Helaine Olen – Private schools for the ultra-wealthy keep getting more opulent. Is it a problem if the somewhat wealthy feel left behind?

This past weekend the Los Angeles Times published a piece about recent or planned expansions and luxury level upgrades at a number of elite private schools, many located in rather exclusive neighborhoods of the city. Hancock Park’s Marlborough School, the paper reported, tore down a number of neighborhood homes to “add an Olympic sized aquatics center, fitness facility and expanded …

Obituary of the Democratic Party

Ordinarily I detest alliteration as the contrived deliberate mind-numbing of critical sensibilities, but here it works—and deserves usage. “Pusillanimous”—my trusty Webster’s Ninth Collegiate—is defined as, “lacking courage and resolution: marked by contemptible timidity” (1586), akin to cowardliness, itself opening a definitional Pandora’s box: “COWARDLY, PUSILLANIMOUS, CRAVEN, DASTARDLY mean having or showing a lack of courage. Cowardly implies a weak or …