You may have seen the recent flurry of stories about a supposed alternative to cigarette addiction called the electronic cigarette. E-butts are a move by some nicotine-dealing tobacco companies to counter their declining smoke sales. If you're one of the 13 million smokers who try to quite each year, wouldn't...

You may have heard about Yahoo's new rule forbidding employees from working full or part-time from home. They must actually commute to the office instead of the kitchen table. The edict has caused a lot of chatter in office break rooms around the country mostly because people are actually in...

People who toil in the fields of mental health are looking forward to next month when the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- or DSM -- emerges. This is the official reference bible for mental health professionals. If you know the jargon, you will...

Policies, what policies? We Americans really don't vote for presidents because of their policies, do we? Sure, policies matter, but most presidential candidates play to the center -- after their nominations -- so we're left with which jo-jo is the least onerous candidate in a field of onerous-ity, and once-and-a-while,...

For those who remember, the Age of Aquarius was a lot about peace and love. But it also splintered us into sharp sticks of rebellion and conformity, long and short hair, youth and everybody over thirty. It was a most fractious time.

Now we live in the digital age,...

"I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is." -- L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology founder.

"I have to remain celibate to keep my instrument pure." -- Tom Cruise to his then-wife, Nicole Kidman.

These are just two of the oh-so-juicy morsels that New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright...

You really don't really have to read the reviews for Arnold Schwartzenegger's comeback movie to know what a clunker The Last Stand must be. Lionsgate has supplied the clues in the prodigious print ad buy in major metropolitan areas. Take a look at some of the blurb copy they ran....

First, the bad news about this winter's mystery/crime fiction offerings. The authors we count on to deliver the goods -- are not. David Baldacci's The Forgotten is a flat derivative of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp and Lee Child's Jack Reacher stories. Nelson DeMille's The Panther, is an anemic attempt at...

It was NBC's legendary boss David Sarnoff who said, "Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people." If he saw his rival network ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer last night he might want to amend it to say that competition sometimes does bring out both...

The small man with a soft voice listens politely to the office seeker. There are jobs to fill and rewards to grant. This president understands the concepts of democracy as well as the requirements of its politics. After all, he did write the book. Suddenly, the man's arm shoots out...

You may have noticed two recurring themes from the recent Obama vs Romney campaign. First: the issues. By the end of the exhausting process there didn't appear to be any space between the two candidates as Romney pivoted from 'severe conservative' to moderate maven thus defining his role as the...

We seem to be a nation that puts high value on journalism and the folks who do it - people like John Peter Zenger, Horace Greeley, Nellie Bly, Ernie Pyle, Tom Wicker, Woodward and Bernstein and these are just the print folks. Add early radios' Norman Brokenshire, H.V. Kaltenborn, Robert...

If Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, should they be stopped before or after they may or may not have one? This is the scary, geo-political issue of the day involving the Middle East and therefore the world. For our country, it boils down to one basic question: should we...

If you're an older adult who keeps complaining that "They're just not making movies for us anymore," they are and you'll find one in the extremely thought-provoking, gem of a movie, Arbitrage, with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth and Nate Parker, written and directed by first-time filmmaker, Nicholas Jarecki....

The one thing you can say about the whole Clint Eastwood convention episode is that it will live forever in TV replay-land. 'Doing an Eastwood' might even become a new phrase for being unprepared, for winging it -- badly.

But let's be realistic. It's not really his fault because Mr....

We do seem to like the notion of clubs, especially private clubs, clubs we can't belong to like The Women's Murder Club, The Baby Sitter's Club The Joy Luck Club, Fight Club or my fave, the Meryl Streep Movie Club, which is probably about sincere women sharing their inner journeys...

And by fridge, I mean refrigerator or, if you're already in the geezer zone -- icebox. The odds are quite high that, right now, your fridge is so much more than just a receptical for food. It is also disguised as a home art gallery. Take a look. No matter...

Authors often like to talk about finding their literary voices, which generally means they haven't sold anything yet. This post, however is about writers who actually have sold a book, want to voice the audiobook edition -- and shouldn't.

Take the case of Harlan Coben, he of the delightfully entertaining...

If you're in the entertainment business, particularly TV and movies, the name Garry Marshall means success and longevity. Success is always a long shot in Hollywood. But longevity -- that, as the Wizard would say, is a horse of a different color. When you read, or much better listen to,...

We all know political candidates are sold on TV just like soap suds or prescription drugs.

Dire conditions are described -- dirt, crime, unemployment -- and only our candidate has the power to clean up the mess. On TV, all drug commercials are required to divulge a...