I have been noticing how much public trouble is rooted in what seems to be the general human proclivity for kings. George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi are in the headlines now for wanting to be emperors, but it isn’t as if they are aberrations. It seems we love to have a single figure whose image …
Dear readers, perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been quiet for awhile. With springtime’s emphasis on rebirth, I like to think I’ve been hatching an egg, conceptually speaking. A new thought (new to me, I mean) has been taking possession of my mind and I’ve been readying myself to express it. I am beginning to think …
Next week is Passover, celebrating the liberation from slavery in Egypt described in the biblical book of Exodus. Like all Jewish holidays, it is a reminder. As we remove the chametz (leavened bread and similar foods not eaten during the holiday season) from our homes, we also search our souls, digging out whatever is puffed-up …
Yesterday’s New York Times reported on a study the Center on Education Policy will release tomorrow. The article’s headline says it all: “Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math.” CEP found that since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, “71 percent of the nation’s 15,000 school districts had reduced the …
A kind reader sent me information on a revealing psychological study at Emory University reported in the 22 June 2005 issue of the professional journal Biological Psychiatry. Subjects were asked to make simple determinations (e.g., which line is longer, which shape is the same?). Without social pressure, the answers would have been obvious. But the …
One unintended side-benefit of the recent orgy of censorship by the Federal Communications Commission has been the giggle of hearing all-grown-up journalists and lawyers pontificating on the news about “the S-word” and “the F-word.” When a coward like myself has to cover her eyes often during prime time to avoid close-ups of gunshot wounds and …
Consider the tale of DP World, Dubai’s state-owned company trying to spend almost $7 billion to buy a company that operates port terminals around the world, a few of which are in the U.S.A. This morning’s New York Times tells us that President Bush was shocked—I say, shocked— at the breadth and intensity of objections …
Our text for today is the parable of the parboiled frog. You know it: when a frog is dropped into boiling water, it immediately saves itself by jumping out. But when a frog is dropped into a lukewarm bath and the bath is gradually heated to boiling, the poor thing is lulled to death. Is …
Two of my readers have given me a lot to think about. They wrote comments on my February 12th blog, “The Fashion in Outrage,” about controversies over art. It contrasted Americans’ huge response to recent domestic literary scandals with our inertia with respect to political ones. From Israel: The fact that “tout le monde” is …
My friend was fulminating about the Bushies: “So their lies are piling up, a huge pile of deceit, and what can we do about it? We just have to sit it out till the next election? Why aren’t people up in arms?” (Maureen Dowd’s Saturday Times column has a good compilation of recent lies, if …