It’s time to respect the living as we do the war dead

In this bicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, I recently was re-reading part of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s epic history, “Team of Rivals.” Once again it was stunning to see the number of casualties during the Civil War, the dead and wounded in four years of fighting exponentially outnumbering the American men and women killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan over six and a half years of combat.

New pack of DC lobbyists keep Oval Office doors spinning

Not even three weeks in office and President Barack Obama is discovering that being in charge is no bed of roses, even when you have a garden of them just outside your Oval Office windows. February’s frost has bitten a bit of the bloom off the new President’s aspirations as the swamp of hypocrisy and partisan inertia that is Beltway Washington took its toll.

What will I bid for the American Wild?

We’ve all seen those sitcoms or movies in which someone stumbles into an art auction and, not knowing how it works, idly scratches his nose or pulls his ear and finds himself the owner of a Rembrandt.

Better yet, there’s one of my all-time favorite films, “North by Northwest.” Surrounded at an auction by the bad guys, Cary Grant makes outrageous bids and yells insults until the police arrive and unknowingly haul him off to safety. (“How do we know it’s not a fake?” he shouts about one painting. “It looks like a fake!” A woman sitting in front of him turns and replies, “You’re no fake. You’re a genuine idiot.”)

Michael Pollan’s food for thought on Obama’s ag secretary

The writer and activist Michael Pollan has no interest in becoming Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, thank you very much, even though there are a lot of people who think he’d be perfect for the job.

Obama shows us where we’re headed, where we’ve been

Whether you’re Democrat, Republican or Mugwump, you look at Tuesday night’s remarkable election results and the nationwide reaction and can’t help but wonder at how far our young country has come — and, at the same time, how long it’s taken.