We treasure our regrets. It ought to make no sense. Sadness causes pain. There have been times when something I wish I hadn’t said or done comes to mind and I wince or, even more embarrassing, groan aloud. Soldiers have regrets for actions committed

It’s said that comedy comes from a place of hurt, so that if the humor seems hurtful, no one is more hurt than the comedian. Still, when a white standup comic mimics some stereotype of a black man in a mocking way, is he bringing out the prejudices

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

It’s still February, but on Saturday we were given a glimpse of spring here in the improbably rural ambiance of a ninth floor terrace in Brooklyn Heights, across the East River from Wall Street. Already for a few days, a mourning dove had been cooing

Troglodytes were a tribe of cave dwellers. One of their descendants is American patriot Trumplodyte, living in a gold cave in the sky over Fifth Avenue. He loves his fellow Americans so much that he offered to come down and reign over them, even

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