Thomas Jefferson on Political Disagreements
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
Not long ago, I had the pleasure of reading Fooling Houdini, by Alex Stone. It is a marvelous book, part memoir about how his obsession with magic pulled him away from his career in physics, but also a wonderful explanation of the psychology of how magic works its wonders. Get rid of all those images…
WWII Gen. Terry de la Mesa Allen on military strategy: “Tactics are nine tenths audacity.”
I’ve been teaching college for four years now, at a pretty darn good college. But I’m not sure I’ve seen student writing quite as good as this undergraduate writing sample: There is a wide yawning black infinity. In every direction the extension is endless, the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal….
I thought I would share this paragraph with you: “They tramped through a land as exotic as North Africa, a land of village witches and exorcists, where the sick swallowed powdered amber or drank the dust of St. Peter’s bones. Big-wheeled carts clattered on iron rims over the cobblestones; the scenes painted on their sides…
I read for lots of reasons, of course. For entertainment. For information. For intellectual stimulation. To fill up a rainy day, since I can’t play piano for eight hours at a time. But another reason to read is to make me a better writer. In a wonderful essay in the Atlantic monthly, Richard Bausch makes…
Do you feel like your out of pocket medical expenses are growing? You are not alone. Even for people getting Medicare, the amount of money coming out of patients pockets is growing too. And it is growing not only because all health care spending is growing, but also because patients are being asked to bear…