These days, everybody—by which I mean every person who considers himself intelligent and educated—must have an opinion about everything. It would be socially irresponsible, even antisocial, not to be able to opine on each of the thousand burning ...
The most affecting e-mail I ever received was from a distinguished philosopher of my acquaintance. “All is well,” he wrote, “except that I am dying.” He was not the kind of man to write such a thing unless it were true, and he did indeed ...
I do not think ahead a great deal, much less am I a prophet, but I do take credit that for some considerable time I have wondered what would come next when people grew bored with the fashion for transsexualism. I plumped for incest, but Spain, ...
Absurdity is nothing new in human affairs, but it seems to be increasingly predominant in Western society since the vast expansion of tertiary education. Frequently one does not know whether to sit down because of the dangers posed by helpless ...
“Buy now, pay later!” The advertising slogan for a credit card put me in mind of the title of the first chapter of Lewis Carroll’s satire Sylvie and Bruno: “Less bread, more taxes!” The credit card offered interest-free credit for four ...
I wouldn’t recognize stock manipulation or accountancy fraud at its most blatant, but it doesn’t surprise me when others discover it. After murder, fraud was one of the first crimes committed by mankind. Jacob indulged it with the help of his ...
The London School of Economics has decided that it will not use dreadful words such as Christmas, Easter, Lent, and Michaelmas to designate its term times and holidays. Presumably, its management now congratulates itself that it has made a step ...
Immediately on reading of the recent mass shooting in Monterey Park that resulted in eleven deaths, or twelve if you count the perpetrator of it, I looked up the town on the internet, never having heard of it before. I was immediately directed to a ...
Few of us who live in modern countries can see the stars at night, or more than a few at most. This is because of light pollution, the production of artificial light at night that is not strictly necessary (though what is not strictly necessary is ...
It is much easier, and more fun, to denounce bad behavior than to behave well. Denunciation brings its pleasures, among which is the discomfiture, or worse, of the person or persons denounced. We love to imagine the squirming of someone under the ...
My relatively scant hair having grown into a porcupine-type mess and having both a video podcast and a dinner party to attend on the same day, I went to my barber to smarten myself up a little. His is still a cash-only business. No doubt such ...
There is, apparently, a saying in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the effect that anyone who says that he understands the Lebanon does not understand the Lebanon. I am not sure that this saying does not apply to most countries, possibly ...
