June 5, 2023 A recent article in The Economist addressed global warming’s effect on India and Pakistan. With discussion of “wet-bulb” temperatures, a more complex measurement of heat impact; 35 about the limit humans can endure. Heat waves in those countries inch toward that. …

June 1, 2023 A French court decreed that a teenaged boy was entitled to compensation for having been born. Medics had failed to detect conditions resulting in severe birth defects, leaving the child deaf, mentally challenged, and nearly blind. Had his parents known to expect this, they’d have aborted. …

May 26, 2023 When “Florida Man” appears in a news headline, cue some real crazy shit going down. A Florida Man, Governor Ron DeSantis, has declared his presidential candidacy. Call me an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy, but I’m nostalgic for candidates talking about the actual, serious problems confronting the country. That ain’t…

May 23, 2023 Steve Glew was a Michigan machinist. A job he hated. Hated. But he loved his wife, a ’60s “flower child.” And his hobby, collecting old cereal boxes, which he found really cool. Glew was not your normal average Joe (or Steve). Maybe a little obsessive-compulsive. Searching for…

May 18, 2023 The Coddling of the American Mind is a great 2018 book by Jonathan Haidt, an NYU social and cultural psychologist, and attorney Greg Lukianoff, head of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It’s about “woke” witch hunting on campuses — universities intimidated by hard left activists…

May 14, 2023 I vividly remember when Obama’s 2008 election victory was declared, and TV showed a middle aged Black Chicago woman jumping up and down shouting, “God bless America! God bless America!” I didn’t vote for Obama (nor believe in God), but I understood that woman and it still…

May 11, 2023 This is the biggest foreign affairs crisis of my post-WWII lifetime. Shattering a world order which had seemingly eliminated the age-old curse of major power wars. Some “peace advocates” deem America and its Western allies blameworthy for the carnage, saying we should stop fueling it by supplying…

May 8, 2023 The 1970s through ’90s saw a great democratic floodtide. Since greatly receded. Many wonder whether its authoritarian antithesis is really the wave of the future. I’ve written about the power imbalance between good and evil, and that’s a big part of the story. Moral scruples restrain good…

May 4, 2023 Never a man of the left, I’ve always envied how they have all the good tropes when it comes to the arts. Poetry, songs, paintings. It’s so easy to create such stuff: anti-war, anti-pollution, anti-capitalist, etc., etc. I remarked upon this to my wife when I first…