The Golden Globes used to be the most relaxed of the awards ceremonies. For many years the lesser-known stepcousin of the Oscars, the Emmys and the Tonys, the ceremony wore its raffish air with the pride of a starlet wearing a couture gown. A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly featured Helen Mirre

Over the Memorial Day weekend I visited a friend who lives with his large family and who owns, improbably, a horse--a retired police horse, to be exact. As we ambled through the stables, my friend’s 13-year-old daughter said, "Do you like Taylor Hicks?" Somehow the look on her face t

When I was a boy, I wanted to be the president of the United States. A lot of us did. Though we were growing up in the 1970’s, we knew little or nothing of Nixon or Watergate, wiretaps or carpet-bombing. Our images were of George Washington crossing the Delaware, Abraham Lincoln freeing the sl

I spent a night with friends a few weeks ago. It was an education not only in child care (never lift over your head a child who has just eaten), but also in the state of television today. In the movies these days everyone has a 32-inch flat screen television hanging in the living room, and the feng

Sometimes when I see a movie with a friend in which a mean-spirited character finally gets his (or her) comeuppance, I’ll say jokingly, "It’s like Jesus says in the Gospels, 'What goes around, comes around.’" Usually the friend will smile. But on occasion, the person

In the sugarplum candyland of Neptune, Calif., the high school student Veronica Mars had it all--smarts, a cute boyfriend, a stable nuclear family and social status. It is true that, unlike most of her peers, she was not wealthy; as sheriff, her dad was actually closer to “the help.” But