Mixed Meters

For years my interest in The New Yorker magazine was limited to the cartoons.  Good cartoons.  I would read the magazine from back to front...

A couple weeks ago, in the middle of the night, I flipped on the kitchen television to one of those overnight news shows. I found no news. ...

It's hard to miss that tonight is the Oscars. It's the movie industry's own very public popularity contest to crown its newest ...

My suggestion that we could reduce suicide bombings in the Middle East by trying to convert potential bombers to fundamentalist Mormonism i...

click here to hear What Would Barbie Sing? It's a song in the format: verse, chorus, verse, chorus . Not like me at all to do that. Cop...

My local NPR radio outlet announcer warned me not to be alarmed if I noticed a suicide bombing in progress this weekend in downtown Los Ange...

Have you seen this woman? Her name is Nancy Grace. Please keep her off the television. This story begins with my 30 Second Spot: Outlawing I...

click here to hear Outlawing Irate Crime TV Show Hosts This was written in a hospital waiting room while sitting directly under a televisio...

My local newspaper ( The Pasadena Star News ) had an AP article today about how science museums are (or aren't) responding to the onslau...

This is Leslie with Doctor Phil's head. She thinks it's a silly picture. (She's correct.) Years ago I heard a lecture by Ram Da...

Some new links in the Sidebar: websites of journalists I try to read regularly . I don't always agree with them, but fundamentally they ...

The recent Jet Blue landing (with the front gear sideways) was the perfect media event. Fatalities were avoided and the media had plenty of...