Major League Baseball umpires get four weeks of paid vacation every summer. They don't actually shout "Play ball!" before games. And a tie does not, to my dismay, go to the runner. So reports my friend Bruce Weber , a New York Times staff writer and author of " As They See ...

This video compilation of "Finally, tonight..." TV news stories about holy visions in everyday objects come to us via Gawker :...

My college friend Bruce Weber, a reporter for the New York Times, is the author of " As They See `Em -- A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires " being published this month by Scribner.  The following is a lightly edited transcript of our recent e-mail exchange: EZ:  Take me...

 The dirty little secret … is that every Republican in this country wants [President Barack] Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so. I am willing to say it. We want him to fail because we want to preserve our country as we found it. We do not want to see a successful attack o...

In my nicely shrunken in-box this morning: Jim McCarthy -- Here's a question for you and you always have the answer!  Why in the world would anyone willingly use a self-service checkout at a grocery store or Home Depot?  Especially when odd items such as fruit, vegetables, loose scre...

The depraved, hate besotted fools from the Westboro Baptist Church -- the kooks who show up at the funerals of fallen soldiers with their "God Hates Fags!" signs -- are planning to picket Saturday afternoon's funeral of radio legend Paul Harvey, who died last week at 90 On irony in thi...

I'm just sayin'. If I had the acting skils and a little time on my hands today, I know I'd be working up a Roland Burris-themed parody of Chris Crocker's famous "Leave Britney Spears alone!" plea. The staunch supporters of our temporary senator -- those who  want us t...

So gather `round and raise your blessed voicesAnd enjoy that gospel bluegrass while you live.It's hard to find a banjo player up in heaven,There's some things even Jesus won't forgive            Austin Lounge Lizards See a...

The Reader's Ben Joravsky takes a hard, skeptical look at the city's Olympic bid and notes that, among other astonishing outlays, Chicago intends to spend $10.5 million to come up with a suitable Olympic mascot. The history of such mascots is inglorious and comical, and if we can't come ...

UPDATE: Quinn's in! Gov. Pat Quinn said today that if embattled U.S. Sen. Roland Burris doesn’t step down within the next two weeks, he wants lawmakers to send him a bill to set up a special election that could effectively remove Burris from office. Earlier-- Many Republican lawmakers argued (...