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“Mad Men” recap: Love, acid and whores. Lots of whores

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:45:00 +0000

If last week's "Mad Men" was packed with satisfying scenes – Ted getting advice from his dying friend, Peggy scolding Don, Don sweating and shaking in Ted's plane while Ted plays the hero, Sylvia leaving Don – then this week's episode was all agitation and mania with much less payoff. "The Crash" began with recklessness, progressed to madness, and closed with remorse. Along the way, there were strange and colorful moments: Ken crashed, then tap-danced. Stan arm wrestled, then got stabbed in the arm, then mourned his cousin, then made a pass. Sally scolded her brother, then sassed her mother, then told her father she hardly knows him. Peggy rolled her eyes at Don, comforted Ted, and turned down Stan's advance. And good lord, have we ever seen Peggy turn down an advance before? Pete, Duck, Abe, Ted ... Peggy has always been the girl who says yes to halfhearted passes. Maybe this means she's finally an adult.

The War on Drugs is a war on human nature

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:46:00 +0000

The question that tempts mankind to the use of substances controlled and uncontrolled is next of kin to Hamlet’s: to be, or not to be, someone or somewhere else. Escape from a grievous circumstance or the shambles of an unwanted self, the hope of finding at a higher altitude a new beginning or a better deal. Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars; give me leave to drown my sorrow in a quart of gin; wine, dear boy, and truth.

That the consummations of the wish to shuffle off the mortal coil are as old as the world itself was the message brought by Abraham Lincoln to an Illinois temperance society in 1842. “I have not inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating liquors commenced,” he said, “nor is it important to know.” It is sufficient to know that on first opening our eyes “upon the stage of existence,” we found “intoxicating liquor recognized by everybody, used by everybody, repudiated by nobody.”