In his 2023 Hollywood memoir, “Everywhere an Oink Oink,” playwright and director David Mamet ponders the actor’s craft: The basic skills involved in acting are all prosaic. They are the ability to speak clearly, to enunciate, to move purposefully (and gracefully, if possible), to hold still-but-not-immobile. These can be learned. And must be learned. The…
J. Michael Waller and I became acquainted exactly one week after the events of January 6, 2021. We both published our first observations of that day on January 13. Waller’s account, “Covert Cadre: What I saw leading up to the US Capitol attack,” was published on the Center for Security Policy website. My story, “What…
I lost my best friend almost exactly four years ago, in the waning days of May 2020. Although I am sure he is listed somewhere as a casualty of the pandemic, the actual story of his death is slightly more complicated. He suffered all his life from severe Crohn’s disease. He had a bad flare-up…
Two years before his suicide, journalist Gary Webb looked back on the reporting that ultimately destroyed his career: I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d…
My daughter Grace went into the hospital with a cold. Hours later, she was on a Vapotherm, then a BiPAP. She was dead six and a half days later. I went to a different hospital three days after Grace’s death. The team put me on a steroid, a regular oxygen cannula, and nebulized budesonide and…
My boyfriend of two years is pretty great in all respects, and we are highly compatible, with the one caveat being that he never wants kids. I am 23, and he is 26. Our finances would allow us to have kids if we wanted them, so that is not the issue. I don’t feel any…
Philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote the essay that basically predicted the internet. He wrote: The next medium, whatever it is – it may be the extension of consciousness – will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and…
<![CDATA[Murder hornets?]]>
<![CDATA[The last time we heard from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (or at least cared enough to share what he said) was back in January when the former “Hardball” host joined Claire McCaskill in warning that people in the rural Trump cult could help the former president take over the country once again.]]>
<![CDATA[The people who keep screaming ‘follow the science’ sure have a hard time following the science these days, which is why they say things like this:]]>
