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Tribute to a Friendship
It began in Illinois decades ago, four young men having no idea they were forming a lifelong friendship. They were just having fun. “Friendship does not arise out of necessity, but out of pleasure,” wrote one of my favorite contemporary writers, Joseph Epstein, in Friendship: An Exposé (Link), a delightful discourse on the subject. The […]
Ben Franklin on inoculation
From time to time, when itching for a snippet of diversion, I’ll head to one of my book cases and scan the spines, searching for something to perk me up. I found myself doing that this afternoon. While skimming along a neglected lower shelf, I zeroed in on a small paperback I hadn’t touched in […]
Political Correctness, continued
As I said when posting my recent quiz on political correctness (see it here), I knew little about the term. At the time of that posting, PC was just a mild annoyance to me, probably because I don’t like others telling me how to talk (I prefer to put my own words in my mouth). […]
Political Correctness: A Quiz
I’m not well-versed in political correctness (see discussion here). In fact, this post is intended to be a learning experience for me, and maybe for readers as well. To this end, I’ve come up with a little beginner’s quiz, an imperfect tool to ease gently into the subject and maybe even discover a few basic […]
Examining “Shrinkflation”
Are you as inattentive when shopping as certain manufacturers think you are? Or have you noticed that many grocery items are appearing in smaller packages these days? It’s a neat trick, this shrinkflation, because even if the price per package doesn’t increase, the food inside a shrunken container obviously costs more. I first spotted this […]
Wuhan Waltz #3
As I indicated in my earlier posts on the Wuhan Institute of Virology ( A and B), I believe evidence suggests that this laboratory was the origin of Covid-19. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Dr. Robert Redfield (a virologist, and former director of the CDC) and Dr. Marc Siegel (clinical professor […]
Rounding up Reindeer
Although I’ve inhaled the pure air of Finland for no more than a few months, I’ve had an array of happy adventures while there. If you’ve read other posts in this blog, you may recall I’ve flown above Finland’s magical countryside on Midsummer Eve, watching bonfire after bonfire being set ablaze along the shores of […]
Ranking Russian Novelists
I was an undergraduate when I read The Brothers Karamazov, my first Russian novel. I powered through that mighty book in one intense weekend, shielded from interruptions by the closed door of my small room. Never before had a novel affected me like Dostoevsky’s classic. Its effect lingered for weeks. I followed up with Crime […]
Group Think
I apologize for the lack of activity here for two long weeks. I’m working on other projects and haven’t taken time to post anything fresh here. Yesterday, Independence Day, I heard someone sputter about “group think”, a common phrase these days. But when I heard the words yesterday, they set off that frustrating feeling you […]
John D. MacDonald
Do you know of John D. MacDonald? He was a highly prolific 20th Century writer with amazing talents. He usually is classified as a mystery writer, or a writer of crime and suspense novels, genres I’m not a fan of, but MacDonald was a master storyteller. His characters cleverly untangle themselves from the page and […]
