebrow at President George W. Bush’s fantastical plans for a $500 million think tank and library following the end of his presidency.
There are the usual sighs at Bush’s imperial plans to soak his grateful, richer-than-ever pals for $500 million to build a mausoleum to his legacy – [...]

Q & ?

Question: Didn’t Iraq once have a mighty military capable of kicking the sand out of the Iranians, for a while menacing the planet ,and a huge police force that struck dread and fear because of its omnipresent blanket over the people whol lived under its harsh thumb?
Answer:
Question: If so, why can’t they find seven soldiers [...]

Mayhem @ Warp Speed

The perfect Jack came to call and, in the span of 158 seconds, he:
Opened up the cabinet and threw all the cans this way and that; climbed up on the couch and dove off aiming to clonk his lovely noggin on the floor but for me catching him in mid-plummet; stuck his fingers in all [...]

Feeling a Draft

I suppose there’s a bit of mischief behind Rep. Charles Rangle’s annual proposal to resurrect the Selective Service but I like the idea – of the mischief.
It is fascinating to watch the sudden hand-wringing as Rangle’s proposal is aired yet again. Yet again, the powerful declaim the idea. Why, it could actually lead to fairness. [...]

Lessons

If the President truly believes that the lesson of Vietnam is that we didn’t stay there long enough then the President is, frankly, a fool. “We’ll succeed,” Bush said in Vietnam of the parallels there with Iraq, “unless we quit.”
The lesson of Vietnam was we stayed there too long. The lesson is that we went [...]

Failure!!!

How come the Democrats haven’t found a cure for cancer yet? They’ve been elected for about 20 whole minutes.
How come the Democrats haven’t developed cold fusion? What are they waiting for?
How come the Democrats haven’t been to Mars yet? Come on, you bums.
How come the Democrats haven’t solved the Middle East, the Far East, the [...]

Big Trouble

A young colleague was just saying how she had the neatest plans for Thanksgiving, how she and her even younger sister were taking over the cooking and she talks with such cheer and promise about all the new things they were going to try.
Ah, to be young again.
No, thanks.
Being wiser than that, I know the [...]

Get This Book

Who should read a collection of columns by the sainted Mary McGrory?
Oh, anyone interested in the art of glorious writing.
Anyone interested in humanity’s unending, tectonic grinding against itself.
Anyone hoping to understand how our government works and why it doesn’t work.
Anyone who cares for real world history and admires the up-close engagement of a majestic journalist [...]