This video, apparently made by angry father Tommy Jordan, has “gone viral” and had more than a million views in under 72 hours, with a torrent of commentary. Most of the commentary seems to express either enthusiastic support or simple shock. I suspect it will get a few million more hits before it dies down or the father pulls it down. I am assuming this is real and not a staged prank. Assuming...

In South Carolina, predictions of Mitt Romney being favored to win in part because women would go for him over Newt did not materialize. And to be clear, we’re not talking the gap between how men versus women vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. We’re talking about the gap between who women prefer between the two candidates. This time around, in Florida, people seem much more certain that this...

A Gail Collins admirer has to tell her she has been taken in by Republican plagiarism of Michelle Obama. In her column, she writes about Gingrich’s marital history and conservative voters: “When all else fails, they have even been known to argue that everybody does it. ‘I’m just saying, they all have stinky feet,’ former Congressman J. C. Watts, a Baptist preacher, said while he was campaigning for...

Talk about your mixed messages being sent. Former Congressman, Speaker of the House and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich won the female vote in South Carolina, according to exit polls and despite reports to the contrary, just the day before, of a significant gender gap that should have helped former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, if it really existed — which it...

A Sikh ready for the holy bath at Golden Temple in Amritsar in northern India. Ever heard of a place where you can enjoy live Western classical music round-the-clock? Perhaps there is none. However, if you are interested in attending a non-stop Indian classical music concert round the year, then the place to visit is the Golden Temple (or Harmandir Sahib) at Amritsar in northern India. This place is the rallying...

This isn’t really news, Pew showed Newt’s weakness with women back in December. But The State is out with this article today, in pertinent part: Who will win? It could depend on who votes — men or women — and where they live — the Upstate or coast. “It may be very close,” Matt Moore, executive director of the S.C. Republican Party, said Friday. Polling shows Gingrich and Romney running...

GQ’s Top 25 Power People in DC? One and a half women. One and a half. And a whole lotta white guys. Here’s the full list of 50 from Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook: FIRST LOOK – GQ’s “The 50 Most Powerful People in Washington (People with the last names Obama and Biden not included,” by Reid Cherlin, Rob Fischer, Jason Horowitz and Jason Zengerle: 1) Eric Cantor 2) Mitch McConnell 3)...

GEORGE HODEL AND ELIZABETH SHORT Sixty-five years ago today, a 22-year-old beauty by the name of Elizabeth Short was found brutally slain in a vacant lot at 39th and Norton streets in Los Angeles. Her body was cut in half at the waist with surgical precision, her face and breasts slit, and there was a large gash where her vulva should have been. She had been drained of fluids as if prepared for an embalming...

You may go see the Non Sequitur cartoon from Friday, 1/13/12 which the Plain Dealer did not run. I used it as a teaching moment with my 6th grader and he got why it could be objectionable right away. Whether or not it should have been published is of course a different matter. Here are the comments at my Facebook thread and many times more can be found at former Plain Dealer journalist Connie Schultz’s...

We’ve all done it, and Mitt seems like someone who wouldn’t hesitate to pass on a second-hand present. He did it to a voter the other day. Asked by a New Hampshire man who was being foreclosed by Bank of America even though he had made all his mortgage payments, a problem Romney has clearly never faced, the candidate suggested he go to court or occupy bank headquarters until he gets satisfaction. “That...

Have a very happy winter solstice and what ever other holiday you chose to celebrate this time of year.

It has often been said that you should be careful of what you wish for because often there will be very unexpected consequences. Looking at the current situation of international politics I have been thinking of this a lot lately. To offer a more local example, I live near the community of Lodi, California. For many years Lodi was known by police across the country as being one of the safest places to live,...

Photography has certainly changed.  Just a few short years ago much of the silver mined went into photographic film and paper.  Today most of the world camera makers don’t even make film cameras.  Point and shoot cameras have resolution that you could only get with large format cameras like the Hasselblad.  I have been a photographer for over 40 of my 65 years but I retired my darkroom about 10 years...

The second edition of The Bottom of the Fox: A True Story of Love, Devotion & Cold-Blood Murder is now available on Kindle. From the back dust jacket blurb: Eddie Joubert’s midlife crisis had arrived right on schedule. He fell hard for the Poconos, a resort area in Pennsylvania where he bought a rundown tavern that became a magnet for an eclectic clientele that ranged from world-class jazz musicians...

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and US entry into the Second World War. Sadly we are quickly approaching the time where we no longer have living survivors and Pearl Harbor may gradually become an abstract historical event rather than a true harsh experience. Whenever I think of the attack I am reminded of one of the more impressive stories of the day. At the time the attack began...

Maybe. But many live longer: [A] new study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finds that it’s not all bad for American leaders. By comparing presidents to other men of their eras, researchers discovered that commanders in chief die at about the same age as their peers. They certainly don’t age at double the speed [as was suggested by one physician]. Many live longer,...

If you, like the DF&C and myself, are semi-vegetarians or you are a meat and poultry eater who is weary of the same old-same old holiday dinner staples of ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, yams and cranberry sauce, you might want to consider Bodega Bay Cioppino, Roasted Potatoes With Figs, and Italian Stuffed Zucchini. These dishes have become great cold-weather favorites of ours and while labor intensive...

The end of another new year and there are another 30 or so books under this bibliophile’s belt, an inordinate number of them Scandinavian murder mysteries (I inhale them like popcorn) but a fair number of them heavy duty (like eating one’s way through a five-course meal). A year ago I published a list of my 30 most influential books, which I expand to 35 here (actually 36 because one new title bumps...

Send some kind thoughts to James Joyner and his two young daughters as their wife and mother passed away last night in her sleep at the age of 41. My wife, Kimberly Webb Joyner, died this morning in her sleep from unknown causes. She was 41. She leaves behind two little girls she loved more than anything, Katie, who turns 3 on New Year’s Eve, and Ellie, who was born June 21. We met in August 2004 and were...

Tired of sandwiches? Try this.

This marvelous essay was published on November 27, 2008 by the late great blogger Jon Swift. This year as President Bush pardoned two turkeys, who surprisingly had nothing to do with the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s, he remarked that it was his “last Thanksgiving as President.” But it might be the last Thanksgiving any of us celebrate since there is a good chance that when Barack Obama...

Jane Austen’s untimely end at the age of 41 has long been a cause for speculation among historians. Austen, the author of classics including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, may have died of arsenic poisoning, according to a crime writer who has reviewed the last letters of the British novelist. The crucial clue lies in a line written by Austen a few months before her mysterious...

TACITUS ON A ROMAN COIN One of the more fascinating if perverse aspects of the Third Reich was what I’ll call, for want of a better word, Nazi esotericism. This was the quest to find the roots of the Aryan race and the beginnings of Germany in an effort to gird Hitler’s policies with historical and cultural underpinnings, never mind if they really existed, in order to “prove” the...

This week is Veterans Day and a time for all of us to remember those who have served. But it is also worth remembering those who serve back at home. Families make HUGE sacrifices for our nation, they give up months and years with their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives. Beyond that many see their loved ones come home wounded, having to spend weeks or months in painful and difficult rehab...

There’s got to be a political metaphor to be made here: A technical hitch saw Oban’s community fireworks all released at the same time at Mossfield Stadium tonight, November 4 2011. The display,which usually lasts around half an hour, barely lasted a minute as a spectacular number of fireworks went off simultaneously. Chime in TMVers! Via.