The media push suicide as an acceptable answer to human difficulty. The latest example is a column by St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan, who extols the suicide of an elderly man as a “gift” because of the discussion about mortality it inspired. Think of the message this sends to people who are aged and worried about being “burdens.” For more information, check out my post on the matter over at Secondhand Smoke .
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…