Monthly Archives: November 2023
Finale 39 – Benvenuto Cellini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th November 2023Hector Berlioz was among the most innovative and original of all the great composers. His first opera loosely based on an episode from the Renaissance artist’s memoirs was written in 1838. It sounds like nothing that preceded it. The music moves like the molten metal that is used to cast Cellini’s famous statue of Perseus…
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Autonomous Cars VS Autonomous Drivers
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd November 2023The problem with human intelligence is that its normal range is too broad. The difference between the lower limit of normal compared to the upper point of the normal range is so wide that the average comes in at such a low number that the ordinary performance of typical human functions is beyond the capacity…
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Finale 38 – Dialogues des Carmélites
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st November 2023Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc. It is the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce…
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Malcolm X in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th November 2023X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X was telecast today. As a piece of sophisticated parochialism it will grip the hearts of Upper West Side New Yorkers who regularly attend the Met. If you seek a work for the lyric theater that touches a spark common to all men you will not find it…
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Florencia en el Amazonas – Initial Impresssion
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th November 2023Last night the Met presented its first performance of the late Daniel Catán’s opera Florencia en el Amazonas. It takes place on a boat traveling down the Amazon to Manaus. Florencia is a legendary opera singer who’s lost her lover. I will have to wait for the telecast to comment on its staging so my…
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Estimated Lifetime Gained With Cancer Screening Tests
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th November 2023The title of this piece is that of a paper published by JAMA Internal Medicine. It is available at the end of this article. If you are a long-time reader of this site, you will appreciate that I have long been skeptical about the utility of screening for cancer. This view may seem odd to…
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Doing Nothing Comment
Written by Steve Balch | 6th November 2023Steve Balch is the emeritus Director of The Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University. He is also the founding President of the National Association of Scholars. If you’ve ever wondered what the practice of medicine would look like viewed through a proctoscope, the answers are here and they’re mainly hilarious….
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Health as a Human Right: A Position Paper From the ACP
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th November 2023The American College of Physicians, the country’s premiere organization devoted to Internal Medicine, has issued a position paper describing its commitment to health as a “human right”. It’s appended below so you can read it independent of my comments about its worth and coherence. The ACP and the authors of the paper are serious both…
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