ArcaMax

When I was, like, 17, I didn't eat for three solid days. Ten pounds had to go -- immediately. The period of starvation crowded out every other thought in my head. Of course, I lost weight, though it was mostly water. Of course, I gained it back.

My point is that teenage girls' angst over body image long preceded Instagram, the photo- and ...Read more

Confession: I used to be a Republican. I briefly became one years ago while living amongst the ultrawoke on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Their authoritarian diktats drove me crazy. And their narrow definition of economic interests as the rich versus the poor -- with the middle class almost invisible -- underscored their political naivete.

But ...Read more

Here's how TV news works: What is just an annoyance becomes a concern. A concern turns into a serious worry. And a serious worry is elevated into a crisis. Stoking anxiety is how they keep the public glued.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain recently got sucked into the cyclone when he approved of a tweet that called most of our current ...Read more

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a private employer to get rid of a worker deemed bad for business, he or she can. Such appears to be the fate of Jon Gruden, who resigned as the Las Vegas Raiders football coach after a trove of racist, sexist and homophobic utterings came to light.

An American has an unalienable right...Read more

There's a drug war on TV. It has nothing to do with cocaine or heroin but does involve an addiction -- the pharmaceutical industry's compulsion to charge Americans an average 3.4 times more for brand-name drugs than people in other countries pay. Step 1 in the rehab program is to let Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices.

The drug makers,...Read more

Progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been all over TV trying to look reasonable with her ingratiating smile and syrupy references to the left's interest in "negotiations." At issue is the Democrats' final number on its social spending bill.

Sen. Bernie Sanders was playing the sleazy salesman, inflating his original price to offer a discount. ...Read more

This is not about what would happen were the United States to default on its debt. It's about what occurred in 2011 when one party just threatened to let that happen.

A Democrat, Barack Obama, was president, and for crazy partisan reasons, the Republican leadership deemed it a smart move to play games with the full faith and credit of the ...Read more

Set aside the specter of overflowing intensive care units in Idaho -- or that the state's emergency rooms are now choosing which COVID-19 patients to save and which ones to give up on. The situation is so bad that desperate patients are crossing the border into Washington state to find hospital beds, putting Spokane hospitals under siege.

Idaho...Read more

About France and its submarines: Australia's decision to cancel a $60 billion contract to buy them and purchase American nuclear subs instead had to hurt. In response, France's foreign minister called the U.S.-backed move a "stab in the back," and President Emmanuel Macron recalled his ambassadors from both Washington and Canberra.

The ...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom's massive victory in California's recall election should spray some water on overheated predictions that Democrats will lose big in the 2022 midterm elections. And that's not the only source of hope for the Democratic Party.

Newsom's win surprised few in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1...Read more

"Biden's Stock Market Returns Continue to Trounce Trump's" reads a recent Forbes headline. Sophisticated investors know this, but most of the public may not because Democrats have this self-defeating aversion to boasting about bull markets during their watch.

That seems to have changed under President Joe Biden.

Recall how former President ...Read more

Let's be clear. No one has to get the vaccine. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states: "The federal government does not mandate (require) vaccination for people."

President Joe Biden did not change that policy when he announced stringent new regulations. Without a doubt, the rules strongly encourage -- one could say "pressure"...Read more

Rudolph Giuliani was always somewhat off-center, even in his glory days as New York City mayor. But people who recall him then were stunned by his decline into a conspiracy-mongering swamp creature of Trump world. The 20th anniversary of Sept. 11 lets us remember that on that day of horror, Giuliani was on the chaotic scene, passing out courage ...Read more

Texas has low taxes, which is nice. Its mild winter weather appeals to many in the snowbound north. And the cost of living there is certainly lower than that of the elite coastal cities. Also nice.

On the other hand, it has a political culture that launches serial attacks on voting rights and obsesses over transgender youth in high schools. It ...Read more

You know things are off the wall when even the FDA can't keep a straight face. What could the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say to Americans who refuse to get a coronavirus vaccine administered by medical professionals but instead go to a livestock supply house for a drug designed to deworm horses and cows? Ivermectin in big animal doses can...Read more

The surge in COVID-19 cases has prompted many companies to put off planned office reopenings, a delay that will undoubtedly be temporary. A lot of businesses, meanwhile, are adopting hybrid systems whereby some employees come into the office and others do their work from home or wherever.

Sounds like good news for those who really don't want a ...Read more

Beyond the human price of COVID-19 is the financial toll of treating the sick. Back in the day, conservatives touted fiscal responsibility -- that is, keeping the cost of government in check.

But now we have the extraordinary example of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, apparently looking to run for president in 2024, backing policies designed to ...Read more

I will not lie. I want lots of space placed between a beautiful duck gliding on the marshes and the duck a l'orange carefully arranged on my plate. And I'll never forget the jarring sight of a hawk plucking a baby duck from the water. Its pathetic little quacks still haunt my ears.

As you may guess, hunting is not my thing. But as a meat eater,...Read more

As the images of chaos at Afghanistan's main airport looped on the news channels, "disaster" quickly became the favored word of commentators, followed by "disgrace." What we saw was disturbing, especially the evidence that U.S. forces hadn't secured the airport early on.

But 20 years after the U.S. first sent its soldiers to police the country ...Read more

Latinos can be from the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Cuba, Spain and, of course, Mexico. They can be of any skin color, though social activists and other head counters often refer to them as "brown." The number of people claiming Hispanic ancestry rose 23% between 2010 and 2020, according to the new Census Bureau numbers. The ...Read more