The Triumph of the Trivial

Recently I gave evidence in a tragic case in which a young man died whose life might have been saved if only the doctors had thought of the right diagnosis. It was not an easy case, and the doctors who missed the diagnosis were mortified, though in what proportion by the tragic outcome of the case itself, and in what proportion by wounded professional ...


Anything Goes No More

Teen pop star Miley Cyrus is in the news again. I think she bared her torso or the side of her breast or picked up a Playboy or something. How shocking! How did we get here? Back in the 70s, a ten-year-old Brooke Shields appeared ...

The Year in the Rear-View

A week is proverbially a long time in politics. A year is 52.14 times longer than that. Our own lives occupy the fronts of our minds, while public affairs rumble in the background. To most of us this was the year that Jimmy went off to ...

You’re Not Supposed to Notice

There seems to have been a lot of rioting recently. The Greeks are rioting over government spending cuts. Hockey fans rioted in Canada’s nicest city. Soccer fans staged a riot in Argentina. And…uh-oh, what’s this? Riots ...

Was Jesus a Pennsylvania Dutch Neocon?

During the last five years I"€™ve written provocative fortnightly columns for the Lancaster newspapers, and I periodically receive letters from an outraged older woman (or so my wife has guessed from her handwriting and historical ...

George Carlin

Seven Ideas You Can Never Discuss on Television

In 1972 comedian George Carlin famously delineated the "€œSeven Words You Can Never Say on Television."€ All seven words dealt with bodily parts or functions at a time when such things were simply not mentioned in polite company. ...

Loyalty to the Tribe

It’s been over six years since I last attended a church service. I maintain a proper humility toward large questions about the universe and human self-awareness, but I am a functional atheist. It seems highly improbable that my ...

The Tyranny of Availability

“I had a wonderful time—but this was not it,” is what I contemplated, then discarded, saying to the lady who had hosted the "€˜hat-party"€™. The lady in question was Kristina Szekely, the equivalent of Majorca's ...

Procrastinating, From Mallorca to Marbella

The longer we postpone things we must do, the harder it becomes to accomplish them, don"€™t you think? Take letters: guilt at not having written them compounds the delay"€“thus the guilt"€“until you convince yourself that, being ...

The Little Man and the Dentist

—-Forgive me for interrupting, the little man said, but I thought I had read his oeuvre complete and suddenly I see a title unknown to me. Ah, I said with contrived good grace (only a few pages to go), that may be because this ...


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