Sherman Yellen

Dear Mrs. Romney:

You seem the kind of woman who can speak plainly and would not use code words to describe the nature of your husband's campaign. But there was something about that expression, "taking the country back," that you have been using on the campaign trail, something that makes...

I found Maureen Dowd's op-ed piece on the feminization of men's life-styles in this Sunday's New York Times very amusing and extremely well written. But as one who lived through the Second World War (albeit as an adolescent) indoctrinated with the 1940's notions of masculinity -- we all...

Once, when I was a boy, I was speaking with my elderly grandfather who lived to be nearly one hundred, and he told me that he was "rising 80" an expression he had picked up during his years of living in London's East End. I loved the sound of it....

Last Sunday I was taking my visiting three year old grand-daughter whom I will call "E, and her chocolate Labrador retriever Sam to Central Park. "E" (I don't believe in giving out children's names but have no such discretion towards dogs). With her great smile, dimpled chin, blond curls and...

When I heard the news of Elizabeth Taylor's death it was like all of old Hollywood died with her. We were the exact same age -- actually she was one day older than I am -- and I grew up in the world of her larger than life life and...

Last night I was watching a documentary on the street games of New York City, games I had played as a boy growing up in that magical city of the 1940s. Two things came to mind as I watched the program. The first was that it would have so much...

When have you last heard the term "hard-working poor" coming from any politician? Probably not in the past decade. Nobody is a member of the working poor anymore. Everyone is a member of the over-worked, over-taxed, hard-working middle class. That includes those making $25,000 a year as a Wal-Mart store...

Yesterday, my 5-year-old granddaughter Vivian spent the night with us. She took out her homework from that ubiquitous pink backpack and finished it -- something about naming tools in a toolbox, writing them down carefully in her best handwriting, and counting the nails and screws that were visible in the...

No, it's not that vile racial slur I'm connecting to Fox News. Mr. Murdoch is far too clever to allow that to creep into his constant attacks upon our first black President, liberals, Democrats, and democracy. Its the other "N" word -- Nazi -- which has grabbed hold of the...

When I was a boy in the late 1930s, I was deeply impressed by the size, the depth, and the diversity of my country, (I almost wrote divinity) and the grandeur of the New York City in which I was fortunate enough to live. I went to "pledge allegiance" public...

It is a very small irony that when my former colleague, musical theatre composer Jerry Bock died this week, the country suffered a political upheaval driven by fear and negativity. Jerry, as I remember him, was the opposite of all that has befallen us: brave in the best sense, fearless...

If the Senate Republicans do not join with Senate Democrats to pass the bill offering financial relief for the sick, dying, and the dead Ground Zero workers -- a bill that has stalled far too long and one already passed by the Congress -- they will be committing a political...

Immediately after watching the presidential address about the end of our war in Iraq, I turned to my wife-companion and asked, "What did you think?" She has remained a fan of this president through thick and thin -- and lately it seems to me we've been getting a lot of...

Few will forget the revealing moment when Barack Obama characterized his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as "likeable enough." At the time I recall being offended by that remark, finding it cold, ungenerous, and in debate terms, insultingly dumb. Nevertheless, writing on the Huffington Post during the campaign I described myself as...

During the banking crises, the billion dollars bailout was given to those reckless, behemoth banks that were called too big to fail; the argument was that they would bring down the entire American economy if they were allowed to suffer the consequences of their greed-driven gambles. We learned of that...

In the name of full disclosure (if there's such is a thing as half disclosure I'd like to learn how you do it) I should state that the sculptor Roger Phillips was a roommate of mine at Bard College. In no way is this responsible for what I am about...

First, three cheers -- large noisy ones -- two huzzahs and one hurrah for The New York Review Children's Collection. They have been reissuing lost and neglected juvenile classics, wonders of children's literature that a new generation of children will be dazzled by, charmed by, and God willing, read in...

I know I should be calling this piece "The Pelican and Us" because I don't own the rights to the feelings of horror, anger, outrage and repulsion at the sight of the great bird covered in oily slime, doomed to suffocation and death, pictures that have come to symbolize the...

One of my great pleasures as a grandparent is reading aloud to the visiting children. Not only because this is of the best ways to guide my grand-children to a love of books and learning, but because it leads adults like me to the joy of rediscovering one's own childhood....

"Hola Amigo!" The news just came to me through Foxy Grampa News that Dora the Explorer, the intrepid and beloved young South American girl, together with her cousin Diego, and her pet monkey Boots, were arrested in Phoenix yesterday by Sheriff Erich Hugo Spalter. The young girl from south of...