Long ago when I was young and reasonably athletic I took great pains to stay that way. Whenever I did something potentially harmful to my health I’d make up for it by physically demanding even more from myself than I usually did. For example, were I to have a piece of pie topped with a […]

Where would we be without new ideas, new research and new technologies? It’s a rhetorical question, but one that should be asked whenever we hear people shout down the new in favor of the status quo. Granted, newer isn’t always better, but it often is. Remember when our gasoline was leaded? Emissions from leaded gasoline […]

Here we go again. At the rate these campus sexual abuse sagas are making news, it’s reasonable to ask what college administrators can possibly be thinking about. Here’s the latest Washington Post headline from the University of Virginia, an institution for which I have enormous respect and affection: “He said it was consensual. She said […]

Conventional wisdom says that Donald Trump will lose the presidential election, because he embodies values and practices rejected by most Americans. Whatever the dubious polling reports at any moment, reputable and successful forecasters see him losing the electoral vote by a landslide. Hillary Clinton would win as much because of Trump’s defects as her merits. […]

CLEVELAND — Two topics getting a lot of attention here this week won’t matter much in the fall. One is the Republican platform; the other is Donald Trump’s choice of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Platforms are generally forgotten as soon as they are adopted. As for vice presidents, studies consistently show […]

So there’s this game for mobile phones called “Pokémon Go,” and I’m pretty sure it’s a signal that the endtimes are finally here. In case you’ve spent the past month making wicker baskets with mountain Sherpas in a Tibetan village, the game involves following your phone to real-world locales in search of the titular Pokémon […]