Imagine you are a 19-year-old Marine. You are riding in a Humvee with four other Marines — your friends — when an improvised explosive device (IED) explodes.

The devil is in the details.

Boy, do I feel sorry for smokers these days.

Washington’s self-created “fiscal cliff” crisis has been somewhat resolved, which means we can continue ignoring the real fiscal crises that are dead ahead.

It was one of my favorite rituals every year.

A butler opens the door of the large Sesame Street brownstone and guides me to the parlor. Big Bird is sitting on a large couch, wearing a silk smoking jacket, holding a bourbon and enjoying a drag on what appears to be an unfiltered Camel cigarette.

Michelle Dresbold knows more about the presidential candidates than most people.

In these partisan, highly divided times, people ask me why I'm a Republican.

I, for one, support what Moira Johnson is doing.

“Those Harry Potter fanatics actually want a made-up game to become an Olympic sport!”

I'm torn about it if you want to know the truth.

I’ll shut off my air conditioning if the government goes first.

I’ll shut off my air conditioning if the government goes first.

The balance between the police and the policed is getting way out of whack — and we better restore it now.

Students, faculty and parents, it is my honor to deliver a commencement speech today. I am about to do something I have never done as president: tell it like it is.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that minority births in America have eclipsed those of whites of European ancestry. Boy, have the media been in a tizzy over that one.

“Hello, Discovery, this is Mission Control. How are things going up there on your final mission, over?”

I stumbled upon my father’s 1959 income tax return a few years ago. How I long for the simplicity he enjoyed when he filed that year’s taxes.

President Obama, distraught by last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments, which do not appear to bode well for his health care plan, gathered his inner circle. Inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet,” he recited a tormented health care soliloquy:

Ah, the St. Patrick’s season is upon us. Good thing, for we’re in dire need of some Irish levity about now.

What's billed as America's biggest car show is wrapping in Chicago today. Boy, American concept cars sure aren't what they used to be.

Get this: Men and women are different.

Boy, did New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg get himself into a heap of trouble with educators.

It's been getting to me, I must admit.

Not until it got dark!

All anybody needs to know about economics is alive and well on Craigslist.

Tom Purcell

Tom Purcell

Tom Purcell

Tom Purcell

We got my father a tall flagpole for his birthday a decade or more ago, shortly after he and my mother moved into a new house.

Guest commentary by Tom Purcell

By Tom Purcell, guest commentary

It was the first time in my childhood when I had an excuse for being late for dinner, but nobody - not even the cops - would believe me.

I need to buy a new washing machine. I guess I'm out of luck.

Yo, Chris Christie, governor of New Joisey, how ya doin'?

By Tom Purcell, guest commentary

It figures.

Boy, school lunch sure has changed since I was a kid.

Get this: Rich folks aren’t feeling very rich.

Tom Purcell, guest commentary

Tom Purcell, guest commentary