The death of Alan Bean means only four of the 12 astronauts who set foot on the moon are walking the Earth. Bean, who became…
PRIME DIRECTIVE
Jeff Bezos is very excited that Amazon is saving “The Expanse”
The Rocinante will glide on. Jeff Bezos is so happy about Amazon Prime picking up The Expanse, the widely praised sci-fi show based on the…
CHARTED
America’s deadliest mass shootings kill more victims in schools than anywhere else
Even before 14 students and three staff members were killed at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, schools and universities ranked as the most…
NOT A ROCKIN' EVE
An Alcatraz prisoner on the special hell of New Year’s Eve
Party boats cruise by San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island year-round, including on New Year’s Eve. But New Year’s Day is one of few when tourists can’t…
MYSTERY TOUR
Use this lesson from the Beatles’ biggest failure to start the new year right
Fifty years ago today, the Beatles’ trippy, messy, opalescent made-for-TV movie Magical Mystery Tour aired on the BBC. It was a spectacular flop, critics of…
SKEPTICS ABROAD
The first JFK files ignited conspiracy theories around the world in 1964
Donald Trump has bowed to the wishes of the FBI and the CIA by withholding some of the JFK assassination documents the US government was…
MATTER OF FACT
Happy Columbus Day, America! Let’s call it 84 years and give it a rest
When fiction is celebrated as history, the damage is real. As the US slowly comes to its senses in reconsidering the honoring of Confederate heroes,…
PLAYBOYS
Without Hugh Hefner, there would be no Donald Trump
It’s not hard to draw a straight line from the man who mainstreamed modern media’s objectification of women to the election of a US president…
SWAT HAPPENED
The classic principle behind the most unexpected home run of 2017
Max Scherzer, star pitcher for Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals, said yesterday he’d be visiting a chiropractor for the stiff neck that knocked him out…
NEARLY PILOT ERROR
Sam Shepard’s iconic role in “The Right Stuff” wasn’t even in the original script
Sam Shepard, who died July 27 at age 73, will be forever linked with the role that transformed him from a boundary-breaking playwright into a…
NOT SO FAST
Two big things that aren’t changing after Donald Trump’s tweets on his transgender military ban
Donald Trump’s hasty July 26 announcement on Twitter saying he would ban transgender people from the US armed forces appears to overlook important realities, including…
MAGIC CARPET RIDE
The big “Aladdin” casting reveal doesn’t get Disney off the hook on race
Working the internet like it was something Uncle Walt had sketched out at his trademark drawing table, Disney Studios unveiled its big live-action Aladdin casting…
