The novelist Adelle Waldman—author of The Love Affairs of Nathanial P.—recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker titled “‘A First-Rate Girl’: The Problem of Female Beauty.” In it, Waldman says the following: You’d think it would also be a rich subject for fiction writers—after all, our attitudes about beauty and attraction are tightly bound…
If you want to be my friend…
November 3, 2013
The time has come to lay down the law. If you want to be my friend, don’t share your Jew-hate with me. I have one friend who’s rabidly antisemitic. That’s enough. It’s a cultural thing with him, and I don’t know how much of it is just blather and how much is real. If he…
One of the greatest actors alive
November 2, 2013
Courtney Stodden has left Doug Hutchison. I don’t know much at all about either person. When they got married, I heard excerpts on the radio of a TV interview they gave. Just for fun I Googled her and saw what she looked like before she acquired her present appearance. It’s odd that he’s aged two…
Reason No. 184,987 why I am now apolitical
October 29, 2013
In my youth I was apolitical. After 9/11 I became very politicized. I am now apolitical again. Don’t get me wrong; I still read about politics every day and vote in every election, but I invest no emotion in any political party or politician. Now, we can see more clearly than at any time in…
The stupidest thing you’ll read all day
October 28, 2013
Strangely enough, the author of the stupidest thing you’ll read all day is Oliver Stone: As Samuel Huntington aptly reminded readers in a statement of particular relevance to the United States, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion…but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence….
My sincerest wish for the U.S. Postal Service
October 26, 2013
I wrote before about the theft ring in the U.S. Postal Service. It’s based in New York. Postal workers steal valuable postcards sent from Germany and sell them to collectors. Nobody will do a thing to stop it. Not the Postal Service, not Congress, not the FBI, and not the Germans. Nobody cares. Well, it’s…
An apolitical look at “death panels”
October 21, 2013
I just read an article titled “Canada has Death Panels—and That’s a Good Thing,” by Adam Goldenberg. My plan is to avoid expressing political opinions. It’s not hard, because politics has become astonishingly negative and destructive. This is truly a shame, and it’s shameful. There are lots of things I’d like to talk about. We…
Why won’t I just shut up?
October 17, 2013
I’ve gotten a few messages from people saying they disagree with what I write about life after death, the entity I call the Planner, reincarnation, etc. Some people think I’m completely deranged. They want me to just shut up. That’s okay. However, a clarification: I’m not like this woman. Only once in my life have…
At least I’m not confused
September 29, 2013
I have tons and tons and tons of problems. If I sat down with you to tell you what’s wrong with me, we’d be there for days. And you’d end up like that poor cat in the videos, the one with its jaw hanging open. You’d marvel that I didn’t just put an end to…
A Russian’s view
September 26, 2013
My friend Colonel Supotnitskiy sends me his take on the US and our place in the world at this particular moment in history: My book is a response to two American books: F. R. Sidell (editor), E. T. Takafuji (editor), D. R. Franz (editor). Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare. Washington, 1997. G. Zubay,…