CURRENT WISDOM

...Starbuck, Hollywood scriptwriter: To the editor—I have lived in Yakima County for 20 years, and have rescued lost, abandoned and neglected animals...

...This toughness was important...

...I was in the hospital four days, my wrist broken, I will be scarred, my dog is dead and I am out of work...

...One wonders how the Bushes would fare on the dance floor...

...But he’s trying to revise the famous question, “Who can stand up to Khrushchev...

...vanity fair Drop-dead-beautiful columnist James Wolcott takes note of an indigenous American therapy, sure to sweep the nation with no help from any maharishi, swami, or colonic irrigationist ever known to the natives of Marin County, California: V. F. contributing editor James Wolcott’s wistful memorial to the Twist in this month’s column is as much a paean to the dance itself as it is a recommendation for dance as diplomacy...

...Obviously Senator Edward Kennedy’s seriousness began at an early age and at poolside with a song in his heart: March 31, 1962 I asked why the Kennedys had turned out so well and the Churchills and Roosevelts so badly...

...Penguin Press, 894 pages, $40) old friends and lovers on MySpace...

...As sad as it is, they cannot stay...

...She didn’t even look at me, just went on biting...

...He’s fairly sure that means straight in New York...

...I work long hours and felt she was alone too much, so put her on petfinder.com...

...november 2007) new York Times The venerable Times, in a department titled “Modern Love,” casts its eye on mainstream America for all Manhattanites to ponder: My ex-boyfriend hangs from hooks...

...november 20, 2007) Courtesy of L. Richard De Prisco of Twin Peaks, California...

...Mills, 39, asked people to “cut down on one or two meat and dairy and fish dishes a week….We are the only species that drinks another person’s milk, so why aren’t we drinking rat’s milk or dog’s milk or cat’s milk, that’s how crazy it is,” she said...

...They penetrate the skin of his upper back, and he’s lifted by a rigging...

...I know that sometimes dogs bite, but if they don’t know how to stop, then we can’t have these dogs in our society...

...His supersized fondness for life, humans, activity, accomplishment, makes you aware of your own negative mind...

...I thought that kids teased them and adults abused them...

...I think we need to makes these dogs extinct, no more breeding, no more dog fighting, and no more 48 hours to relocate...

...In the later stages of the evening, Teddy Kennedy emerged as the dominant figure, singing, plunging c U R R e n T W I s d o M fully dressed into the swimming pool and demonstrating in general that the Kennedy vitality is far from extinct in the lower reaches of the family...

...december 2007) The Great books series From Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s delicious diaries, Journals, 1952-2000, we resurrect two of the late historian’s entries from his days on the wild and wonderful New Frontier...

...He’s been wanting to do this for a long time, but says that he somehow lacked “the heart” until he spent an evening with Liza Minnelli, who not only urged him to pierce his ear but gave him a diamond stud as incentive...

...On April 18, she started biting my potbelly pig’s nose...

...I had entered his name on a whim, not expecting anything to pop up...

...Thanks to several thousand years of phallocentric [sic] history, there is no comparable vocabulary of degradation for men, no equivalently rich trove of synonyms for a sexually sullied male...

...september 23, 2007) thickly settled province of the Web you could call anti-Hillaryland and you are soon knee-deep in “bitch,” “slut,” “skank,” “whore,” and, ultimately, what may be the most toxic fourletter word in the English language...

...there he dangles in midair, his skin stretched out like freshly pulled taffy...

...Step lightly through that from the archives Timeless Tosh from current Wisdoms Past (february 1988) GQ High adventure among the nation’s electrified scribes, as reported in the egghead GQ: With the resolve that “this is my life and my ear,” 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley has begun wearing an earring (through the left lobe...

...A hopeful, almost naïve quality he has (“On this continent, under the most adverse circum stances, you find the highest percentage of the people that go through every day with a song in their heart”) feels somehow generational: vestigial evidence of the Summer of Love...

...But my father cracked down on him at a crucial time in his life, and this brought out in Teddy the discipline and seriousness...

...His drive, his fame, the public nature of everything he does, makes you giddily grateful for the humble scale of your own life...

...Yakima Herald-Republic An idealist’s descent into nihilism— another missive from Ms...

...Gorbachev has made his mark in the campaign...

...c U R R e n T W I s d o M san bernardino county sun More evidence that singer-songwriter Paul McCartney got out just in time: London—Heather Mills got steamed up over milk and other dairy products while her estranged husband, Paul McCartney, joined a more modest effort to save a local post office...

...None of the men who want to be president are in his league...

...Mario Cuomo is as smart and purposeful, but he isn’t in the race and he doesn’t know as much about nuclear arms...

...december 1987) Washington Post Young Mary McGrory, mashed on the Soviet Robert Redford: The adjective that leaps to mind when Mikhail Gorbachev strides into a room is “clean-cut...

...If it hadn’t been for that, Teddy might be just a playboy today...

...GQ Is it conceivable that what appears below is an American writer’s de scrip tion of a man whose presidency will be remembered by its denouement, namely, several pornographic scenes spent with a fat girl and often completed in what had once been George Stephanopoulos’s wastepaper basket...

...to, “Who can go into the room with Gorbachev and end the arms race...

...Two years ago I rescued a dog running loose in my neighborhood...

...page 122] (From Journals: 1952-2000, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr...

...JFK said, “Well, no one can say that it was due to my mother...

...Aloha Starbuck Yakima (May 3, 2007) Courtesy of Andrew Martin of Sunnyside, Washington...

...Hillary Clinton is facing an onslaught of open misogynistic expression...

...She was about 6 months old, sweet, innocent and had lots of energy...

...I discovered this one night when I was bored and looking up seattle Times A Seattle reporter’s depressing reaction to the rise of Realism in American literary life: Sen...

...This would clearly be a happier, healthier nation if we could set aside our petty differences and Twist,” says Wolcott...

...Now Ed has an earring wardrobe: the Minnelli diamond, a little ruby, a little bone and a little ring of gold made by his womanfriend...

...To the hipper among writhing Americans, the Kennedys’ embrace of the Twist set the dance packing from pop culture...

...I, like thousands of people, did not believe what people said about 8 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 pit bulls...

...To me, the fact that Chubby Checker is still out there Twisting, at age 66, is proof of its rejuvenation powers...

...When I tried to break it up, she moved her mouth from the pig’s nose to my arm...

...But the new star of the East has that same quality.… He is a political leader to make Americans weep...

...It was due to my father.… He held up standards for us, and he was very tough when we failed to meet his standards...

...The noun that usually accompanies it is, of course, “American...

...Pit bulls are against the law in the city, but are OK in the county...

...december 13, 1987) f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R 8 9 (november 29, 2007...

...His seemingly boundless energy makes you aware of how prematurely you habitually pronounce yourself tired...

...page 150] June, 18, 1961 On Saturday Bobby and Ethel Kennedy gave another great party to celebrate their 11th anniversary...