Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is quoted in the December 10 edition of the New York Times as saying: “I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.” He went on to say
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Fab Vocab
After recently adding a “subscribe” feature to my website, I discovered that WordPress’s initial form reply to people who sign up begins, “Howdy.” I like people who say “Howdy,” especially friends from places like Texas and California. But it isn’t
Compliments
It can be hard to take a compliment gracefully. Sometimes we feel undeserving. Other times we wonder if we are being manipulated. There are times we feel a compliment is discordant with our actual achievement, such as when veterans of recent wars
The Samurai, ISIS and Glory
Reading Yukio Mishima’s novel, Runaway Horses, about failed Samurai rebellions in nineteenth and twentieth century Japan, has caused me to look at ISIS from a safe distance. In both cases, the ideology is violent and the premature deaths of its
An Oral History Experience
Last week I recorded a version of my life story for a New York Public Library oral history project, an experience that caused me to think about how we communicate who we are. (The recordings are being posted here, and I assume mine will be sometime
The Social Dilemma of Metaphor
Here are two headlines from the New York Times in the past two months: “Kids Can’t Learn Who Can’t See” (May 15, 2015, an opinion piece promoting early vision care) “Blind to a Child’s Obesity” (June 16, 2015, about parents who