On his 80th birthday, singer Leonard Cohen celebrated with a cigarette. “It’s the right age to recommence,” he said. When he died two years later, I have no doubt those last, painful years were made a bit pleasanter by a nicotine fix and the reassuring rituals of smoking. He wasn’t…

Given the state of affairs in Ukraine, we would hardly wish to model our educational and propaganda behavior on that of the Russians, yet it appears we are doing precisely that. Philosopher George Santayana famously warned that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” …

So you’re purring along — not even the right verb for the sound of silence — in your Tesla. You’re proud of your contribution to the environment, even if you turn a deaf ear to the latest shenanigans of Elon Musk in the Twittersphere. Or maybe you’re more down-market and…

Lost in the brouhaha of the Trump indictment were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ comments at a press conference last month that should raise concerns far beyond his assaults on the “woke” and Mickey Mouse. …

What you call someone who graduated last in their class at med school: doctor. If that gives you pause, note that medicine is one of the few disciplines, along with science and the teaching profession itself, in which a strong case can be made for higher education’s value. College has…

Still on the road at 81, Bob Dylan sings on newly remastered “Time Out of Mind” that “It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.” His face and voice are gnarly like the bark of an oak, every crevice revealing hard miles and hard living. The Dylan of today little…

Mark Twain reputedly said that “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” Whoever said it, it was never so true as the current molasses-pour of the materiel of warfighting for Ukraine. No tanks, then tanks. Still pending: fighter jets that U.S. President Joe Biden worries might stray into…

I like to imagine that I emerged into the world to the tune of a new hit, the silky chords behind Nat King Cole crooning “When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by if you smile,” putting words to the theme of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” back in…

Yesterday being Groundhog Day, it put me in mind of Bill Murray, whose movie was released 20 years ago this month. My encounters with him when he won the Mark Twain Prize were both scary and funny. But fun is the operative word, even when he was banging on my…