Essays
1093 results
Page 70
Trayvon Martin: Reactions, black vs. white (1st comment)
Trayvon Martin and the double standard
Black men are instructed to behave compliantly around whites and avoid threatening behavior, like wearing a hoodie. But where does that leave my son, who is black and autistic and finds a hoodie comforting?
Essays
3 minute read
Lee Benson: The historian as activist
One historian who looked ahead
The late Penn historian Lee Benson contributed significantly to his field, but his shining moment may have occurred when he told his fellow historians to leave the sidelines and get involved.
Essays
3 minute read
Heart attack, Part 4: The prospect of surgery
‘Forget your cardiologist. You are my patient now'
After my second heart attack, my cardiologist was upbeat and I thought I was gradually recovering. But the surgeon had other ideas, and I was in no position to argue with him. Part 4 of Bob Levin's continuing saga of his travails as a heart patient.
China's surprise Pritzker winner
An amateur architect, and proud of it
Unlike most celebrity architects, Wang Shu is concerned not with creating grand monuments but with what people want. Above all, that involves recycling old buildings and materials as a way of maintaining continuity from past to future.
Essays
2 minute read
Prostate cancer and radioactive love
When your boyfriend becomes your girlfriend
Thanks to modern medical science, most men survive prostate cancer. But the doctors don't tell you that sometimes the process can transform a macho man into a girly-girl, at least temporarily.
Essays
3 minute read
"The Clinton Years' on Public TV
PBS goes belly-up for the Clintons
The Clintons are back with a PBS documentary, but did they ever go away? Was Bill Clinton a political genius or just a born seducer? In four hours, this quasi-hagiographical biopic manages to say remarkably little of substance about the first two-term Democratic presidency since FDR's.
Essays
7 minute read
On Whitney Houston and drug addiction
Who killed Whitney Houston? Or: Straight talk about drug addiction
Whitney Houston's recent death revealed again the extent of public ignorance about drug addiction. It's not so much a moral failing as a condition that strikes vulnerable people.
Essays
3 minute read
The ultimate rejection: Failing to make a minyan
Did you hear the one about the Jew who failed to make a minyan?
The stranger explained that I was needed for a minyan— the ten-person minimum necessary to conduct a Jewish religious service. But when the assembled worshippers beheld my scruffy countenance, they decided I wasn't necessary after all.
Essays
3 minute read
My wild adventures in poetry
My night with Emily Dickinson, and other adventures in poetry
Tired of your boring, humdrum life? As I discovered, once you dip your toes into poetry, you could be off on the wildest ride of your life.
Essays
5 minute read
Heart attack, Part 3: A survivor's tale
‘Five years ago you would be dead'
I had survived one heart attack. I had followed post-operative instructions faithfully. Yet here I was, the victim of a second heart attack, and my doctor telling me, "You must stay positive.”