To be a true sports fan -- and you know who you are -- you have to sit through loads of dreck. Boise State-Tulsa, as a example, or the NFL preseason, or the backend of blowouts year-round in every sport.

But the good news is every now and again you...

I am now thankfully at the tail end of a trip from hell through New England -- and no, it was not because of the godawful BoSawx fans now popping up like bowling pins amidst the dark clouds of Calvinist doom that perpetrate the primordial landscape.

It's for another goddamn...

The only thing historic about Aspen's hstoric Hotel Jerome these days is the historical record that tells the story of how the mayor and the previous city council managed to take a sure thing, a good thing, and turn it into scat that still stinks up the whole city.

If...

Has Aspen taken a dive?

Aspen is so used to being considered the top of the heap in skiing, the coolest of the cool, that the recent drop in rankings from SKI magazine have left the town in a bit of a huff. The very notion that somehow Aspen has...

In case you missed it, the latest attack tactic deployed by conservatives is to play the race card by saying that liberals and Democrats are playing the race card--racial jiu-jitsu far too lame to work anywhere but in the echo chamber of conservative self-love.

The problem for the conservative conspirators:...

I first quit newspapers in 1979 because they had no future. After attending the Aspen Institute Forum On Communications and Society thirty years later, it felt like I quit just in time.

The smartest people in the media business -- newspapers et al -- were in the room this August...

John McCain, no fan of Sarah Palin's, is nonetheless afraid of criticizing her insistence on Democratic Death Panels lest he be Facebooked by his lovey-dovey ex-soulmate. When he had his chance to dis the death panels on "This Week with George Stephanopolous"--at the Grand Canyon no less--America's favorite warborne hero...

When Al Qaeda destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001--nearly eight years ago--most Americans, like President George W. Bush, wanted Osama bin-Ladin dead or alive.

Now he barely matters. Al Qaeda has not only reconstituted itself but jihadism in all its heinous forms is...

God forbid.

Should there ever be a terrorist attack in the United States again, then every finger will be pointed at the Department of Homeland Security. Were they not there on the ramparts with the simple mission of keeping us safe? Is Homeland Security not the repository of the best...

LAS VEGAS--From the balcony of our honeymoon suite here at The Platinum Hotel, you can see the backside of The Strip--Mandalay Bay on the far left to the Wynn and Encore on the way right--and you can almost convince yourself that you live at some remove from the vacationing hoi...

With all the numbers spewed by pollsters -- if you have to spew, spew here -- it is all too tempting to pick out a few choice morsels and yuk until you upchuck. These pre-selected numbers show no confusion in conservatism whatsoever -- and a core audience ready to frog-march...

Like a flabby man consigned to dark chocolate, I've lost my native ability to assuage my sweet tooth with cable news even as I succumbed to an unauthorized visit to the blowhard buffet on tax day 2009.

I used to think that America under Barack Obama was turning a corner...

The disintegration of civilization is now officially upon us now that Vermont has legalized gay marriage--the first state legislature to do so.

I once had the good luck to cover civil unions in Vermont for the Chicago Tribune. I'll never forget the words of Stan Baker and his partner, who...

The ability of conservatives to remain numb and number to climate change runs into a cold hard slap in the face with a double dose of data from the ends of the earth.

Word that the ice bridge holding the Wilkins Ice Sheet to Antarctica had shattered would be damning...

I know the captain of the Maersk Alabama taken hostage by pirates in a lifeboat off the coast of Somalia. I don't know him well, unless you can say that playing basketball with them means you've seen inside their soul.

We even lived in the same town -- Underhill, Vermont...

At a time when conservatives and liberals alike are caterwauling about bonuses for disgraced executives at politically bankrupt A.I.G., the U.S. Defense Department blows merrily along, squandering hundreds of billions with barely a peep from the cognoscenti on either side.

Conservatives looking to make a point about government incompetence and...

Let's go to Honolulu! may be the embattled battle cry of the vacation-deprived, but in these difficult times the enlightened traveler might want to think about not footing the bill unless you keep your carbon footprint minimal.

Want to get away? Instead of Hawaii or Mexico or the Philippines...

Because we live in the tyranny of the moment -- because the American body politic has the attention span of a flea lost to microscopic shock and awe -- perhaps all can be forgiven for not remembering that President Barack Obama's plan to reform the known universe in a time...

Marina Del Rey, California -- Walking along the boardwalk here at Venice Beach on the eve of the Radio and Records Talk Show Seminar this week I was passed by a youngish thug wearing a "Serenity Now" T-shirt and walking a gray pit bull like he had Lassie on a...

February 26, 2009

I don't think there's any question the most significant, indisputable driver of innovation is technology. I was just reading about Les Paul and the Les Paul guitar, the pioneering electronic instrument. He also invented multi-track recording for good measure. Up until that point people were simply trying...