Coronavirus has turned millions of Americans who used to laugh at the doomsday preppers on National Geographic into converts. Your neighborhood supermarket is working overtime to keep shelves stocked as panicked shoppers rush to settle in for stay-at-home orders. And the first item to disappear was . . . (checks notes) . . . toilet… Read More

Millions of us who are staying at home in this time of coronavirus are discovering to our dismay just how much the clown car of halfwits, freaks, and grotesques of “reality TV” has taken over our living rooms. The endless parade of bachelors, teen moms, real housewives, and Kardashians have slowly sapped at our dignity.… Read More

  The Cambridge Dictionary defines “digging your own grave” to mean doing “something that causes you harm, sometimes serious harm.” Kids who don’t do their homework, politicians who cut popular spending programs, and people who overshare on social media all dig their own grave in one way or another. It’s not every day that someone… Read More

  If you’re like most Americans, coronavirus quarantines and “social distancing” mean you’re going to spend a lot of time in front of your TV binging on Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, and Disney+;. If you’re working from home, you’ll spend more time listening to your favorite music on Pandora or Spotify. And believe it or not,… Read More

When talented musicians join forces, they epitomize Aristotle’s maxim: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Collaboration is the essence of music, and even the most technically proficient soloists benefit from an ensemble framing and highlighting their skills. You can’t whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. It’s… Read More

for the first week of March (03/04). Subject Line: Overzealous Four years ago, a consortium of European journalists broke a story based on 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The exposé detailed how the firm’s clients across the world used offshore shell companies to hide assets and evade taxes. (Remember,… Read More

This time of year, most Americans living in the northern half of the country are dreaming of sunshine. But there’s a heartier, usually affluent breed that can’t get enough snow. In Vermont, at resorts like Killington and Stowe, Ivy League students spend weekends hitting the slopes by day and donning LL Bean sweaters to sip… Read More

Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas, who died last this month, played nearly every role in his career: actor, director, producer, and writer. He was born before the first “talkie” hit theaters. He grew up one of seven children in an impoverished home. Then he worked his way through St. Lawrence University and the American Academy of… Read More

Would You Take This Betts? Sportsball fans who already miss NFL action have just weeks to wait until baseball throws out the first pitch on March 26. While the Astros cheating scandal dominates baseball news, teams across the league are furiously shuffling rosters in hopes of coming up with the winning lineup. 100 years ago,… Read More

The French newspaper Le Monde called it “the robbery of the century.” So what was it? A Mission Impossible-style crew of balaclava-wearing acrobats bypassing sophisticated alarms to burgle a museum or gallery? Or maybe it looked like one of those “Oceans” movies: a crack team of hardened specialists tunneling deep underneath a casino or bank vault to blow… Read More