Women are affected by lunar tides only once a month; men have raging hormones every day.

A friendship between reporter and source lasts only until it is profitable for one to betray the other.

Everybody is continuously connected to everybody else on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Reddit, e-mailing, texting, faster and faster, with the flood of information jeopardizing meaning. Everybody's talking at once in a hypnotic, hyper din: the cocktail party from hell.

Even when conservatives have all the marbles, they still act as if they're under siege. Now that they are under siege, it is no time for them to act as if they're losing their marbles.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.

Yet it's true that looks matter in politics... It is also true that perfecting the outer shell has become an obsession in this country... Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards almost always look good, and pretty much the same, in dark suits or casual wear. Fred Thompson always looks crepuscular and droopy. Often Hillary Clinton looks great, and sometimes she looks tired, heavier or puffier.

We are riveted by the soap operas of public lives. We admire the famous most for what makes them infamous: it reassures us that they are not better and no happier than all the people with their noses pressed hard against the glass.