Satisfaction Guaranteed (or Your Money Back)

Until recently, I have inhabited a space well outside the mainstream, which is to say I never get an answer right on “Family Feud.” They say “Name a job that’s almost always done by men.” I say “Pimp!” It never makes the survey. And yet, my last few Crackpot Theories have been rated “Sober as a Judge”... (keep reading)

Will PBS Become the Protestant
Broadcasting System?

My sleep was disturbed last night by a vision of PBS’ new schedule: “Not Now or Ever with Bill Moyers.” When I told the dog, he was suspicious: had I been thinking about the Mind/Body split before I went to bed?

Gadzooks, I expostulated, how did he know? (keep reading)

And a Little Pig Shall Lead Them

A member of the College of Cardinals explained to the Los Angeles Times: “The spiritual motive is imitating Christ, committing yourself to the entire flock. Priests are seen as shepherds.”

And that right there is all you need to know about the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church. (keep reading)

Summers Is A-Coming In, Loudly Sing “Cuckoo!”

Harvard President Larry Summers has apologized for his cuckoo suggestion that the absence of women in the higher echelons of science and math might be due to women’s “intrinsic” weakness. But why President Summers resorted to speculation in the first place remains as incomprehensible to me as, well, math. (keep reading)

Science and Religion ... and Smarty Jones

Still smarting – after all this time! – about Smarty Jones’ failure to win the Belmont Stakes and worried still about how much Smarty must be smarting, I confided to a Rabbi friend my childhood fantasy: a race in which all the horses came in at the same time. The Rabbi observed that my sense of justice was “pathological.” (keep reading)

Reality, C'est Moi!

I begin with an apology to the Australians, of whom I’ve been making fun ever since reading an article in the National Enquirer about an Australian lion tamer named Russell. According to the Enquirer, Mr. Russell, who’d been severely mauled by his lion, “learned lion-taming through a correspondence course…”  (Italics mine) (keep reading)

Saddam & The U.S. — A True Romance

The revelation that authors have been reviewing their own books on Amazon to pump up sales (gasp!) has me wondering who wrote this review of a certain Danielle Steel novel. The reviewer, whose true identity is hidden by the Internet equivalent of a CB handle and a refusal to upload his or her picture, confesses his or herself to be smitten. "I am hopelessly in love with Danielle Steel's way of writing..." (keep reading)

Three's Company

The whole brouhaha over Prince Charles and the sexual peccadillo about which no one is allowed to write or speak has me thinking about Noah. Possibly you haven't read the Bible lately — and why would you, even its most ardent readers call it the Good Book; no doubt you're holding out for a Great Book. In any case, here's how Noah starts... (keep reading)