The 2015-16 academic year has opened with a predictable collection of demands for banning certain views, often involving sexual or racial matters. Many are couched in convoluted claims that disagreeable speech is making students feel “unsafe.” Much of the squelching aims to fend off challenges to some of the more ludicrous theories of victimization. Well-constructed […]

The morning of the recent Republican debate, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the number of uninsured Americans in 2014 had dropped by about 9 million from the year before. This was thanks, of course, to the Affordable Care Act. So it did cross one’s mind that at least one of the Republican presidential candidates […]

It had to be a joke, a parody, I thought while reading of a new electronic gadget claiming to entice children to eat vegetables by rewarding them with video games. I’ve been taken in by less. But there was the Yumit being touted with a straight face on the website of the reputable Wired magazine. […]

Generals have marked their operations by putting pins on wall maps of the world. I could do the same for friends and neighbors who have just gotten back from some place and are about to leave for another. They often move in battalions meeting friends or family — who themselves have traveled great distances — […]

As wildfires plague much of the American West, one must ask, Who is paying to put them out? The answer is largely the American taxpayer. By that, we mean the taxpayers of Maryland, Tennessee and New Jersey — as well as those in California, Oregon, Washington and Montana, the states where the worst fires now […]

Broadway star Patti LuPone made headlines recently when she grabbed a cellphone from a woman texting in the second row. It may have helped that she was in character, playing a tough-broad diva from a community theater. The play, “Shows for Days,” was being performed at Lincoln Center, where generations of mostly well-mannered audiences have […]

There’s this great scene from “Law & Order” where Detective Briscoe shows a victim’s picture to a prostitute. He asks whether she knew of anyone who had “dated” him. “I didn’t, but he’s cute,” she says. “You’ve been at this too long, honey.” Briscoe replies. “He’s dead.” The political punditry seems unable to agree on […]

Time to drop this “war on coal” talk. Time to ignore the hollering by coal country politicians over President Obama’s beefed-up plan to combat global warming. No, the Clean Power Plan will not ruin their local economies, because coal has already done that, certainly in Appalachia. Look at those barren flats where majestic mountains once […]