Mr. and Mrs. Trump, thank you for coming here today to talk about Donald. You know, kindergarten can be a scary place, but I have to say that Donald is a bright boy and very confident in himself. He’s so adorable when he tells the other children that he has a “good brain.” He loves […]
Category: In the news
The Day I Saw the Face of Terror
I was working at Universal Studios on December 1, 1988 when a crazy man approached the security gate and asked to see Michael Landon, who wasn’t there. When the two security guards in the booth turned him away, the crazy man shot and killed them both, then ran into what witnesses believed was the parking […]
What Soldiers Really Want
When my son, Michael, was five, he loved to play “soldier.” So when our neighbors, a retired Marine and his wife, invited him to go shopping with them at the local PX, he could barely contain his excitement, especially because they told him it was a place where “only soldiers could shop.” I’m not sure […]
Whine Now, Wine Later, Go Ann!
Trudging along at a near-snail pace at the Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday, I saw this sign along the 26.2 mile course. Whoever wrote that sign certainly meant it for a different Ann, but heck! I claimed it as my own, smiled, and continued to trudge along with slightly renewed vigor. That’s the great thing […]
Fearless Francis
Pope Francis doesn’t look afraid. He smiles, looks calm and always appears to be genuinely enjoying himself. His benevolent expression is the same when he talks to American legislators in crisp dark suits, or homeless people eating lunch under a tent a few blocks away from the U.S. Capitol. At church on Sunday, the Father […]
Stephen Hawking is Afraid of Aliens, but is The Donald?
That’s right. Stephen Hawking, the world’s most admired physicist (and also the world’s only physicist who is regularly and affectionately mocked on the hit TV sitcom, the Big Bang Theory) is afraid that if we ever find extraterrestrial life, we might regret it. Hawking fears that we might come across aliens who are so super […]
My Week of Living Dangerously
I made the mistake of mocking danger. But geez, I couldn’t help it. I mean, the signs were everywhere. Literally signs. From the time I arrived in San Francisco to the time I flew out of Las Vegas a week or so later, I saw signs, placards and brochures everywhere warning me of the potential life-threatening […]
What Donald Can’t Trump
When Donald Trump speaks, all I hear is BLAH BLAH BLAH… That’s because I have a longstanding policy to ignore public bombast. It’s not political, although during election years, I tune out a lot of campaign rhetoric from all sides of the political spectrum. Even when professional football players trash talk other players and teams […]
Canoeing Past Confederates?
I grew up in California, which is about as distant from a Civil War battlefield as any American in the continental United States could get, so most of the Confederate flags I ever saw were in history textbooks. When I moved to Pennsylvania, though, I was surprised and curious when I occasionally saw a Confederate […]
After Bear Attacks Boy, I’m Rethinking my Personal Bear Policy
In all the years that I’ve camped, hiked and backpacked in mountains and forests, I have never seen a bear, but I always wanted to. My old Personal Bear Policy was this: I would like to see a bear in the wild close enough to cause me to gasp and get excited, but preferably far […]