So what is it about the apostrophe? How come so few people know how to use it? And why do I get so irritated by its misuse?

The rules are pretty simple. Rule number 1: "Its" is "it's" when there's an "i" missing, that is, when it means "it...

Satire? They have to be kidding. Are the editorial staff of the New Yorker so tone-deaf to the political realities in this country that they don't understand how their self-indulgent "satire" will be put to use? By reducing the argument, as they do in their response to criticism, to purely...

I've been noticing a defensive note creeping into a lot of response to that "Obama moving to the center" criticism. My friend, Daniel Cardozo, takes a more positive view. Here's what he has to say:

A remarkable lecture by neurologist and internet-sensation, Jill Bolte Taylor,...

Thursday this past week I went over to see Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana -- the exhibition's first stop on a North American tour. I have known about these figures for some time, of course, and was excited at...

Who would have predicted, twenty years ago, when painting had been pronounced "dead" and figure painting deader still, if that were possible, that today the world's hottest-selling woman artist would be a painter--and a figure painter, at that? This thought arose as I spent time, recently, at the current mid-career...

Progressive Democrats like myself are already watching in some dismay as Barack Obama moves toward the center. The Supreme Court decisions on the death penalty and gun control have pushed the candidate into public statements on hot-button issues with which we fundamentally disagree. Here's Obama on the death penalty:

I...

The new California gay marriage law has taken effect, and thousands of couples are clamoring to exercise that right at secular offices and religious institutions throughout the state. I say, hooray for those who seek to bless their relationship with this name, some of whom have been kept waiting for...

I realize it's a bit late to be writing about that concession speech some days after it was delivered. I watched it in real time in England, and the days have passed in something of a travel daze for me since then. Besides which, I'm quite sure that everyone else...

Checking in from England, I see that Obama has gathered enough elected delegates to convince those unelected superdelegates to announce for him, or to switch over to his side -- including our own Los Angeles representative, Maxine Waters, long a loyal Clintonista.

Meanwhile, I see, our Hillary is still not...

One thing I know about meditation: it does afford the practitioner the opportunity to take a daily look at how the brain functions -- even when we don't particularly want it to!

At the session of one of our artists' support...

There's a huge amount of interest in the art world, these days, in what's happening on the art scene in post-Cultural Revolution China. The phenomenal exhibition of the work of Shanghai-trained Cai Guo-Qiang, currently installed at the Simon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, offers but one example of the...

She keeps running, and running, and running....

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lost a lot more than she won yesterday.

What did she win? She won a short-term political victory. She vindicated herself and her campaign for the presidency, at least in her own mind. She won another state primary, by...

It's started. The recent BBC World News report on the startling rise in basic food costs throughout the world is alarming new evidence of the trouble we're in as a species. Unless we can learn to let go of our addiction to...

Knowing of my interest in matters of attention and inattention, my wife pointed me to this fascinating article by Natalie Angier on change blindness in Tuesday's Science Times section of the New York Times. It seems that there's an awful lot we miss, in the visual realm, even when...

Okay, so I'm a bleeding heart liberal, and my heart is bleeding all over again.

I have just finished reading The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok by Greg Barrett -- a book that has allowed me to put a human face...

Dear Senators Edwards and Biden,

My wife and I have much admired Governor Richardson's courage in breaking long-standing ties with the Clintons and coming out in favor of Senator Barack Obama' candidacy. Having voted for Senator Edwards in California, and with the greatest admiration for both of you and your...

I've heard it said many times since Barack Obama's extraordinary speech earlier this week that his words served to open the door to a long-postponed national dialogue on race. I agree--both that the need for dialogue has for too long been swept under the rug, and that a door has...

I mean, seriously? Watching him do his little tap dance on the White House steps while waiting for Senator McCain last week, watching the tape of his cowboy song and dance routine at the Gridiron Club event ("Here comes Scooter/Finally free of the prosecutor..."), then hearing -- and reading about...

One of the wonderful things about the Buddhist teachings is that they remind us to take nothing for granted, to keep asking questions, even -- no, especially -- of our own beliefs. In this light, I have to wonder what is it about us that we need to keep telling...