I distinctly remember watching a moment or two of her coronation on TV when I was very small. What I recall is her back as she walked down the aisle, and the incredibly long train: Young, pretty, happy: The Queen … Continue reading →
Roger Angell, noted baseball writer for The New Yorker, has died at the age of 101. I had no idea he was still alive, but I used to read him regularly during the thirty or so years when I had … Continue reading →
Otto von Bismarck certainly had a way with words. For example: “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.” “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” (I’d heard that one … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Here’s a slightly-edited version of a post I first published in 2014. I thought it might be good to put it up again, because it still seems appropriate.] The time was 1956, over 65 years ago. The place was … Continue reading →
When I read that Robert Morse had died at the age of 90, my first thought was “Drat!” My second thought was, “How could he be 90? Impossible!” Because to me Robert Morse always looked like a kid. Morse rose … Continue reading →
Now that Musk has become the largest shareholder in Twitter, it seems he has plans to change some things: Elon Musk filed a new disclosure on his Twitter Inc. stake with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, admitting that … Continue reading →
Commenter John Tyler reminds us of this famous saying by Beria, the notorious head of Stalin’s secret police: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” As with some of our current political prosecutors, the idea is that … Continue reading →
Yesterday my attention was called to this article, the translation of which (thanks, Google translate) is as follows: Russian journalist and well-known propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said that the Russian Federation will not stop at the war in Ukraine. He said … Continue reading →
My favorite classical composers are as follows: Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Dvorak. Note the order; Chopin leads the way. Is that because I was heavily exposed to Chopin from the age of four in ballet class? I don’t think it’s just … Continue reading →
Till today, I hadn’t done research on Robert Malley, the Iran Deal’s chief negotiator (new deal as well as old deal). But I’ve been curious, and today I finally managed to do some brief research on him. I think it’s … Continue reading →
I was very surprised, when Zelenskyy was elected, to learn that he was Jewish. The first surprise was that there were any Jews left in Ukraine at all, given the history of Jews there. The second was that the Ukrainians … Continue reading →
Our Founders set up our republic in a certain way because they were students of history, and also because they were extremely thoughtful and smart. They had studied the history of governmental rise and decline and fall, tried to learn … Continue reading →