Busybodies with bad ideas are destroying modern culture with their constant claims of being offended. More people need to point out — clearly and politely — that many of the ideas of the outraged are moronic and need to be ignored. I’m sick of a tiny politically motivated group of people pushing their views so aggressively that others end up kowtowing to them to avoid their wrath. Disney is the latest company to back down in the face of idiots. In the 1955 film, “Lady and the Tramp,” two of the most memorable characters are a couple of conniving Siamese cats. They were great, and if you know cats, you know they were being portrayed the way some cats — including Siamese — are frequently seen in real life. Social justice warriors have claimed that the cats reinforce stereotypes of Asian characters as conniving and duplicitous. Does anybody understand these are cats, not Asian people? If you think Asians are conniving, that’s on you; it’s not because of a couple of wonderful cartoon cats.
Becoming who we’re meant to be is the hardest battle of our lives
When I look at who I was in the past, I barely recognize myself.
It doesn’t matter how far back I go. The only constant has been change. There are times when I feel happy about that, because I think I’m a better person than I was as a college student (such as in this photo) or a young newspaper editor or as a publisher or as a political consultant.
When I look back at myself in the days when I filled those various roles, I know I’ve grown tremendously. I’ve learned more about myself. I’ve learned to love other people better. I’ve gained enough wisdom to see through things which I blindly believed because my culture had told me to believe them.
I feel good about coming as far as I’ve come. And yet there are times — such as right now — when I wonder if I’ll ever become the person I’m supposed to be.
Briefly: NYT obtains old Trump tax records to prove his success was a lie
Do you want to know why Donald Trump doesn’t want to release his tax returns? I’m not a psychic, but I’m pretty sure I know. Trump has made his career peddling the illusion that he was a brilliant and fabulously successful businessman. The truth is far different. He’s a charlatan who routinely swindled smaller vendors and he lost lots of money making bad deals. He’s a liar and a cheat. His entire persona has always been built on the ability to bamboozle gullible people who accepted his bombastic lies. The New York Times has now obtained 10 years of his income tax information — from 1985 to 1994 — and it paints a pictures of a money-losing operation which is completely at odds with his lies about success. Trump has spent his entire adult life pretending to be something he’s not. Tax records would prove he’s been scamming the public — and his ego can’t take that.

Briefly: Spending time with children makes me eager for my own
Briefly: Interview with Danny Elfman about music for ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’
Briefly: Here’s my promo video for Phase 1 of my realty company’s renovation
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
Briefly: What can we learn from the fact that Apple’s Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use iPads?
Briefly: Now that Trump has killed the GOP, Democrats will thrive
Briefly: There’s nothing racist about wanting film casting to match a character