Columns

Learning to live with corona hair

It’s high time Americans accept a first-world side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I don’t mean those blasted directional floor stickers I can’t navigate in the aisles at Walmart. No, I’m referring to male-pattern corona hair.

Are you a terrible conversationalist?

One of my biggest pet peeves: people who can’t hold up their end of a conversation. Oh, I’m not saying that every single human being is obligated to bring jaw-dropping factoids, whimsical quips and provocative perspectives to every mundane conversation.

Restarting the economy shouldn’t be a life or death decision

My mother texted me a photograph on Sunday. That doesn’t sound like a newsworthy occasion, but mom had never texted anything to me or anyone else, ever. It was a photo of the flowers I sent her for Mother’s Day.

Class of 2020: Can you hear me now?

Thank you, Class of 2020! It’s an honor to be delivering your college commencement address, even with this awkward Zoom connection. Testing… I’m sorry you and your friends won’t be partying tonight but, when you think about it, today isn’t all bad.

Ill-timed invasion of the murder hornets

The murder hornets don’t stand a chance. We’re still amid a pandemic that has dragged on way too long, producing far too many bizarre, exaggerated doomsday scenarios on social media. Some of our political leaders are enjoying absolute power a little too absolutely.

Using a mask to mask your feelings

I have been trying to do my civic duty. I stay more than 6 feet away from most people. I live alone, so my trips to the store are surgical strikes. I have social distanced from vulnerable friends and relatives, mastered the art of Zoom and Facetime, and learned to make my own damn coffee.

Are you ready for the murder hornets?

Murder hornets. (Not to be confused with their close relatives: accessory-to-murder hornets, involuntary-manslaughter hornets, justifiable-homicide hornets and turning-state’s-evidence hornets.) Killer hornets. Asian giant hornets.

Life during pandemic puts a strain on all of us

My brother Jon was an exceptional human being. He had a sense of the world and life that alternated between skepticism, passionate embrace, disappointment, and hope that things would always move toward improvement, toward the light.

There’s room for compromise, if we look for it

Over breakfast the other day, my wife, who happens to be a physician, asked, “Whatever happened to compromise?”

Where’s #MeToo on Joe Biden allegations?

To say that I am notoriously skeptical of the #MeToo movement is an understatement. I have railed against a movement that has always struck me as extreme, partisan, and motivated more by vindictiveness than by a search for clarity and justice.