Brutal honesty can lead to the dark matters found in places most people don't want to go. Not Jesse Lipke. He went to Friday morning's premier of "The Dark Knight" hoping to see a brutally honest Batman. Along the way, Lipke pulled no punches as he talked to columnist Tom Loewy about the dark portions of his own life.

As summer approached, did anyone else say to themselves, “I have to get a tan before I can go outside?”

I called my wife before I left work. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was out of courtesy. Maybe it’s a habit my mom beat into my head. Or maybe I’m just not that bright.

With the events of recent days, the mayor's race relations commission has enough raw meat to gorge itself.

The other day, I was telling a friend how great the Writers Guild is because I will have medical insurance and a pension for the rest of my life. However, my wife interjected that I was wrong. She had read our recent statement, and it didn't say I was covered "for life." It said I'm only covered through the year 2099.

In the 1970s, malls signified the future — younger, fresher, cleaner and hipper centers of commercial bustle. Once a cornfield, it’s now congested — a place of sidewalk sales with no sidewalks that’s both a symbol of sprawl and a place where fond memories are forged.

We have received about 80 catalogues this summer selling dorm “essentials” and I see that things have changed a bit since I went off to college in 1984. I thought the ’80s were supposedly the decade of greed, and the rotten economy right now is supposedly dictating simpler living. If so, why have the expectations for dorm rooms grown so much?

My husband and I are new homeowners. And when I say new, I mean we had a new house built and moved into it last August. Prior to this we rented a townhouse in a nicely landscaped development about a mile away. We had no lawn to mow, no household projects to complete (those were up to the landlord) and looking back now, we’ll concede, the livin’ was easy. 

"Alice in the Looking Glass" invokes “curiouser and curiouser.” Not long ago, the Democratic presidential nominee-to-be was an elitist bigot, hectoring the middle class on religion and guns.

The butterfly effect of the atmosphere states that the mere fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon Rainforest can have substantial effects on the total weather of the planet. I think a butterfly effect also operates on the global economy.

"WALL-E” has one of the cutest robots on record and enough animated magic to light up the galaxy but, like the machines it makes into heroes, the movie has no soul.

Check out his briefs.

I have a friend who is the assistant director of community services for a small town. I happened upon his name this week as I was reading some newspapers online. He was interviewed by the local newspaper about the community’s Fourth of July celebration.

“Did you have a good day?” On the surface it seems to be the simplest of questions, but when you stop and think about it, the criteria upon which such a judgment is made varies for almost every person.

There is a growing tendency on the part of political candidates to tell the crowds what they assume to be the truth with little attention to reality but total concern for their electability.