Yesterday at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner in New York we had over twenty people, and two of them—my mother and my aunt—are over 90. Not only are they over 90, but they’re over 95. My mother is 97 but not … Continue reading →
[Hat tip: Althouse.] Here’s a fascinating look at the world’s oldest photos. They’re probably older than you think: But they’re not older than I’d think. That’s because my mother has in her possession a bunch of family photos from the … Continue reading →
I’m with Ann Coulter on Romney. Ordinarily Coulter is hardly a favorite columnist of mine, although this isn’t the first time I’ve agreed with her. But it very much surprises me that she’s touting Romney; I would have thought she’d … Continue reading →
I knew I was going to hate the new Yahoo email, and I now that I’ve been using it for six weeks I can say I was right and I do. I just didn’t know which features were going to … Continue reading →
I call my 97-year-old mother every couple of days. We talk, but the talks have a certain ritual quality. They nearly always begin with her asking me, “How are you and where are you?” Then they segue into old reliable, … Continue reading →
As a child I don’t think I was unusually susceptible to the power of advertising. I wasn’t especially into acquiring goods, either. But there were a couple of things I craved because I’d seen them on TV. They seemed magical, … Continue reading →
The news is out that a way to objectively document a patient’s pain is being developed: A team at Stanford University in California used computer learning software to sort through data generated by brain scans and detect when people were … Continue reading →
It may come as no surprise to you that I’m not a fast-food fan. For me it’s not the principle of the thing: I just don’t like the taste, for the most part. And if a lot of calories are … Continue reading →
I took this test of political orientation (hat tip: Althouse) and the results were no surprise: somewhat to the right, somewhat libertarian. Here were my actual figures, and where I stand on the grid: Economic Left/Right: 1.75 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92 … Continue reading →
Ronald Brownstein thinks that the recent ten-year stretch—the one that’s been going on since 9/11—is the worst America’s been through since the Civil War and then the Great Depression. I disagree. I think that the decade beginning some time in … Continue reading →
On body perception and the brain: This phenomenon doesn’t surprise me in the least. After my arm surgery, when my right elbow was frozen for a long time, I lost some of the sense that the arm belonged to me. … Continue reading →
The storm hasn’t really been all it was cracked up to be here. But tis enough, twill serve—in other words, there’s a power outage where I live. I’m sitting in a coffee shop right now, plugged into one of the … Continue reading →