Essay: Oliver North

Of the many measures of fame, one of the more useful is the injury-report index. A star makes the papers by dying. A superstar need only be hospitalized: when Sinatra's diverticula act up, you know about it. Higher up the celebrity scale are stars of a magnitude for which we have no adequate word and for whose well-being we can never have enough concern. Sitting monarchs and Presidents, for example. Two weeks ago Ronald Reagan incurred a "small, red bump" on his eyelid (caused by a contact lens). You could read about it on page 3 of the Washington Post. A...

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