The novel survives only in a series of extended fragments. But there are enough chapters for critics to agree that the high-living Petronius, nicknamed the "Judge of Elegance," was a brilliant cynic. He often mocked the cultural consequences of the sudden and disruptive influx of money and strangers from elsewhere in the Mediterranean region into a once-traditional Roman society. Published May 15, 2019
Democrats have grown infuriated by Attorney General William Barr's indifference to their hysteria over the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Published May 8, 2019
Hillary Clinton recently editorialized about the second volume of special counsel Robert Mueller's massive report. She concluded of the report's assorted testimonies and inside White House gossip concerning President Trump's words and actions that "any other person engaged in those acts would certainly have been indicted." Published May 1, 2019
Special counsel Robert Mueller's two-year, $30 million, 448-page report did not find collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Published April 24, 2019
Economist Herbert Stein's old adage — "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" — still holds. Published April 17, 2019
For more than six years, California has had a top marginal income tax rate of 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax. Published April 10, 2019
The Democratic Party has lots of radical new ideas, and lots of radical presidential candidates and politicos. Published April 3, 2019
Progressive candidates and new Democratic representatives have offered lots of radical new proposals lately about voting and voters. Published March 27, 2019
In 2016, Donald Trump overwhelmed 16 qualified Republican primary rivals and became the first major-party presidential nominee without prior political or military experience. Against even greater odds, Mr. Trump defeated in the general election a far better funded and politically connected Hillary Clinton. Published March 20, 2019
The 21st century is in danger of becoming an era of statue smashing and historical erasure. Not since the iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire or the epidemic of statue destruction during the French Revolution has the world seen anything like the current war on the past. Published March 13, 2019
Fifty years ago, the United States was facing crises and unrest on multiple fronts. Some predicted that internal chaos and revolution would unravel the nation. Published March 6, 2019
Californians brag that their state is the world's fifth-largest economy. They talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian gods. Published February 27, 2019
The reinvention of vocabulary can often be more effective than any social protest movement. Malarial swamps can become healthy "wetlands." Fetid "dumps" are often rebranded as green "landfills." Published February 20, 2019
Some polls put 76-year-old Joe Biden as the Democratic front-runner for the 2020 presidential election. There is certainly some logic to that reckoning. Published February 13, 2019
In the latter half of the 19th century and early in the 20th century, as Catholic immigrants poured in from Ireland and eastern Europe, an anti-Catholic wave spread over a mostly Protestant United States. The majority slur then was that Catholic newcomers' first loyalty would be to "Rome," not the United States. Published February 6, 2019
The news obsesses over the recent government shutdown, the latest Robert Mueller arrest and, of course, fake news — from the BuzzFeed Michael Cohen non-story to the smears of the Covington Catholic High School students. Published January 31, 2019
The Roman satirist Juvenal, in a famous passage, asked, "Who will watch the watchmen?" Published January 23, 2019
What are Donald Trump's chances for re-election in 2020? Published January 16, 2019
The year 2018 will be deplored by pundits as a bad year of more unpredictable Donald Trump, headlined by wild stock market gyrations, the melodramas of the Robert Mueller investigation and the musical-chair tenures of officials in the Trump administration. Published January 2, 2019
After 19 months, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has charged a number of targets with almost every conceivable sin — except collusion with Russia to throw an election. Yet suspicion of collusion was the reason that Mr. Mueller was appointed in the first place. Published December 26, 2018
