In Congress party discipline is vital. Leadership craves a tight ship where all hands can be counted on to row in the same direction. So many congressmen bridled when, after stressing the need for everyone to pull together to get…
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in its first Second Amendment case since 1939. The historic D.C. v. Heller case involves a challenge to the District of Columbia’s total ban on the possession of usable weapons for self-defense…
ABC’s TV series Lost, whose fourth season premieres tonight, has multileveled mysteries and a cruelly withholding storytelling style that inspires passionate love and passionate frustration. The love comes from the show’s fascinating and compelling adventure-intrigue-SF storytelling. The scenario: plane crashes…
“What’s in a name?” asked Shakespeare’s Juliet. This week, the Supreme Court gave a partial answer to the question. Not, they insist, anything necessarily incriminating. If a cop wants you to give him your name and a state statute requires…
All men of good will are cheering the publication this month of the first volume of The Complete Peanuts, an ambitious project from Fantagraphics Books, most known as publishers of arty comics by the likes of Chris Ware and Daniel…
LOS ANGELES — Jack Valenti, octogenarian chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, made headlines this week for — yet again — announcing his intention to retire. This shouldn’t have been news; he’s been on the way out for…
One of our era’s most enduring and complex epics of fantasy storytelling came to an end this month. It was 6,000 pages long, and chronicled one man’s rise through a fascinatingly imagined world, on the cusp between medieval and early…
LOS ANGELES — I was recently driven to vow bloody vengeance against the everyday supermarket plastic bag. As I recall, I was in a parking lot, fists clutched vainly around a crumpled, ripped, useless shred of plastic, contemplating the groceries…
The Secret Service, believe it or not, showed great wisdom in giving a resounding “s’aright, homes” to the latest provocation from neutered pop star/formerly dangerous rapper Eminem. A track called “We As Americans” got leaked on the Internet featuring the…