Category Archives: Short piece
Law, Lawyers, and Other Fables
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th September 2024“No one is above the law” is a bit of thick BS that usually comes from the mouth or pen of a person of malign intent whose goal is to deprive others of their liberty or property. Unspoken is their self-exemption from the principle which seems to have no real use save as a cudgel….
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Remembrance of Things Past – A Fragment
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st July 2024It didn’t take a bit of cake dipped in tea, rather it oozed from my memory like an elderly snake as I paused between steps halted by the accumulation of years. A piece of the past, it came back to me in all its vivid complexity. I was a minor officer for a large medical…
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Making Life Better
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th July 2024Those passionate about improving things but without the wit to do it are the most dangerous humans on the planet. One sees this everywhere. Its most virulent form is the complex system. Solitary pursuits are the least affected. Those most committed to improving whatever slice of life has seized their attention invariably turn to the…
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Invention and the Arts
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th June 2024Art, in all its guises, is of course an invention. Its evolution was governed by the internal manipulation common to any human endeavor. But it was also greatly altered and influenced by inventions not initially intended to relate to art. Consider the discovery of electricity, most famously by Benjamin Franklin but by others as well,…
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Lubbock – A Tale of Two Cities
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th May 2024There’s an article in The American Mind a publication of the Claremont Institute that in its first half describes life in the city of Lubbock where I have lived for the last 40 years. It describes a series of municipal characteristics that have escaped my notice over those four decades. They include leaving personal items…
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Lifetime
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd January 2024You’ve likely received notices from various sources offering a lifetime of service for a relatively small fee. A typical promo is a lifetime of a huge amount of online storage (about 10TB or more) for $50. By comparison, Dropbox sells 2TB/year for around $120. Hence, the offer appears too good to be true. Well, it…
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Error
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th December 2023She’s been my lifelong companion. Never left my side for a nanosecond. I’m using the feminine just by default. Like the supreme being, error and gender are as unrelated as ham and gefilte fish. She doesn’t just afflict humans or other animate objects – she suffuses the universe and her basic nature is more mysterious…
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The Meaning of Life
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th December 2023Humans, at least since the time of the ancient Israelites, and the Greeks more than 2000 years ago, have tried to figure out why we are here and what is our purpose in the vast Cosmos we inhabit seemingly with the significance of a single photon in the Milky Way. Well, after a life approaching…
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Long Division
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th August 2023Dividing by two isn’t very hard. But if the divisor is large the resultant halves will also be quite large. The disposition of large countries has never been homogeneous no matter the dense accretion of national myths. Typically, there is a degree of truth on either side of internal disagreements. It is rare for one…
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Governance
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th July 2023People today seem utterly unsatisfied with the government under which they live. The more tolerant or representative a government is, the more vehement the expression of dissatisfaction. This obvious dissent from what the government proposes or allows among the democracies may merely reflect what people are permitted compared to governments that are more repressive. No…
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