Susan Estrich from Creators Syndicate

Enough Is Enough for 09/16/2009

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Conservative loudmouths are crowing that they are driving Barack Obama's popularity ratings below 50 percent. They are very proud of themselves. They shouldn't be. Destroying what is best about our country is not something to brag to your children about. And the other shoe is dropping.

"I've stopped using Claritin," one of my friends told me. "Zyrtec is just as good, and b ...

Updated: Wed Sep 16, 2009

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B.A. in Anchorage for 09/18/2009

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I got a very nice e-mail from B.A. in Anchorage yesterday. Actually, it wasn't very nice. She (I think it's a she, but I don't know for sure) thinks I'm completely clueless and worse. But that's OK. She doesn't think I should be killed or strung up because I disagree with her. Reading the e-mail wasn't so scary that I had to forward it to the campus police and wonder why I bother. As far as I c ...

Updated: Fri Sep 18, 2009

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Dear John for 09/23/2009

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last weekend, The New York Times reported on its front page that former Senator, vice presidential candidate and presidential candidate John Edwards was considering "publicly" acknowledging paternity of his mistress's baby, but had not yet brought his wife around to the idea. With his mistress, baby in arms, testifying before a grand jury about the payments she received from Edwards' ...

Updated: Wed Sep 23, 2009

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FDA: Kiss Those Kiddie-Flavored Cigarettes Goodbye for 09/25/2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It's hard to argue with the FDA's decision, announced this week, to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes. To be honest, I always thought cigarettes came in regular and menthol, not chocolate and strawberry. The legislation passed earlier this year giving the FDA authority over tobacco products specifically authorized it to ban flavored cigarettes, while protecting the kind that I got hooked on.< ...

Updated: Fri Sep 25, 2009

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Roman the Rapist for 09/30/2009

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

He had sex with a 13-year-old girl. He got her to go to Jack Nicholson's house by promising that she would be in a photo shoot. When she got there, he fed her a Quaalude and alcohol — champagne for a 13-year-old, how enticing — and then he raped her.

Roman Polanski was on his way to a film festival in which he was to be honored for his life's work when he was arrested last we ...

Updated: Wed Sep 30, 2009

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Does Voting Matter? for 10/02/2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

On my way to work this morning, I heard not one but two advertisements urging me to vote for former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as the next governor of California. The ads touted her decades of experience working for such companies as Disney and Hasbro before taking the helm at eBay in 1998 as its first CEO. The pitch was that California needs someone who understands business and job creation as its n ...

Updated: Fri Oct 02, 2009

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The President's Choice for 10/09/2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Afghanistan used to be a great issue for Barack Obama. As a candidate, he repeatedly argued that George W. Bush and his Defense Department had lost their way, focusing too much attention (and troops and resources) on Iraq while shortchanging the more important mission in Afghanistan. As a candidate, he brought up Afghanistan, even when the question was Iraq. Afghanistan was the way to reassure ...

Updated: Fri Oct 09, 2009

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The Promise of Peace for 10/14/2009

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OK, so President Barack Obama hasn't accomplished enough to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize under the conventional approach.

There is, no doubt, some courageous political prisoner somewhere in the world who has been in home confinement for decades fighting a repressive and dictatorial regime and deserves it more. Granted.

The thing is, though, I didn't hear too many of the world' ...

Updated: Wed Oct 14, 2009

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A Big Difference for Science and Medicine for 10/16/2009

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dr. Carol Greider may be the only Nobel laureate to have been folding laundry when she got the call.

She was up early, and there was a lot of laundry. After the phone call, she woke up her two children and told them she had won the Nobel Prize. As she told The New York Times, "One of the things I did with the press conference that Johns Hopkins gave was to have my two kids there. In ...

Updated: Fri Oct 16, 2009

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Parents Behaving Badly for 10/21/2009

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As it turns out, it was no secret that Richard and Mayumi Heene were very bad parents. Their associates knew it. Television producers witnessed it. Their willingness to put their children in danger to get attention was nothing new. They chased storms with their children. They used them to become "stars" of reality television. They taught them an ugly and offensive rap song about not b ...

Updated: Wed Oct 21, 2009

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Parents Behaving Badly for 10/21/2009

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time Flying for 10/23/2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It's Friday, and I'm tired. I worked hard this week. I didn't sleep as much, or as well, as I should have. I came home early to write this column and take a nap. It's hard to write while you're tired, but no one's life depends on it.

The troubling news about the Northwest Airlines flight that was out of touch with air traffic controllers for some 78 minutes and bypassed its Minneapolis d ...

Updated: Fri Oct 23, 2009

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Vaccine Supply and the Public Option for 10/28/2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

My internist told me he is now using the technique he learned many decades ago in the military, when supplies of vaccine were short and they had to split doses. I wouldn't even think of asking. But I did ask my rheumatologist, since rheumatoid arthritis is one of those things that makes getting the flu worse. He would have been happy to give me a flu shot — I'm talking regular flu here, n ...

Updated: Wed Oct 28, 2009

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Hold the Sneakers for 10/30/2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

To be honest, I don't care whether Valerie Jarrett plays basketball or not. And I certainly would hate to see Ambassador Susan Rice, known to be a good player, missing meetings at the United Nations so she can make it to the White House court.

Last week, the president's all-male basketball game became a front-page story questioning the absence of women from the game. Given the way politi ...

Updated: Fri Oct 30, 2009

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My President for 11/04/2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

There's an old story about a Harvard professor who gets a call from the president (of the United States) and responds that his president is the president of Harvard.

Being a professor at Harvard is like that. Academics in Cambridge are a big deal; Harvard is an amazing place; and if you're lucky enough to make it there, you generally never leave. Why would you?

I left for the Univ ...

Updated: Wed Nov 04, 2009

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Everything and Nothing for 11/06/2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Everything and nothing happened on Tuesday. I could have predicted that. Whoever "wins" says it means everything. Whoever "loses" says it means nothing. That's how off-off-year elections work. History supports both sides.

This time, the Republicans managed to claw at least a little bit of defeat from the jaws of victory with their act of self-destruction in New York-2 ...

Updated: Fri Nov 06, 2009

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The San Francisco Democrat for 11/11/2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

You've got to hand it to Nancy Pelosi. Love her or hate her — and there are probably more people in the second category than the first — you can't deny the enormity of her accomplishment. She did something very, very big. She cut a tough deal at the last minute to do it, and she absolutely was the right person to be cutting that deal. I don't like the fact that the health care bill ...

Updated: Wed Nov 11, 2009

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Do You Recognize Your President? for 11/13/2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

There's an old saying that hard cases make bad law. The same rule, unfortunately, applies to presidential decisions.

What makes a case hard, of course, is when there is no "good" answer. The challenge for the decision maker is to find the least of the bad, the lesser of the evils. But by definition, a bad answer doesn't solve things (if it did, it wouldn't be a bad answer), but ...

Updated: Fri Nov 13, 2009

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See Sarah Run for 11/18/2009

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I really hate defending Sarah Palin. I mean, I don't agree with her on anything. Seeing a woman at her level saying and doing some of the things she says and does is like nails screeching against a blackboard for me. And while she ultimately helps Democrats in any partisan contest, her brand of polarizing politics and efforts to annihilate the moderate wing of the Republican Party ultimately ar ...

Updated: Wed Nov 18, 2009

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What's a Woman To Do About Mammography? for 11/20/2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

So, as it turns out, did I not need to have my breasts squeezed in the mammogram machines every year between the ages of 40 and 50? Could I have missed the two scares in there, especially the one when both of my kids were babies?

Maybe. Or rather, in my case, thank God, yes. Then again…

When I saw my doctor yesterday, the one I have trusted with my life and the lives of my childre ...

Updated: Fri Nov 20, 2009

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