The National Newsroom
The National Newsroom
Apocalypse Now!
December 9th, 2010
I had something unpleasant happen to me in October. I met an old friend for lunch. Let’s call him Alan. I hadn’t seen Alan for years, not since we were the only male members of the Mahjong team in college. One day he popped up on my Facebook page, asking to friend me. I friended him back, and that was that. After a few weeks, he suggested we meet. He was flying in from Bahrain, he said, on business. Read more »
The National Newsroom
The Great Murdoch iPad Debate
The Daily is preparing for its big debut. What is it and why do we care?
December 9th, 2010
What’s behind the schizophrenic anticipation for News Corp.’s iPad-only newspaper, the Daily? Why is half of New York rooting for its demise, and the other half greeting its arrival like the second coming? Read more »
The National Newsroom
Dancing With the Scars
December 2nd, 2010
Who said Sarah Palin doesn’t read? In September 2008, I wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Mark Burnett—the creator of Survivor and the father of reality television—had become the Republicans’ intellectual god as the GOP had grasped, with something like creative genius, the fact that in contemporary American democracy authority had to be humbled before it could lead. Read more »
With Medicare plan changes coming soon, seniors should re-evaulate their coverage
December 2nd, 2010
Nobody likes to deal with their medical plan choices—maybe least of all seniors. About 80 percent of older Americans remain in whatever Medicare plan they started with, even when unhappy with the care, according to a recent survey by Allsup, an Illinois-based Social Security and Medicare consulting firm. Read more »
The National Newsroom
Looking at Heaven With Frank Gehry
The architect so famous he spawned his own Simpsons character bets big again in Manhattan
December 2nd, 2010
“Where would you like to go?” a construction worker asked. Everyone was in hard hats. “Uh, we’re going to 37, take us to—” someone started to say. “Heaven!” Frank Gehry chimed in. “We’d like to go to heaven. Press heaven!” Read more »
The National Newsroom
The (lost) art of dinner party patter
It’s holiday season, which means plenty of gala lunches and meals with family members. God help us.
December 2nd, 2010
We were going around the Thanksgiving table last week giving thanks when one of my in-laws seized the opportunity to grandstand about the plight of Native Americans. The table fell into a dead silence. Read more »
Personal Finance
Gold buyers and sellers should beware of shady dealers
November 25th, 2010
Howard Wolfe watched gold prices soar for several years before he finally decided to jump. Last year, the Mississippi retiree answered an advertisement for a company selling gold bullion. He wired $20,000 when the metal was retailing for $1,100. As of last week, gold was selling for Read more »
The National Newsroom
The Death of the Phone Call
November 25th, 2010
My phone bills are shrinking. Not, unfortunately, in cost. I mean they’re getting shorter. I recently found an old bill from a decade ago; it was fully 15 pages long, because back then I was making a ton of calls—about 20 long-distance ones a day. Today my bills are a meager two or three pages, at most. Read more »
The National Newsroom
Where Are They Now?
If you’re looking for the biggest players in the Wall Street mess, most of them are right where we left them
November 25th, 2010
Have you ever noticed,” the chairman of Citigroup, Richard D. Parsons, asked The Observer on Nov. 15, “that in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in Major League Baseball, this guy was a failure at Cleveland, and then he becomes the coach in Houston? These guys just move around from one team to another. Why is that? Because there isn’t a very deep pool of skilled talent that exists. Read more »
The National Newsroom
Dealing With a Touchy Subject
November 25th, 2010
“Don’t touch my junk!” Will this be the battle cry of the next American Revolution? If you think about it, it’s amazing. Why this? But thinking doesn’t have anything to do with it. There’s a good reason, which we’ll get to. Read more »
