“The decision to have children has always struck me as an essentially selfish one: You choose, out of a desire for fulfillment or self-betterment or curiosity or boredom or baby-mania or peer pressure, to bring a new human into this world. And it has never seemed more selfish than today. From a ... Continue reading
Free Big Macs for all!
February 17, 2012 By
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — First amendment to the US ... Continue reading
Turning lead into gold
June 28, 2009 By 2 Comments
I started college as a philosophy major. While my friends were agonizing their way through calculus and organic chemistry, I was happily holed up in the library stacks with musty volumes by Nietzsche, Socrates, Pascal, Descartes, Leibniz, et. al., or in the Student Union having deep conversations ... Continue reading
Confessing our national guilt
May 26, 2009 By
May 26 is National Sorry Day in Australia, a national attempt to heal the wounds of the century-long practice of forcibly removing mixed-race children from their Aboriginal mothers. This government policy, which was carried out for about 100 years from 1860 to modern times, is known to have ... Continue reading
Juno: A review
January 23, 2008 By
The movie opens with a young woman standing in her front yard chugging down a gallon jug of Sunny Delight. She makes a disparaging remark about a frumpy Lazy-Boy recliner sitting on the grass, then walks off down the sidewalk. As she strolls through a working class pre-war suburban neighborhood ... Continue reading
Candidates speak out on waterboarding
December 31, 2007 By
As we approach the primaries, many voters are interested in the candidates' positions on the controversial subject of waterboarding. As a public service, I am providing the following quotations:Rudy Giuliani on waterboarding: I'm in the same position now that I was 12 years ago when I ran for ... Continue reading
IVF and the ethical dilemmas of infertility
November 10, 2007 By 48 Comments
Justin and Heidi Dierking started trying to have children within months after they were married in 2004. At 32, Heidi married late (typical of many modern women) and knew that her body was in the late stages of its reproductive capabilities.Still childless two years later, the Dierkings began ... Continue reading
Abortion regrets
August 17, 2006 By
Jewish comedienne Julia Gorin has written a moving reflection about the children her family has lost to abortion. The Gorins lived in Russian during a time when families were encouraged to limit themselves to two children. Julia herself should have been aborted, but was spared. This knowledge weighs ... Continue reading
