Kids! What’s the matter with these kids today? Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? Oh, what’s the matter with kids today?From Bye, Bye Birdie Music: Charles Strouse Lyrics: Lee AdamsIt is easy for us “older folks” to draw contrasts between our own youth and the current crop of youngsters. Usually […]

Back home, Bing Crosby had a new movie out, “Going My Way.” A singer named Nat Cole had released his first hit, “Straighten Up And Fly Right.” And 176,000 allied soldiers stepped into the surf off the French province of Normandy into a hail of bullets. Hell, never too tightly tethered in those years, broke […]

Who’s paying for the ad: The political action committee Citizens to Reduce Property Taxes StatewideParty: NonpartisanTV ad title: “Unfairly”Length: 30 secondsProducer: Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm of Alexandria, Va.Market: Statewide, televisionAnnouncer: Voice of Mechanic Falls Town Manager Dana LeeVisuals: Ad opens with a tight shot of Lee talking into the camera. His face disappears while […]

In his latest rip-roaring attack on the Bush administration, Al Gore basically called on everyone in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership short of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs William Winkenwerder Jr. to resign. Their list of offenses is myriad, according to Gore, including a charge rarely heard in political debate – “the impending loss […]

To understand the pique on display now that Eliot Spitzer has sued former New York Stock Exchange Chief Richard Grasso to recover a chunk of Grasso’s outsized compensation, it’s helpful to think of two moral universes – one for certain boardrooms, one for the rest of humanity – in which very different behaviors are considered […]

Maybe somebody spiked his Jell-O.I bet the audience seriously considered the idea when Bill Cosby performed recently in Washington at a commemoration of Brown v. Board of Education.According to the Washington Post, Cosby’s routine ridiculed “lower economic people” in the black community for their values, their mannerisms, their dysfunctions. He described them as “knuckleheads,” complained […]

One of President Bush’s most recent “compassionate” initiatives has indirectly led to more horrific deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border. Bush’s proposal for a quasi-amnesty for illegal aliens has been interpreted by poor Mexicans as a welcome mat, increasing the rate of attempted border crossings and the tragic deaths that go with them. Sixty-one people have […]

Radicals and militants who claim to be followers of Islam continue to cause the world – as well as Islam itself – pain and heartache.They have twisted the ancient faith to justify terrorism and to work toward their goal of worldwide dominance by a warped Islam that stands against the democratic values of freedom, equality […]

A few words on behalf of Dixie Shanahan.Granted, some might consider her a less-than-sympathetic figure. After all, two years ago, Shanahan, a 36-year-old from Defiance, Iowa, killed her husband with a shotgun blast to the head. She left his body decomposing on the bed for a year.But there is, as you might expect, more to […]

Did the Bush tax cuts cause the Chinese economy to grow? John Kerry must think they did if he really believes, as he says every day on the campaign trail, that rising gas prices are President Bush’s fault. Who knew the trans-oceanic power of “tax cuts for the rich”?Surging world demand in a recovering global […]