I Demand a Recount

No, this isn’t about yesterday’s Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts. (Though it could be.) It’s about a slightly different special election: People magazine’s Web readers recently chose the Sexiest Dad Alive. It’s this guy, Dustin Moyer, a university police officer from Ashland, Missouri. He seems nice, too, and more power to him. What won it …

The Tantrum: Do Children Belong in Bars, Part 2?

No, they don’t–but I will offer a compromise position if you read on. I should begin by explaining that I am a longtime resident of Murray Hill, a neighborhood that was the epicenter of of fashionable Manhattan living around 1915. By the early 1990s, it was a little shabby but pleasant–it wasn’t decayed, just kind …

U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S… uh, we’ve got a leak here.

Parents! The disposable-diaper world has been rocked by controversy! Right now, Pampers is rolling out an improvement to its products, calling its Dry Max technology a revolutionary change in pee-sopping. (Briefly: More liquid-absorbing gel inside, and less papery pulp, creating a thinner diaper.) Ad Age reports that a small minority of consumers have been making …

We Are Rubber and You Are Glue

The American public, and especially its elected representatives, continue to have a bias against city life. Our politicians consistently talk about Middle American values, privileging Main Street over any other street, and (in the case of certain vice-presidential candidates) the way in which our small towns grow good people. (Never mind who she was quoting, …