The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.

I never accepted why there should be some invisible, wavy cutoff line separating Great Fiction from phosphorescent beauties and dollhouse miniatures, novels that contain a whole world in a snow globe.

What stars do in their off-hours is a never-ending source of diddling curiosity to the tabloid sensibility.

And what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of 'The Book of Mormon,' the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central's 'South Park,' are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.

Mitt Romney - he had a Rock Hudson thing going, shoeblack hair and a well-hung resume, but even for a shameless, position-shifting phony he seemed a trifle insincere.

High expectations weren't nurtured in my neck of nowhere back then - children weren't fawned over from an early age as 'gifted' and groomed for a prizewinning future; self-esteem was considered something you had to pick from the garden yourself.

At 'The Village Voice,' there were all these fevers inside the offices, that would break out into full-scale rumbles between writers.