After giving us the gift of his music for nearly fifty years, Leonard Cohen has finally gone home: His son issued this statement on his father’s death: “My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the … Continue reading →
Appraently it was due to Tippi Hedren, the actress who starred in Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” and the mother of Melanie Griffith. Yes, that Tippi Hedren: “The Vietnamese just happened to be the immigrant group that was willing to do anything, … Continue reading →
That describes Aimee Copeland, a beautiful young woman who lost both hands, two feet, and one leg as a result of an attack of so-called flesh-eating bacteria (necrotizing fasciitis) after a zipline accident: Copeland looks forward to her career of … Continue reading →
Unless you were around in the early days of the blogsophere, you may not have heard of Steven den Beste, and the news that he has died may not mean much to you. But to those of us who remember … Continue reading →
This one: ”We go to college,” [Frost] wrote, ”to be given one more chance to learn to read in case we haven’t learned in high school.” He dropped out of both Harvard and Dartmouth, and married his high-school sweetheart with … Continue reading →
First, the obligatory opening caveat: I’m not a Christian. Nor am I an expert on Christianity. But I have read more than a superficial bit about it, and I know and deeply respect Christians generally. But one person who has … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] I can’t find the quote right now, but Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi—who wrote Survival In Auschwitz, which I consider the single most definitive and brilliant book on the camps from the … Continue reading →
[Hat tip: Open Blogger at Ace’s.] [NOTE: Part II can be found here.] Here is a fascinating interview with an elderly concentration camp survivor. If you’ve read or heard many camp survivors’ tales, the horrors he faced will not surprise … Continue reading →
A recent YouTube distraction of mine has been to watch videos about situations in which airplane passengers in small private planes were faced with the frightening necessity of landing the aircraft when the pilot of the planes suddenly died. Pretty … Continue reading →
I can’t say I ever expected to be writing a post in 2016 defending Paul Tsongas. But here it is. Tsongas was one of the very few politicians I’ve ever really liked. Here’s a post I wrote about him in … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I’m not becoming Tolstoy-obsessed, although I’ve written two days in a row on him. However, I think that the topic of both posts is not really Tolstoy per se, but larger philosophical questions about the good life, politics, and … Continue reading →
I’ve had many an argument—um, discussion—with my son on the topic of artificial intelligence. How far can it go? Could it ever include consciousness? Suffice to say we have not answered the question. Nor have scientists, although there is no … Continue reading →