ArcaMax

The funniest, or the saddest, thing about this week's presidential debate is that it occurred the night before Sept. 11, a holy holiday of death that's been forgotten by everyone except politicians looking to be seen at the remembrance ceremony, firefighters, unindicted police officers and the families of the dead, whose aching sadness cannot ...Read more

There's been a mini-flap about former President Donald Trump's recently reprehensible conduct at Arlington National Cemetery.

First of all, what the hell did you expect?

Secondly, when is Trump gonna stop with that cheesy "thumbs up" hand sign? No one does that anymore. It makes him look old and out of touch. I grew up with the thumbs up, ...Read more

When I was a kid, we had a spelling bee every week in my class. Me or a kid named William always won.

This did not bother the nuns. They were not in the self-esteem business. The meek might inherit the earth, but only the good spellers were going to win the spelling bee. God hates people who fix fights.

As a prize, they used to give you a ...Read more

This morning, I had breakfast in a street corner joint called "Rosaria's." Rosaria is the woman who owns the place. She cooks. One of her daughters waits tables. One of her nieces waits tables.

I paid $8.99 for a pulled pork omelet that came with hash browns, toast and coffee. There was plenty of pork in the omelet, and the waitress came by ...Read more

"Come and listen you fellers, so young and so fine

And seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mines

It will form as a habit and seep in your soul

'Til the stream of your blood is as black as the coal."

-- Merle Travis, "Dark as a Dungeon"

It's a coal mining song, is what it is, a hill ballad, a labor song, a lyric of damp and dust and ...Read more

Q: What's a "hillbilly marriage counselor"?

A: A 2 x 4

Hoo hoo! That shore is funny, Zeke! Pass me the jug!

Used to be, if you had embarrassing relatives, you kept 'em out of town until the race for county commissioner was over.

If you had an Italian last name and you were running for office in Connecticut in 1960, and your Uncle Joey the ...Read more

For Americans of my generation, the Olympics have been miserable since the Soviet Union fell apart.

Back there in the land of the rotary phone, all good Americans wanted to see the United States win more medals than the Communists. It was fun, but it was serious. It was prideful. It was James Bond taking on Soviet evil. It was an ancient-...Read more

When the Olympic Games come sprinting into Paris for their most recent sweaty installment, among those carrying the Olympic torch will be Snoop Dogg, American rapper and stoner superieure.

Snoop's leg of the run will take him through the streets of Parisian suburb Saint-Denis. It's a rough neighborhood, the kind of place where someone will ...Read more

I'm 67 years old, and when I was a kid, we used to shoot politicians like they were ducks sitting on a pond. We didn't always kill them, but we always hit them squarely.

Not many American boys hunt anymore, and not that many of our citizens serve in the military, so the standard of civilian marksmanship under pressure has declined. A kid who ...Read more

They say youth is wasted on the young.

"They" are old people who are hugely offended by the beautiful carelessness of youth and its beautiful disrespect. Those qualities are beautiful in young people because they haven't been broken to the saddle yet. They're still frolicking in the green grass of the pasture, going everywhere at a run, long ...Read more

Honor is the lost virtue. Honor, in the minds of our ancestors, was that thing beyond religion, beyond laws, beyond self-preservation, that thing that would make you stand and die rather than retreat.

Honor had some oddly twisted variants. Men banged away at each other with pistols, dueling over their honor. A man "defended a woman's honor" ...Read more

It hasn't made it to my part of the urban Northeast yet, but the word "glizzy" has emerged as something you can call a hot dog.

It seems to have come from Washington, D.C., where the hard guys call a Glock pistol a glizzy. A hot dog is about the size of the extended magazine you use in a Glock pistol.

In the beginning was the gun, and the ...Read more

Juneteenth is done, but the horrors of Pride Month continue, and there's still no "White History Month."

And white folks like me still have to work, which is practically the same thing as slavery, except your boss can't sell your kids, at least not yet.

And there's no "Straight Pride" parade, and if there is, it's a comically dangerous ...Read more