A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.

To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.

The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.

Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.

I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.