The Misanthrope’s Corner

TEMPUS fidgets, as Cicero used to say. It’s the end of yet another year and time for my “Miscellaneous Misanthropy” column, the fruit of a computer file called “Mis. Mis” where I dump all the opinions and observations I didn’t have room for in previous columns. When the time comes, all it takes is a couple of keystrokes and up pops an effortless year-end roundup.

This year we have a problem. Now that my column appears in every issue I don’t have all that many notes left over. I do have a lot of unused news items, such as my favorite Richard Cohenism of 1996—“person-eating shark”— but so what? Political correctness is now so widespread that you could probably top it with an even more idiotic clipping of your own.

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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TEMPUS fidgets, as Cicero used to say. It’s the end of yet another year and time for my “Miscellaneous Misanthropy” column, the fruit of a computer file called “Mis. Mis” where I dump all the opinions and observations I didn’t have room for in previous columns. When the time comes, all it takes is a couple of keystrokes and up pops an effortless year-end roundup.

This year we have a problem. Now that my column appears in every issue I don’t have all that many notes left over. I do have a lot of unused news items, such as my favorite Richard Cohenism of 1996—“person-eating shark”— but so what? Political correctness is now so widespread that you could probably top it with an even more idiotic clipping of your own.