This is something I first saw and wrote seven years ago. Here it is again with a couple of changes or explanations. Ten Good Questions. Taken from “Inside the Actors’ Studio,” this is the 10-question quiz that closes every interview on the show. Anyone who has watched the show finds him or herself answering these …
During the two generations of the Cold War, the American military had one truly great fear. A Russian Hitler. The fear was that someday, Russia would have an irrational leader, a man who could not be counted on to act in the best interests of the Soviet Union … or the world as a whole. …
PUTIN MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE Read More »
Make no mistake about Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s straight out of the playbook. The playbook from the late 1930s, the playbook of Adolf Hitler. The only difference is that Putin says nothing about lebensraum — living space. If there’s one thing Russia has plenty of, it’s living space. But Putin has said numerous …
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.” I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin, but I will give him credit for one thing. When he purchased Donald Trump, whether …
“Free college? What a crazy idea!” If you live in the U.S., you have almost certainly heard people saying that. You may even have said it yourself. “Hey, nobody gave me free college.” “Hey, I had to pay for my own college. Why should they get it for free?” Well … Shortly after the turn …
CAN WE EDUCATE OUR KIDS WITHOUT MAKING THEM DEBTORS? Read More »
It’s very strange, but I really wish it could be 1961 again. Or at least 1962. Sixty years ago. I was 11 years old in 1961, and I went to school — sixth grade the first half of the year — across the street about half a block up from our house. It was the …
“Let’s all chip in and make Dando Shaft a millionaire.” I was 16 when Don Calhoun’s novel “Dando Shaft” was published, although I don’t think I heard of it until a few years later. It was a halfway unique premise — a mediocre advertising executive setting up a campaign to make himself a wealthy man. …
There are few things that make me more homesick for the 20-plus years I spent in Los Angeles than watching “Bosch” on Amazon Prime. It’s really only one thing. It’s the view from the balcony of Bosch’s home in the Hollywood Hills, usually at night. Look out to the south and west and the city …
I have been a writer for most of my life. When I was 6 or 7 I started writing short stories for my own amusement, and when I was 11 or 12 — I can’t remember which — I actually had a column with my picture in our local community weekly. It was about junior …
I’m old enough to remember when Republicans considered themselves the party of classy people. The GOP was the party of the people who owned and ran businesses, the party of people who belonged to the country club and played golf. Democrats, of course, were the hoi polloi, the folks who carried lunch buckets to work …
