The Dignity of Sloth
Did you see this news story the other day? An online game has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-AIDS drugs. The game, called Foldit, allows players to create new shapes of proteins ...
Did you see this news story the other day? An online game has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-AIDS drugs. The game, called Foldit, allows players to create new shapes of proteins ...
A teacher I know was once accused by a black mother of teaching her daughter appalling racist slurs in class. The angry parent complained that her little girl had come home the previous evening full of excited yet obscene ...
A new book called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses just proved what I"ve been screaming since I graduated: The college experience has become a total waste of time. The book revolves around ...
In 1941, in the plaza de toros of Mexico City, a nineteen-year-old audience member made foolhardy as a result of drinking tequila and reading Hemingway ran down through the stands and leaped into the ring with a half-ton ...
My first exposure to Straussian ideas was in college via a photocopy handout of passages from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. It was an eerie experience. The instructor seemed nervous, as if we were ...
For declaring in March that the U.S. economy might be reopened by Easter, President Donald Trump was roundly mocked. Yet, it appears his political instincts were correct. He was more in tune with his country than were his ...
"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia ... to influence the 2016 US presidential campaign." So stated Attorney General ...
SPECIAL EDITION: A BAD WEEK FOR OBAMA (Disclaimer: Please disregard all of the following, because the mainstream media and America’s social-sciences community have already established beyond all doubt that anyone who ...
College kids go through a strange phase where they decide it would be prudent to hang out with a hobo. Sometimes the kid is at the cheapest bar in town and he’s hammered enough to chat it up with a group of vagrants ...
Between a hollyhock and a lavender in my garden is suspended a spider’s web. There is a part in which the prey is caught, and another part, a funnel, in which the spider waits like a paparazzo awaiting the appearance of a ...
The Week’s Most Mothering, Smothering, and Othering Headlines BABY GOT BOUILLON Public Service Announcement: If you ever build a time machine, don’t travel back to the 1800s to give Frederick Douglass a briefing on the ...
“My goal is to save the public soul by first punching it in the face.” —Ezra Pound The main failure of the rise of the conservative right in America has been its fear of producing its own brand of cultural elitist in ...
Let this be a lesson for anyone trying to find something remotely redeeming in politics. President Obama's recent State of the Union address began like many speeches: with an anecdotal story. In recounting the hardships of ...
What is it with these baldies? I turned on the television last week and watched as the identical twin of E.T. asked a guest on Newsnight whether there should be a second referendum. To call that a loaded question would be a ...
Man is the only creature, as far as we know, that enjoys the contemplation of its own disappearance from the face of the earth. We find the prospect of our annihilation by disease, famine, war, asteroid, or climate change ...
While the world had its eyes trained on London's Olympics, a great many were staring at the planet Mars. On August 5, workers at the JPL's Mars Science Laboratory breathed a sigh of relief. Despite the “Seven Minutes ...
There are famous heroes and then there are unsung ones, and I basically prefer the latter as I have known a few of them in my lifetime. The funny thing is, I grew up learning only about famous heroes, the ancient Greek ...
Sociologists often talk or write nonsense. Sometimes they dress up the bleeding obvious in pretentious language. Sometimes they merely seem determined to demonstrate that they are more intelligent and understand things ...
When news broke on September 11, 2012 that an American embassy and consulate were besieged it was distressing. It only became alarming when the White House and American news organizations reported that the date’s ...
Ray Bradbury is dead. For the past twenty years I have dreaded writing those words. The effusive homages to a man who was arguably America's greatest living writer are in full flood; this is one of the few times they are ...
May I quote myself, please? Thank you. The remarkable thing about the Diversity cult is that all the circumstances of the actual human world refute its tenets, wherever we look. I don’t think it is an ...
Who says American manufacturing is dead? The nation has cornered the international market on making amends. Apologizing is a thriving industry. Call it Big Sorry. It wasn"t always like this. The "Checkers" ...
The Week’s Most Flaying, Spaying, and Memorial Daying Headlines OKAY, WHO CAUSED A TEMPORAL PARADOX? In the Bizarro 1980s (an inverted-reality dimension), Philip Michael Thomas became an A-list movie star after Miami ...
The forces that do not want a U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, nor any U.S. detente with Iran, are impressive. Among them are the Israelis and their powerful lobby AIPAC, the Saudis and their Sunni allies on the Persian Gulf, ...
