Monthly Archives: June 2020
The NY Times is Still the Best
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th June 2020For those of you who are new to this site or just visit sporadically, we have a parrot, Groucho, who has been with us for 39 years. Several moons ago we got him a much larger cage. It’s so large, that in human terms it would be a three bedroom apartment. The cage resembles that…
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More Covid-19 Positive tests in Athletes
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th June 2020Sixteen NBA players have tested positive for the coronavirus of 302 players tested. As I’ve mentioned, eventually they’ll all test positive as the country refuses to grapple with the problem of false positive test for the virus. Until our medical officials wake up, athletics are not coming back.
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Athletes and the Coronavirus
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd June 2020Baseball, football, soccer basketball, golf, and for all I know tiddledywinks are planning to reopen, but not before testing their athletes daily for the Coronavirus. As I mentioned here earlier this month, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the sensitivity of the tests for the virus is no better than 70%. Our “experts”…
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Everybody Should Get the Gold
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st June 2020Are you lost daddy? I asked tenderly.Shut up he explained. Ring Lardner Un pour tous, tous pour un is the motto of Duma père’s The Three Musketeers. Today it has been modified to All for all from some, the second ‘all’ includes only enlightened thinkers. Consider the litany of wide-ranging demands from black students at the University…
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Top Ten Tenors List
Written by James Drake | 21st June 2020[James Drake is an internationally known author, pedagogue, administrator, and general all around expert on opera singers. He has written the definitive biography of Richard Tucker and several books on the legendary American soprano Rosa Ponselle. NK] In the mid-1970s, when I was writing occasional articles for High Fidelity, I interviewed renowned Ukranian-American basso Alexander Kipnis about…
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Yet Another Modest Proposal
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th June 2020The mayor of Duluth, MN has urged that the chief be dropped from all city titles as it marginalizes American Indians, who of course are not Indians, but Americans. She’d better be careful what she calls them. Obviously she has not gone far enough in erasing the margins. Nevertheless, she means well and should be…
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Apropos of Nothing – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th June 2020Woody Allen’s autobiography caught my attention because of its title. Any book with “Nothing” in its title demands my notice. Allen and I grew up in neighboring parts of Brooklyn at the same time. He went to Midwood High School, I to James Madison – the latter less than 2 miles south of Midwood. Both…
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The Invention of Jazz
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th June 2020The conventional view is that jazz is an American art form that originated in African-American communities of New Orleans. It was a derivative of blues and ragtime. Over time it split into many branches. When one thinks of the original New Orleans version, names like King Oliver (1881-1938), Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1940), and Louis Armstrong…
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The NEJM Discovers COVID-19 Sensitivity and Specificity
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th June 2020If you’ve been reading the articles here about the specificity and sensitivity of testing for COVID-19 you are aware that we lack critical information about the various tests used to diagnose the disease. The New England Journal of Medicine has just published an article about the sensitivity and specificity of testing for the Coronavirus. They…
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The Vanishing Patients
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th June 2020Medical facilities are bemoaning the loss of revenue that has followed the COVID-19 epidemic. The conventional explanation is that patients are staying away from hospitals and clinics because they think them unsafe and fear contracting the virus should they go. Hospitals say they’re losing $50 billion dollars a month. Extrapolated to a whole year that…
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