The term “thinning the herd” used to be a serious one. Ranchers would cull out the weaker examples of whatever animal it was they were raising, and when those animals didn’t reproduce, the overall quality of the herd would improve. It doesn’t apply as well to human beings. Much of the genocide that has taken …
When I was young(er) and had a lot more energy, I covered college basketball. I traveled with the University of Missouri from 1984-86 and with the University of Nevada from 1988-90. On those beats and others in between, I visited some of the real cathedrals of the college game. Places like Pauley Pavilion at UCLA, …
“Where are your books?” In the film “Time After Time,” H.G. Wells has chased Jack the Ripper across time and space to 1979 San Francisco. Wells meets Amy Robbins, a lovely intelligent modern woman. When she takes him to her apartment, one of his first observations is that she has no books. As a brilliant, …
I was 40 years old the last time I saw my grandparents’ house, which of course is not the one pictured here. I’ve written before about March 1990, when we gathered in Crestline, Ohio, for my grandmother’s funeral. My cousin Peter Kindinger said something I have never forgotten, that for all the wonderful memories the …
Stroll — to walk in a leisurely or idle manner. Skulk — keep out of sight, typically with a sinister or cowardly motive. It has been many years since the Circle theater existed on Pennsylvania Avenue just north of George Washington University. This theater, and its companion the Inner Circle, were the two best houses …
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” If you were to ask fans of the late Ronald Reagan, they would tell you this quote from his 1981 inaugural address summed up why they loved him so much. To them, Reagan meant the end of activist government intervening in the lives …
Talent is an amazing thing. Not everyone has it, and some who do fail to cultivate it enough to turn it into something really special. I’m sad to say I probably fall into the second category. There were certainly things I enjoyed doing and were somewhat good at, but there’s only one thing at which …
When you look at the true weirdos in government, most of them are usually far away from where we live. When I was growing up in Ohio and Virginia in the 1950s and ’60s, most of the beyond-the-pale types were either down south (anti-civil rights) or way out west (the John Bircher types). Not that …
I’m a sucker for click-bait quizzes on Facebook, but one thing that always annoys me is when they claim to be tough and then aren’t. I’ll read that only 10 percent of people can pass a test and then I’ll get 59 of 60 right. Most of them are fairly stupid. They’ll show you a …
About 10 years ago, I was reading Vanity Fair in a doctor’s waiting room and I came across the leading man interviews with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Daniel Craig. Interesting men all, but the really fascinating part was the questions, apparently an interview format developed by Marcel Proust. Or was it his brother Bob? …
