The Constant Harper

Ever since he demonstrated an uncanny ability to portray the almost pathological obsessiveness of a certain type of male music fan in his novel “High Fidelity,” British author Nick Hornby has gone on to broaden the scope of his acute observation to include the frailties of marriage, the perilous borderland between childhood and young adulthood, [...]

I keep thinking about the Tsunami of 2004.
More than two hundred thousand people, most of them women and children, were killed in a matter of moments on December 26 that year, when a 9.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia triggered a massive killer wave.
It was all over the news for perhaps a [...]

The Simpsons celebrates twenty seasons of satirical splendor tomorrow.
I’ll be tuned in.
Yet when it all started, more than twenty years ago, I had no time for television. I was working thirty hours a week at a newspaper in addition to taking college courses and raising three kids. Spare time was a fantasy.
Even so, The Simpsons [...]

Forget RinTinTin. Forget Lassie. And weep no more for Marley.
In this bright New Year, my heart belongs to Tillman, the snowboarding, skateboarding, surfboarding bulldog extraordinaire.
I first saw Tillman skimming along on his skateboard a year or so ago in a video clip. Cute, I thought. Little did I know that millions of fellow Americans would [...]