Mr. Clemens on a hotel housekeeper, a doctor’s fundraiser, and the nation’s two favorite sermons A letter to the editor, from the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the waiting room To the Editor: Sir — I have been asked to consider a small piece of news from the Read More …
Category: Opinion
A Note on the Sunshine State’s Latest Miracle
It is a well-established law of human progress in America that whenever a person accumulates more money than he can physically count, they develope a sudden, overwhelming affection for liberty. Nowhere on the globe is liberty worshipped with such pious fervor today as in the sunny peninsula of Florida. In former times, the wealthy were Read More …
The Lobster Deadline
A letter to the editor, from the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the supply closet To the Editor: Sir — I have met a good many frugal men in my time, and I have observed that the true test of frugality is not what a man does when Read More …
Total Control and a Borrowed Bucket
Mr. Clemens on the President’s diesel deal with Moscow A letter to the editor, from the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the fuel pump To the Editor: Sir — I spent the better part of my youth on the Mississippi, where I learned one rule above the rest: Read More …
Nine Bathrooms Out of Ten
A letter to the editor, from the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the rental listing To the Editor: Sir — I have in my time been shown a great many remarkable machines, and have found that the more remarkable the machine, the more modestly its inventor will describe Read More …
Built Together, Billed Separately
To the Editor: Sir — I see by the papers that a concern called Amazon, whose chief business appears to be the delivery of everything to everybody by Thursday, has announced that it will spend more than one billion dollars over five years upon the towns that have the misfortune to host its data centers. Read More …
The Television Is Watching You Back
I was raised to believe a television was a box you watched. It turns out I had the arrangement backwards. Researchers at UC Davis, University College London, and a university in Madrid sat down and did the plain, unglamorous work of watching what a smart TV sends out over the wire while you watch it. Read More …
Who Is for the Children?
Mark Twain gave the first Gilded Age its name, and I suspect he would not be surprised that we are due for a second. Gilt is cheap. It looks like gold from across the room. Chicago is holding an election for its school board on November 3rd. Twenty-one seats. Here is what I found: everyone Read More …
A Letter to the Editor
From the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the republic To the Editor: Sir — I have been dead a good while now, but a man does not have to be alive to recognize a confidence game. What is being run on the American public at present is as Read More …
The Poorhouse and the Powder Keg
I have lived in enough states to know that a man who tells you the trouble is Left against Right is usually selling something, and the thing he is selling is your attention, so you won’t notice who’s holding your wallet while you argue about the bathroom or sports. Here is what I notice instead. Read More …