Essays
1093 results
Page 51
The bitcoin craze
If you say it’s money and I say it’s money….
What do bitcoins and tulips have in common? As the tulip was the fetish object of the 17th-Century Netherlands, so the bitcoin is of our digital age. But tulips, at least, were pleasing to the eye.
Essays
4 minute read
My person of the Year: Edward Snowden
The man who outed the dragon
Who changed the world in 2013? Time Magazine’s choice— Pope Francis— pales beside Edward Snowden, the man who blew the National Security Agency’s cover.
Essays
4 minute read
That miracle on the Hudson: Survivors' tales
I’m dying, and I didn’t make the bed!
How would you react if you knew your plane was about to crash? Thanks to the miraculous Hudson River landing of a disabled US Airways flight five years ago, we have some answers. As you might expect, they range from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Essays
2 minute read
Too many people? (a reply)
Population growth: Quality trumps quantity
A simple increase in the number of brains in the world doesn’t do you any good if the owners of those brains are all working in the rice fields growing rice. One educated brain is worth several dozen illiterate subsistence farmers.
Essays
4 minute read
Paul Walker’s ironic demise
Give me the simple death
Paul Walker, the star of movies about fiery car crashes, just died in a fiery car crash. Death, always, sucks. But an ironic death? Even worse.
Essays
2 minute read
Fear of spiders, real and projected
The cobwebs of your mind
The real danger posed by the tarantula on my floor lay not with the spider or even with my husband. It lay in my persistent fear of the social and financial consequences of divorce. In the same way, all of us project our fears onto others so that we see threats that don’t exist.
Essays
4 minute read
Scotland flirts with independence
Calling Rob Roy: It’s time for your breath test
Scotland, the rugged land that gave the world capitalism and more inventions than you can shake a stick at, is now contemplating rugged independence, the better to achieve a welfare state.
Essays
3 minute read
An entrepreneur solves Obamacare
Once and for all: Health care made easy
I am delighted to present PerryCare.gov, your one-stop shop for Obamacare.
This is the first ever fully functional, 100% ready-to-use Affordable Care Act Information and Election Website, and it's yours exclusively as a reader of Broad Street Review.
Essays
3 minute read
My schoolmate, Shaun Cassidy
Ready for my 15 minutes, Mr. DeMille
When I knew Shaun Cassidy in 1974, he was kind of cute and kind of vapid. But at 16, who wasn't?
Essays
4 minute read
Has Obamacare destroyed Obama?
Obama’s bridge too far
The continuing calamity of the Obamacare rollout tells Americans a great deal—about the intractability of our social problems, the gridlock of our political system and above all the character of Barack Obama himself.
Essays
6 minute read