I came of age near the end of the golden age of science. Stampeded by Sputnik, America revised its science curriculum in the early 1960s and I was a beneficiary. As a PhD student, I was supported for three years on an NIH training grant, and as a postdoc, I was supported for three years […]
When I was growing up in East Tennessee, there were some who claimed that water fluoridation was a communist plot. If that’s the case, then God is a communist because in many parts of the world, water is naturally fluoridated. Indeed, it was the recognition that natural fluoridation was associated with fewer dental caries that […]
My dad would stop by the airport LaRouche booths and argue with the nutjobs. Not sure why he found it amusing. He knew they were nuts, but he did it anyway. “It’s easy enough to do now what the dominant news media of the time did: look back on LaRouche as a joke, a once-in-a-generation […]
In his low-energy April Fools Day speech last night, Trump showed he hasn’t a clue how the world supply chains work: “In Wednesday night’s address to the nation, President Trump declared, “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet, we are there to help.” “We don’t have to be there — we don’t […]
In the film “Being There,” Chance the gardener is a simple-minded gardener who had never left the confines of his employer’s Washington D.C. townhouse. When the elderly man he worked for dies, Chance is forced to leave the house for the first time in his life. He encounters Eve Rand, who brings him home to […]
The right-wing prophecies: “Leading Trump sycophant Sean Hannity claimed tariffs would generate “a new golden age of American wealth and exceptionalism.” “Fox Business’ Elizabeth MacDonald stated Trump was trying to “reignite a manufacturing golden age.” “Newsmax host Carl Higbie declared, “American jobs being created because we want to make things more fair.” Reality, as we […]
The quote “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society” (is attributed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. As we enter the 2026 IRS filing season, you may be treated to the libertarian* propaganda that taxes are just government stealing. In a representative democracy such as ours, the majority has […]
When I retired, my health insurance became traditional Medicare, what right-wingers call “socialism.” I’d read enough not to be seduced by the candy offered in “Medicare Advantage” plans, the free market plans that were supposed to be superior to traditional Medicare. So far, no regrets for me. Sadly, tens of thousands of Americans do regret […]
Yesterday, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) called Social Security a ‘forced retirement program’ and said workers’ payroll contributions should be gambled on Wall Street. My senator, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) proposed adjusting the payroll wage cap so that people making over $400K per year begin paying their fair share — a “win-win.” Let’s take each of these […]
Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich died on March 13th. His 1968 book “The Population Bomb” was both influential and controversial in its time and has proven to be better fiction than science since then. I was required to read The Population Bomb in college. I recall being beguiled by its arguments and probably too by the […]