Betty Ford, First Mama

(Left to right: Nancy, Lady Bird, Hillary, Rosalyn, Betty and Barbara.)
Britain has the royal family’s exploits to obsess over; I have the First Lady’s. Okay, so even famously outspoken Barbara Bush can’t hold a candle to Prince Harry in the “controversial comments” department, but she’s at least as entertaining. These women fascinate me. The First [...]

At Last

California Love

The fact that Californians voted to give more rights to chickens but fewer to gays and lesbians was a bittersweet chaser to Barack Obama’s win on Tuesday. Why does this matter even if you don’t live in California? Besides Martin Luther King’s answer that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere . . . [...]

The Next Great Chapter

“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there [...]

I Would Be Happy If I Never Had to Hear Any of These Words/Phrases Again

- “maverick”
- “middle-class”
- “surge”
- “hockey mom”
- “gosh darnit”
- “around the kitchen table”
- “Main Street” (especially when it’s “versus Wall Street”)
And as long as we’re training our government officials to pronounce “Ahmadinejad” correctly, why not “nuclear”?