Syndicated columns

Despite early appearances, the Trump administration’s abduction of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela doesn’t seem to be a regime change operation. After all, America is leaving the regime, now headed by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, in power. As of Monday, all of Venezuela’s ruling officials aside from Maduro appear to have remained in their posts, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who controls the police and was known as one of Maduro’s most fearsome enforcers.

America’s education system is in historic decline. According to the latest report card on 12th graders, students finishing high school have fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago.

In the days before Christmas, as measles, whooping cough and influenza continued to spread and surge across the country, the Department of Health and Human Services came perilously close to scrapping the nation’s long-standing list of recommended childhood vaccines.

Best. Political year. Ever. Amirite? For all of us who rolled into the year wondering “How much more chaotic could a second Trump term be?” 2025 did not disappoint.

I disagree with the anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, bitterly reactionary right-wing pundit Matt Walsh about basically everything, so I was surprised to come across a post of his that precisely sums up my view of artificial intelligence. “We’re sleepwalking into a dystopia that any rational person can see from miles away,” he wrote in November, adding, “Are we really just going to lie down and let AI take everything from us?”

Welcome to the 21st edition of the Sidney Awards. Every year, I give out extremely nonlucrative prizes, in honor of philosopher Sidney Hook, celebrating some of the best nonfiction essays of the year, especially the ones published in medium-size and small magazines. I figure this is a good time to take a step back from the Trump circus and read some broader reflections on life. The Sidneys are here to help.

This is the season when I customarily argue that the year just ending has been the best in human history.

As many readers know, I’m on a mission to see all my music heroes live before they depart the stage for good – and to urge you to do the same. This year, my message is: Hurry up, because the curtains are closing.

When pundits and media talking heads warn that the American family is in decline, what they’re really saying is that it looks drastically different today than it did even five years ago.

It’s fitting that the Oxford University Press’ 2025 word of the year is “rage bait,” because I’m convinced that’s the only way to describe the trend predictions for next year.

There have been at least 75 school shootings in the United States in 2025. Some of the victims of the Dec. 13 shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, had even faced a shooter at school before.

The holidays have arrived once again. You know, that annual festival of goodwill, compulsory spending and the dawning realization that Santa and Satan are anagrams.