Quotes Uncovered: Dying for Opinions and Making History
A while back, I invited readers to submit quotations for which they wanted me to try to trace the origins, using The Yale Book of Quotations and more recent research by me. Hundreds of people have responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a few per week. Read More »
Feeling Better Lately?
It seems the recession may be good for your health. A new paper by Stephen Bezruchka in the Canadian Medical Association Journal confirms that economic recessions in the 20th century actually led to declines in mortality. Read More »
Is the S.E.C. More or Less Scary Today?
Let’s say you are currently running your own shady investment scheme. Perhaps you, like Madoff, have anticipated many times over the day that you would be exposed. And yet you haven’t yet been. Do the current revelations about the S.E.C.’s ineptitude give you comfort, believing the agency is congenitally incapable of rooting out fraudsters unless they confess to their own sons, or are you more frightened today than you were yesterday, believing the agency cannot possibly perform any worse than it has in the past and that your days are numbered? Read More »
HHS's DIY H1N1 PSA
For all the anxiety surrounding the spread of swine flu, some of the most effective flu countermeasures are also the cheapest and simplest: social distancing (keeping about three feet away from potentially infected people) and washing your hands. Read More »
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