What's with the near-obsessive repetition of this shriek of terror? It's ubiquitous. And silly. ‘Mommy, I don’t want to die. I love you,’ was the alleged plea of Louisiana nine-year-old Camille Hebert before her mother stabbed her to...

Abe Pollin may not get a Rot In Hell Award, but that's because he's too insignificant to deserve hell. Purgatory will do. In any case, what's with stiletto sharp columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times canonizing a guy whose life was essentially...

Should the public be spared the gory details of unpleasant things such as war or rape, asks a participant in a discussion.* Is there no role for narrative that tells us in the first person what certain horrible experiences are like? In brief,...

Thursday, my busiest day, I couldn't write a post on The Washington Post front page news that the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington threatened to discontinue the services to the poor provided under contract with the city if the Washington, D.C., City...

The story has been repeatedly told of a visit by Ralph Waldo Emerson to Henry David Thoreau when the latter was in jail for refusing to pay taxes to support the Mexican-American War. “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Emerson asked. Thoreau...