Most of us have a certain image in mind of the term “heart attack.” We envision a grab for the left chest or upper left arm, a grimace of pain, and a collapse to the floor. “Why you have to…

When we first moved to North Andover, Massachusetts, in late summer 2002, I made an effort to make new friends. Easier tried than accomplished, even when you have something obvious in common. An ancient bent geezer down the street from…

I have asked Wlady to publish this statement in the letters column, and I have sent it to my mailing list, too. I’ll be busy this week with a couple of minor surgeries – switching over from peritoneal to hemo…

Beautiful fall weather has come to Northeastern Massachusetts, the kind of calm, golden, balmy day when I would, not too long ago, have gone out joyously to play golf. With my right shoulder gone — no more rotator cuff at…

Of late, at least in conservative quarters, reports have made clear how much of the current financial crisis may be laid at the feet of Democrats and their social engineering policies. Jeff Jacoby, the lone conservative columnist at the Boston…

When I started working at the little chain of four suburban newspapers where my Dad was the advertising manager, I got the usual first assignment. Editor Bob Bork gave me a stack of press releases and told me to see…

I cringe along with everyone else at the notion of Henry Paulson spending up to $1 trillion in public money to buy bad mortgage-backed securities from failing financial institutions. There is one potentially bright spot, pointed out by (gulp) Barney…

In the early 1970s, I worked at a publisher’s representative’s office in San Francisco, and made one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Lillian, the office manager, sat across from me, and she and I talked books and politics…

Some time ago, I wrote a column about how comparitively rare nickels were in circulation. It proved an unusually popular piece, getting some three dozen written responses and a radio interview. (The interviewer suggested I might have too much time…

I’ve been musing over some history, with William Buckley’s jape in mind that he would gladly be governed by the first 1000 names in the Manhattan phone book. In terms of plain, unadorned experience, Palin compares favorably with Theodore Roosevelt…