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Remorseful Ex-Slob Does His Penance

On my daily walks, I do penance for one of the sins of my misspent youth. I pick up roadside litter. Who tosses out roadside litter? I did. Shame on me. In 1950s, the legal drinking age in Pennsylvania was 21. In New York state, just 22 miles away from my hometown of Warren, that drinking age was 18 — legally. Practically speaking, you got served if the bartender could see your eyes peering over the top of the bar in at least two watering holes within yards of the state line. Our return trips were marked by scenery-ruining flings of empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, ...

Fixing College Corruption

America’s colleges are rife with corruption. The financial squeeze resulting from COVID-19 offers opportunities for a bit of remediation. Let’s first let’s examine what might be the root of academic corruption, suggested by the title of a recent study, “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship.” The study was done by Areo, an opinion and analysis digital magazine. By the way, Areo is short for Areopagitica, a speech delivered by John Milton in defense of free speech. Authors Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian say that something has gone ...

Wear The Face Mask

In the last month, I’ve left our home in my car exactly once, to go to the drive-thru window of our local pharmacy for a necessary prescription. On the way, I had to wait behind a city bus as it dropped off passengers at a shopping center. One person after another, many of them young adults, disembarked and immediately held their phones to their ears or in other ways touched their faces. It’s such a habit, but it’s a dangerous one right now. None of them was wearing gloves or face masks, and all of them likely touched commonly used spaces on the bus that had been previously ...

The President Knows Television

Somebody close to President Donald Trump could, in a burst of candor, tell him that he does not know everything to be known about the history of the filibuster in the United States Senate — or even the origin of the infield fly rule in Major League Baseball. But nobody, absolutely nobody, should ever dare to suggest that this president has not completely mastered everything there is to know about American popular television. Lest we forget, only one American president, before he came to office, was the host/star/dominant personality for 14 years of a network prime-time TV show, ...

Virus Causes Grooming To Take A Hit

A friend closed in his northern Italian apartment for almost six weeks emailed me saying that his wife says he looks like a “clochard.” That’s French for street bum. This from a man who once was a walking advertisement for fine Italian tailoring. Grooming has taken a hit as the coronavirus shuts down public life. That’s understandable, though others in the household might like a spiffier cellmate. The following is not for those suffering from the coronavirus. Their only job is recovery. Rather, it is for the healthy self-quarantining masses stuck for weeks in their homes. ...

Biden Should Go For Unity

Elizabeth II’s speech to the United Kingdom was moving, even for those of us who are lifelong small-r republicans. In some respects, her model cannot be copied in the United States. She is a monarch, and we had some disagreements about that matter in 1776. She is a living link to the most harrowing experience in living memory, the Second World War. And, at 92, she has accumulated a lifetime’s reservoir of trust and goodwill. But the queen’s address does have lessons for us Yanks, and particularly for Joe Biden. Part of what made the Queen’s speech affecting was its theme of ...