No health insurance? Shut up and eat some cake!

While the infamous “let them eat cake” line may never have been uttered by Marie Antoinette, the sentiment is real – and enduring — enough: Why should the well-off worry about the peasants not having enough bread to eat when there’s plenty of cake to go around the palace halls?

The story of Antoinette’s casual lack of concern and empathy and understanding for those less fortunate may have been apocryphal, but our Commander in Chief’s latest blunder during his recent press conference is not. It’s there on video and in transcript.

“I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” (more…)

Leave the bum … take the cannoli

Love lessons, Mafia-princess style:

“Leave the bum … take the cannoli.”

If you’ve fallen in with a loser (he’s addicted to television, never has any cash, doesn’t like to work), don’t hire your local goodfella to take him for a one-way walk. Just drop the bum like yesterday’s (bad) news and leave him on the couch where you found him.

Oh, and take the cannoli. You probably paid for it. (more…)

Spooksville, USA

This column ran in print in May 2007, but I’ve brought it back from the dead in honor of Halloween and spooks everywhere!

Last Sunday morning, after watching Tim Russert hold former CIA Director George Tenet’s feet to the fire on Meet the Press, all I could say was …”Somebody get me a double vodka, no rocks; it must be after noon somewhere.”

On reflection, I would have been better off asking for a ghostbuster. (more…)

Bird nerd

I’ve always been a bit of a nerd. But it wasn’t until recently that I learned I’m not just any kind of nerd… I’m a bird nerd.

Yes, the woman whose only prior experience with birds involved those rats with wings they call pigeons in Boston, is now a full blown, hopelessly besotted backyard bird nerd. (more…)

Lunar romance

The mind is a prickly beast.

It disbelieves almost everything the heart believes. It takes the heart to task for being foolish. It demands that we ignore feelings in favor of facts.

To a large extent, this is a good thing. We can’t run around willy-nilly to the whims of a red, thumping reactionary like the heart. Much wiser to follow the gray, humming pragmatism of the brain. (more…)

A bastion for the blues

Since moving to Southwest Florida nearly three years ago, I’ve been looking for an unpretentious place where you can kick back a bit and maybe take in some live music that doesn’t invoke Lionel Ritchie. It’s a lot easier said than done. (more…)

The nerve of some dames

She’s got some nerve, that Helen Mirren. Wins all the major acting awards, shows up at the Oscars looking hot. Puts the 50, 40, and 30-somethings all to shame. And the 20-year olds? They looked like so much fluffy cotton candy about to float away next to Mirren’s rock-solid, sensual self.

Helen Mirren, a bona fide Dame, is 61 years old and looks every year of it, but in the best possible way.

She’s the woman I want to be … at any age. (more…)

Got guts?

Barack Obama appears to be willing to speak truthfully, to live transparently to a certain degree, and that takes guts. And I like that.

I like the fact that Obama smoked dope, admits it, and doesn’t do it now. That tells me that he’s pretty much like an awful lot of other people in the United States. (more…)

The difference between disloyalty and dissent

Friday, September 27, 2006. High Tea with Sandy and Vern Buchanan. At the Ritz. With extra-special guest, Laura Bush.

“Responsible candidates understand that the men and women of our military are risking their lives for us overseas, and that we must conduct our debate here at home in a way that does not jeopardize our troops in harm’s way,” the First Lady said. She also stated that “People around the world are listening to these discussions.”

Allow me to translate: (more…)

The right side of the mud trail

This is a column I don’t particularly want to write.

I’ve been planning to vote for Christine Jennings, and I undoubtedly still will, but, I’ve got a problem with the recent path she’s asking Democrats to follow.

I’m more than willing to follow a candidate along a rocky or rough and tumble campaign trail. But I find it a considerably less enjoyable journey when the trail deteriorates to mud. (more…)