Noblesse oblige
Doris Lessing stirred a literary tempest in the 1980s with an experiment intended to illustrate just how hard it was [...]
Mirror shots
When I finally reached a deal with my daughter to get an iPhone, or some derivation of it (she gave [...]
A malaise all its own
Long ago, when I taught political science to undergraduates I would stress the importance of assessing the spirit of any [...]
Violin lessons
Every time I return to my father’s house in Iowa, I try to whittle down my childhood belongings. I’m down [...]
No sweetness in sight
The aggressive nature of COVID-19’s so-called Delta variant — it seems to infect swiftly and at will — has caused [...]
Enough with the corpses!
I sometimes take a break to watch old episodes of the crime show "CSI", which started out focusing on a [...]
When the Gestapo starts streaming
I have a friend who can watch any movie, no matter how suspenseful or violent, with complete detachment. She scoffs [...]
Zoom the therapist
Talking to my friends recently gave me all the proof I needed that we've entered the time of "covidity," which [...]
Weaving a story
Storytelling is intrinsic to humanity. Since the dawn of time, people have felt compelled to tell stories, whether those stories [...]
On Sinovac, Delta, and gaps
Scores of countries, especially in the developing world, have based their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns on China's Sinovac and SinoPharm. I've [...]