If they’re already complaining at Galatoire’s in the French Quarter about the impact of the oil spill, I wonder what Mrs. Chase and the brothers at Dooky Chase are saying. As the pending disaster snakes its way toward the Gulf Coast like a creepy crawler, the toll it will surely exact is the zillion-dollar mystery. Restaurants and cuisine are the…

Please permit a final few words about Dr. Dorothy I. Height before she’s assigned a slot in the Black History Month index. Here are some frank thoughts about her role as a woman of the movement versus a man of the movement. Although she was a legendary figure, I reject a lot of the phony…

What a difference a generation makes. We’ve gone from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founders’ sexcapades—infamously taped by the original TMZ gang, J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI voyeurs—to the continuing buffoonery of their heirs and disciples. The evolving scenario involves charges and counter-charges over who’s running the joint; characterizations of opponents as “thugs,” “renegades”…

As he ponders the “shellacking” the Democratic Party took in last Tuesday’s elections, President Obama should begin the second half of his term by overcoming his aversion to dealing with the bad things of the past. Remember, he rejected calls for investigations into possible wrongdoing by Bush administration officials, insisting that, instead, he preferred to…

When President Obama takes to the podium Thursday to deliver his vision of the Middle East, he will need all the magic of his oratory. In his two years in office, his message to allies and enemies in the world’s most contentious region has been confusing, at best. His administration has angered both Israelis and…

When I heard the historic announcement from Times Square the other day, that America’s top newspaper had named a woman as executive editor, my thoughts drifted back to the 1972-1981 decade at the paper, and the words of Dickens — almost cliché nowadays — seemed apt: “It was the best of times, it was the…

In a who-woulda-thunk-it scenario, about half of Washington, D.C.’s elected city officials are under one kind of cloud or another, a situation that has left residents angry, embarrassed, racially divided and fearful for the political future of their shaky and shaken local government. The controversies include the two top leaders of the district government —…

Who can blame anyone for wanting to get away from the stormy, humid clime that is the norm in the nation’s capital in August and repair to the quiet beaches, charming towns, delicious seafood and intimate parties that are mainstays of this island outpost off the Massachusetts coast? Well, anyone except for Barack Obama. The…

The Man nowadays can be female — even a minority woman — or a black police chief or black mayor, and cops will always be cops: “I was only following orders.” It’s true about cops; that’s what they do and have done since time immemorial. All of that and more has been on display since…