January is named for the two-faced Roman god Janus, who looks into the future with one face and into the past with the other. That’s kind of where I’m at, too. On these dark days following the winter solstice, I look at the year ahead and resolve to be better in some small way, even as I look at the year past and realize how unlikely that […]
Check your dignity at the gate
As long as they’ve got a limitless supply of credulous young males who don’t mind cramming explosives into their underpants and trying to kill everybody around them, we’re not going to prevail in this airport-security thing. Because all we’ve got are 50,000 TSA employees who are most concerned with preventing your grandmother from getting through security with an artificial hip. If you’re a radical young Muslim returning […]
The climate outside is frightful
This morning in Wichita, in the pale light of a low-rising sun, the temperature’s not so far above zero. That’s pretty darned cold for these parts, though it is December and the news stories today about winter storms “crashing” into the Midwest and “hammering” New England seem a little overwrought. People forget from year to year that a certain amount of cold and snow, in the few […]
A very "Seinfeld" reunion
In the annals of crappy television, nothing is crappier than the reunion show. And in the annals of crappy reunion shows, there can be no competition for “A Very Brady Christmas,” wherein the kids come home for the holidays and Mike Brady ends up getting trapped in one of his buildings. (Nice job on the architecture there, Mike.) Then again, “The Brady Bunch” was pretty bad to […]