I have two grandchildren and a third on the way. My granddaughter Katherine calls me Dolfo. My wife chose Mimi as her name for grandchildren. I decided if she was Mimi, as an opera lover I would be Rudolpho.

As Katherine is now two-years-old, I calculate I have at...

President Obama warned me about sequestration. "People will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again," he said. The burden will fall on "the first responders, or seniors or middle class families."

The one percenters knew that the burden would not fall on them. Threatened with inconvenient...

In an historic vote yesterday, the Senate voted to safeguard a fundamental American liberty, the right to be killed. The Senate blocked legislation that would have made IED users subject to background checks. The vote was in doubt after IED explosions had killed two people and maimed dozens at the...

Though I champion free speech, use of the phrase "strategic planning" merits punishment on the breaking wheel: The speaker's limbs should be tied to the spokes of a large wheel that revolves slowly while an operator smashes the speaker's limbs with an iron hammer. Once the bones are broken, the...

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu warned Barack Obama that Iran could deploy operational SATs within a year. Obama reiterated that Washington wants to continue down the diplomatic route for the time being, even though Israel is pushing for a pre-emptive strike. However, Obama did agree that all options, including military ones,...

My nuances have become less nuanced. Until recently my nuances were subtle, penetrating and refined. Lately my nuances, while neither coarse nor undiscerning, no longer distinguish the most muted gradations of delicate overtones. My writing, once hailed as highly nuanced, is now viewed as passably nuanced.

Last week a friend...

I have recurring nightmares that Mitt Romney is president.

Three nights ago, I dreamt that President Romney appointed to head the SEC a lawyer who had represented JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte & Touche, former Bank of America Corp. chief Ken Lewis and convicted Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta....

I pride myself in being au courant. Recently I noted a Heaven Validation trend. Among the five best selling non-fiction paperbacks I found:

#1 Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander. A neurosurgeon recounts his near death experience during a coma.

#5 Heaven Is For Real, by Todd Burpo with Lynn...

In Seattle, it was once fashionable to collect glass art. Art mavens talked about their Chihulys, Ginny Ruffners, Dante Marionis, and Joey and Floras.

My wife and I collected glass. When asked, I acknowledged that we had over 100 pieces. "My wife is addicted," I explained. "She can't stop acquiring...

The New York Times, January 11, 2013, Page A1

Given the entrenched opposition from gun rights groups and their advocates on Capitol Hill, the White House is trying to avoid making its (the assault weapons ban) passage the sole definition of success and is emphasizing other new gun rules that...

1. Remain unemployed.
2. If asked what I do, find a clever euphemism for "unemployed."
3. Win an argument with the IRS.
4. Understand why anyone above the age of 15, or with an IQ beyond that of a cauliflower, follows celebrities, or indeed anyone, on twitter.

In grade school I learned that Satan's most fiendish weapons were communism and smut. Exposure to either would inescapably sap one's moral fiber and rot one's brain. At that age, I had no interest in Marxist dialectics, but, on the theory of know-your-enemy, I was eager to peruse some smut.

It's not a traditional America anymore and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff, they want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. --Bill O'Reilly

Giving away free stuff is a hard thing to compete with. --Mitt Romney

"Where is our new...

Now that the elections are over, you must start worrying about the deficit. Very serious people are worried about the deficit. CEOs of very big companies are worried about the deficit. Economists and pundits are worried about the deficit.

Sufficient worry will cure any problem. Remember Y2K? Avian flu? The...

Regardless of who is elected president, America faces four more years of polarized gridlock. We appear incapable of addressing the serious issues of global warming, controlling health care costs, reducing the federal deficit and the trade deficit and creating middle class jobs in the face of increasing globalization.

Therefore...

Mitt Romney thinks it disgraceful to apologize for America. I think it's useful. Yesterday I left a frying pan on a hot burner. "You left a pan on the stove top. Now the pan is ruined and the kitchen is full of smoke," my wife said.

"It's not my fault,"...

Will it make any difference who is elected president? The choice is between incumbent with a Harvard degree and a challenger with two Harvard degrees. Regardless of the outcome, we can not return to those halcyon days of the plebeian presidency.

In the 60s we elected Harvard grad John Kennedy....

Is there no end to the MacArthur Foundation's myopia and arrogance?

Last Monday they announced this years winners of their $500,000 no-strings-attached "genius grants." Once again they overlooked me -- the guy who explained to America that under the Obamacare decision, the Federal Government cannot force states to eat broccoli,...

Dear Dr. Relationship,

My boyfriend just won't respond to me emotionally. I can't get him to open up about his feelings and he is not sensitive to my needs. He makes decisions that affect me all by himself. I never get consulted. Then when I mention a problem, he immediately...

How would Jesus vote? To energize its base of evangelical and born again Christians, the Republican National Committee has asked that question.

The RNC then answers by providing twelve passages from the New Testament that clearly indicate that Jesus would vote a straight Republican ticket:

1. For I was...