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January 19, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Goodbye Art Buchwald

I was probably the only teenager in my home town who read Art Buchwald's column. Most of the important aspects of the Watergate scandal I learned from him. After I moved to Washington, I kept up with the dizzying social intrigues behind the Reagan Revolution thanks to Art Buchwald. He had a goofy grin that concealed the severe hardships of growing up in a broken family. He was a World War II veteran, part of the Greatest Generation. He wrote in short, simple sentences in the guise of innocence that cloaked sophisticated wit. Some people initially took his deadpan satiric columns at face value, and were left utterly befuddled. Art Buchwald lived a charmed life, sharing his wit and spreading his sly wisdom about the way Washington really works. Nothing against P.J. O'Rourke or Dave Barry, but [very few humor] writers of today's cynical world match his depth of human pathos. Yesterday Art Buchwald died peacefully after spending almost a year in a hospice, and of course the Washington Post has all the details about his wonderful life of humor. I'll miss him very much.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 20 Jan 2007, 10: 34 AM

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NOTE: Thus far, only blog posts related to politics and baseball are included in this list.

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)