John Updike was one of our greats. Ridiculously prolific, he wrote novels, poems, essays, reviews and short stories as if he were a factory ...

President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh. On a related note, Pa...

Damon (who recently started a new blog, a smarter world (not, as one might think, an elaborate defense of Hillary's new Smart Power at t...

This is an absurd video - Hall & Oates playing pop stars with ironic detachment. And the lyrics are wrong. They are about longing for wh...

I'm sitting here in the hotel watching an HBO special pre-inaugural event with a stream of speakers and performers like Bruce Springstee...

Here are some things that I'd like to hear in tomorrow's inaugural speech. In the interest of restraint, I've listed only a coup...

It is a wonderful thing that we’re unable to predict. If we could, it would suggest a lack of control over events, a lack of autonomy for th...

“What did we learn, Palmer?” Asks the senior CIA official of his subordinate. “I don’t know sir.” “I don’t f-ing know either.” “I guess we l...

AP – 8 mins ago WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that she intends to revitalize the mission of diplomacy in American foreign...

Serious studies about humor have shown that ducks have a magical place in the pantheon of joke subjects. Two ducks on a pond. One says, ...

The novel’s great era didn’t just coincide with the rise of the university and the specialist because of rising levels of literacy – it help...

Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers , is great. He's done it again, putting together a string of great stories that make fairly pr...

Teen birth rates are up in 26 states - the highest since 1971, reversing a 34% drop from 1991 to 2005. A 16 year old girl suspected of drown...

"I don't know why the economists haven't already figured out the cause of this economic downturn," Bernard said assuredly....

I love market coverage. No one could predict Friday's uptick of 3% or today's drop of nearly 1%. They couldn't predict it but th...

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ...

And because the Bush administration seems to never make a policy decision without first thinking about whether it'll make life easier fo...

The other day, a friend said, "Whoever loves the least has control." Watching family and friends over the holidays, I'm always...

What follows are excerpts of posts from 2008. It was a busy year. George Bush and Karl Rove were masters of politics and the two stooges of ...

Bumper sticker I saw today: Party Like It's January 20 2009.