Blog Posts (32)
May 17, 2013
Followers of this blog, and I mean both of you, know by now that I am a fan of getting the word out about good writing. Here’s a nice example from the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly. It is from the cover article, titled “We Will Never Run Out Of...
May 16, 2013
In a tremendous article in The Smithsonian Magazine, Richard Conniff writes about the largely unexplored oodles of microorganisms that make us what we are. The article overflows with wonderful facts: for instance, that there are 150 microbial species, ...
May 13, 2013
David Brooks is a pretty solidly moderate conservative, and one who is a big fan of behavioral science. But that doesn’t mean he can see beyond his own biases, especially when describing the differences between conservatives and liberals. He was part...
May 13, 2013
Matthew Herper and Erin Carlyle at Forbes magazine recently put together a wonderful picture, showing what kinds of diseases pharmaceutical companies are targeting now in developing new drugs. The bigger the bubble, the larger the number of drugs under...
May 6, 2013
I have written a couple blog posts recently based on reflections inspired by Daniel Okrent’s wonderful book, Last Call. But there are so many wonderful tidbits from this book, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite quotes.
First there is William ...
April 30, 2013
Powerful words from Thomas Paine, spoken September 11, 1777:
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
April 29, 2013
In many ways, Jeremy Bentham was all about equality. As the father of utilitarianism, he believed that all social policy should be designed to maximize the happiness and pleasures of humans’ experience while minimizing the pains and miseries. And i...
April 26, 2013
“There are higher things in this life than the soft and easy enjoyment of material comfort. It is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness. We ask for a great navy, partly because we feel that no national life ...
April 24, 2013
“When we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solon’s remark that no more good must be attempted than the ...
April 19, 2013
Here is a link to a story about a very good friend of mine, Scott Mackler, who I wrote about in my book You’re Stronger Than You Think. Scott was diagnosed with ALS almost 15 years ago. His first symptoms were when he lost grip of a tennis racket...
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