I’ve really resisted starting a blog. There are so many out there already. Who has time to read them all? I’m not an avid blog reader myself. We all spend so much time at the computer already, and I find myself eager to get done with my screen business so I can get back to reading my book. Truth to tell, I read only one blog regularly. Every morning when I fire up my computer, there is Diane...
While I was reading Stephen Pinker’s thoughtful article about Harvard’s battle with the Trump administration in the New York Times, I had an insight that surprised me. Ever since the infamous Elise Stefanik-led congressional hearings which led to the demise of several prestigious college presidents, including Claudine Gay of Harvard, I have feared for the future of higher education in America. I...
How does one choose what to read after War and Peace? During those priceless months of immersion in Moscow, Borodino and places between, I was compiling book recommendations from friends and reading intriguing book reviews, pondering my eventual reentry into the world of good, but not great. As you might guess, I knew it would have to be something short, and probably not a novel, to reduce the...
The garage at the University of Chicago Hospital sells discount booklets for parking in their facility. I should have bought one for this month. This is what’s on my May calendar: 5/1 Physical Therapy 5/9 Gastroenterologist 5/13 Primary Care physician 5/19 Physical Therapist 5/23 Orthopedics 5/27 Endocrinologist Appointment not yet made – Dermatologist Rosellen could expand the list even...
Just as I was about to sit down at my computer to begin this week’s posting, my phone lit up with the announcement that “We have a Pope.” I’m not really part of that We, but it was a historic moment, worth a detour to CNN, where I learned that the new Pope was an American, an outcome that few had predicted. To add a personal note, it turns out that he studied at The Catholic Theological Union...
In one of our friend Howard Mansfield’s many wonderful books, there’s a piece that’s on my mind for reasons that will become apparent if you read on. It’s the funny/not funny accounting of some of the crazy things that drivers of a certain age in his tranquil town of Hancock, New Hampshire do to/with their cars which, by any objective standards, they should no longer be driving. Driving into a...