2005

  • Giacomino

    Giacomino

    You ask Angelica and she says… Let us now suppose…. It is 1965. You are 12. You have been sent…

  • Abort

    Abort

    No choice… My wife-to-be is annoyed. She objects to a newspaper item about Spain permitting gay marriage. It’s unnatural. It’s…

  • Telefonia

    Telefonia

    My parents’ marriage lasted 13 years. Photographs of the two of them at peace are few. When I can’t sleep…

  • Never to Thrill

    Never to Thrill

    No physical liberal is Benedict. “Papa vecchio,” says the message from a friend. “Avevi ragione.” She’s right, but only relatively speaking. I…

  • Getting it Wrong

    Getting it Wrong

    During the recent papal death and election, a reporter for a major American daily newspaper was asked to file a…

  • Advocatus diaboli

    Advocatus diaboli

    Do it now… Saints are the official celebrities of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II sensed their significance…

  • The hand that takes

    The hand that takes

    Edward von Kloberg, 1942-2005, pictured in his Washington office in 1990. Photo courtesy of the Washington Post. Never ignore a…

  • Iwo Jima

    Iwo Jima

    Remember what I told you, he said, giving me the photo. The generosity of the air matters. So does the…

  • Yo, Bacon

    Yo, Bacon

    Get Lauren Bacall within a slow-burn Camel of Humphrey Bogart and she morphs into pure pheromone. Language is in flux.…

  • Outland

    Outland

    Peace with honor: The U.S. Embassy under siege in Saigon, 1975. I’ve nailed the problem in Iraq. There is none.…

  • Vive La France

    Vive La France

    No is way to say, “Here we are!” On a sunny Sunday when a German pope sounded much like his…

  • Déjà Vu

    Déjà Vu

    South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a captured Viet Cong officer with a single pistol…

  • Touch Me

    Touch Me

    And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson… Retro indeed. Paul Anka has a new album. He’s 63. Anne Bancroft has a…

  • Birds of Rome

    Birds of Rome

    … from up here. You cannot have moist lips in the world of birds. You must dry them to make…

  • Benedict, Driving

    Benedict, Driving

    When I was young… Benedict is going driving. The spokesman does not know. The security chief is unaware. But for…