Have you ever noticed the way American beer commercials emphasize packaging gimmicks? The wide-mouth can. The label that turns blue when it’s cold. The easy-pour vent. The shelf pack that fits better in your fridge. Are there people who peruse the beer aisle thinking, “hmm… you know I really enjoy [favorite microbrew/import], but it pours…
“Hillary can’t win, and Obama can’t beat her.” This seems to be the bottom line in the endless slog toward choosing the Democrat who will run against McCain this fall. Obama’s platform is “change,” so it’s ironic that nothing changed in the six weeks between Super Tuesday and the Pennsylvania primary. The American people are…
I can’t believe I’m writing about Britney Spears, but bear with me. One would hope that Britney bottomed out somewhere around the head-shaving or the crotch-flashing. Now it seems the gossip mill’s coverage of Britney has finally bottomed out as well. Yesterday I was in the checkout line at the Safeway – where I get…
I was reminiscing with my colleagues yesterday about the dawn of the ATM machine. We were remembering how, when banks first started to install them, they all used to charge you a small fee for the convenience of using it – whether you belonged to the bank or not. Thankfully, banks abandoned this practice, although…
I can barely remember now, but before the age of MapQuest (and, subsequently, Google Maps), if I needed to go somewhere I’d never been to before, I rarely planned my route. If, for example, I wanted to go to a furniture store in a suburb on the other side of town, my process went something…
(to the editors at the New York Times) Dear Sir: An editorial in the Times, April 5, observes that “a decade of fierce polemics has failed to resolve this ongoing quarrel” between two contending views: that “the war to preserve a non-Communist, independent South Vietnam could have been waged differently,” and that “a viable, non-Communist…