A child of his generation, Elon Musk knows only to streamline and subtract, and the urge is a sickness all its own.
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Too close for comfort
An author who grew up in Washington, D.C., recalls watching jets and helicopters closely bunched in the gloaming sky and wondering, "What if . . . ?"
New Age dinosaurs
In a clever but ominous piece of reporting, London’s Financial Times suggested that by the year 2100, the wine regions [...]
Waiting for the barbarians
In 1992, historian and biographer William Manchester published a powerful, if brief, popular history of medieval Europe and how a [...]
Joe and Elon
Those who consider the wrecking ball duo of Donald Trump and Elon Musk a new and dystopian development in American [...]
So help me God
Italy long ago backed away from Catholicism as its state religion, but the faith remains fundamentally important, even in the [...]
Before New Orleans
In the poker game of psychological warfare on which terrorism depends, the September 11 plotters cleaned out the house. In [...]
Protect and kill
One of the most durable phrases in the Pentagon’s Vietnam War–era arsenal of euphemisms consisted of two words, protective reaction. [...]
Cloud cuckoo land
My father had a favorite phrase when coming upon people and situations that defied all common sense. “Cloud cuckoo land,” [...]
Won’t get fooled again
The lame-duck Biden administration’s position toward embattled Ukraine is now cynically clear: provide that country with as much authorized military [...]
The red button
In the eleventh hour of his presidency, Joe Biden has given Ukraine the green light to use American short-range missiles [...]
Hungry man
In the modern dialect of sportswriting, the concept of desire has come to play a critical role. An upset, whether [...]