Worth A Thousand Words (Or 1053, Anyway)

On July 29 of last year Vanity Fair’s website put up a portrait of President George W. Bush by that eminent visual satirist Drew Friedman.  In it, the President was made up to look like that latterday icon of villainy, the late Heath Ledger in his Oscar-winning...

A Memory Of 8/8/74

It is often said that you can judge a leader by the quality of the people with which he surrounds himself. Thirty-five years ago today, I came in brief contact with a member of President Nixon’s White House staff whose deep sense of humanity, even in the midst of what...

Two Anniversaries

Last month the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and of Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin’s historic moonwalk, was the subject of many hours of TV coverage and commentary, and of innumerable column-inches of articles and op-eds in...

8.8.69

In the summer of ’69 the Beatles were working on what turned out to be —and what they later claimed they knew would be— their last album.  Paul had drawn a stick figure sketch of the band walking across a street, demonstrating his idea for the...