May 19 2023
I must admit that I haven’t always liked my given name. One of the reasons I have it is (ulp) my paternal grandmother, an Italian immigrant whose name was Francesca. Another is that I was born in Saint Francis Xavier Hospital in the Bronx. It’s a rather off-putting thing to be named after a …
Apr 29 2023
He who decides to involve himself in politics, but without personal aspirations to public office, will often have a single motivating issue in mind. This is commonplace today, when so many subjects of public discourse are of intense interest to some but little or none to others. I’ve known several bright and articulate folks …
Apr 26 2023
We have it from the very top: WH press sec: "This week is Lesbian Visibility Week, and as the first openly queer person to hold the position of press secretary for the President of the United States, I see every day how important visibility and representation are." pic.twitter.com/ZDqtHz3I9i — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April …
Apr 14 2023
Some see them everywhere. Myself, I seem to breed them. Like most Catholics, I have a couple of crucifixes in my home: the oft-celebrated Fortress of Crankitude. I also keep a supply of holy water in a decorative bottle. (Hey, you never know when you might have to repel a vampire, so suspenders …
Mar 30 2023
“Representation” – more specifically, statistical under or over-representation in various domains – is one of today’s major bugaboos. We all hear about aspects of this now and then, such as how women are “under-represented” in CEOs’ offices and corporate boardrooms, or blacks are “over-represented” among perpetrators of violent crimes. There’s often a lot of …
Mar 13 2023
I’m a longtime baseball fan. I’ve loved the game from the very first pitch I ever saw – and let me tell you, that was some consequential pitch: it was the gopher ball Yankees’ pitcher Ralph Terry threw to Pirates’ second baseman Bill Mazeroski in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh …
Mar 08 2023
…have a look at this article: ChatGPT is a fancy auto-complete: what it does is finding the most likely continuation of text for the text it has already printed out (or as a reply for the prompt, when it is starting printing stuff out), according to the large corpus of text it has …
Mar 03 2023
I won’t speak for you, but I know I could use a little levity these days. Compliments of the C.S.O., I had one a little earlier. Because she’s still recovering from her recent operation and is medically forbidden to do…well, anything but sit, read, and watch the Idiot Box (damn good thing she …
Mar 01 2023
The Diogenes of history — i.e., “the one with the lamp” – was known as The Cynic, for good and sufficient reasons: Diogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure. His father minted coins for a living, and when Diogenes took to debasement of currency, he was banished from Sinope. After being exiled, he …
Feb 24 2023
Maybe we’ve stood still and silent while they ruined the economy, destroyed the nation’s energy supplies, choked the ports, fed our Strategic Petroleum reserve to China, and led us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon, but we can’t let them get away with this! Now Unilever, the far-Left corporate giant that brings us …
Feb 15 2023
No, not Long Island. This planet, if possible. But to where? Anywhere else that’s safe from this: In this age of reboots, perhaps it was inevitable: A beloved (by its target audience) and also reviled (by a sizable group outside the core demo) character getting a new look and relaunch. All of which …
Feb 05 2023
With the rapid ascent of “artificial intelligence” software have come considerable strides in an area that’s long interested me: software that can easily and usefully translate among languages. And yes: AI is definitely required to do the job properly. The reason is the idiosyncratic nature of human communication. We rely on idioms and cultural …
Jan 27 2023
Republican Party partisans and assorted functionaries have on several occasions striven to persuade me that I “belong” in the Republican Party. I countered that I belong elsewhere – specifically, in that void where no party goes – but my interlocutors seldom take me seriously. A nice person on Gab has developed a graphical …
Jan 27 2023
Among the utterly invaluable bits of life advice I’ve received from older and wiser heads – no, not recently — several stand out as gems of wisdom that deserve to be immortalized: “Get a shot off fast.” “Don’t sit with your back to the door in a public place.” “Don’t go ‘round breakin’ young …
Jan 20 2023
Let me count the ways… His elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top. His bread isn’t done in the center. The lights are on but nobody’s home. His oil doesn’t reach the dipstick. He’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic. He’s a nugget or two short of a Happy Meal. …
Jan 16 2023
Good morning, Gentle Readers! Today is a very special day, for several reasons. For one thing, it’s Martin Luther King Jr, Day. On the third Monday of January each year, we commemorate the life and achievements of that famous icon of plagiarism and philandering that helped to make the Sixties a decade to be …
Jan 11 2023
We have all – well, most of us – known the frustration of trying to scrape a thick sheet of ice off a windshield. It can test the patience of the most patient man, especially if the temperature and the snow are still falling and he forgot to bring gloves that day. Continental New …
Jan 06 2023
This just in: The C.S.O. made our morning decaf and alerted me to its readiness. I naturally scampered to the kitchen and poured a cup. A few minutes later I returned for my second cup, and the following exchange ensued: CSO: Back so soon? FWP: I finished my first cup, so I’m here for …
Jan 01 2023
“There’s about five fetishes you’ve got to go through to play the trombone….I was taught you should start warming up on a low note.” – Leo Kottke Happy New Year, Gentle Reader, especially to those in the audience who are “warming up on a low note” this morning. Have a “low note” to …
Nov 27 2022
From the “Questions No One Is Asking” division: FWP: What do you think would happen if a jug band were to appear for a scheduled concert without its jug? Say if it was broken in an accident on the way over? CSO: Horror of horrors! FWP: Well, yes, but would the show go on? …
