Monthly Archives: May 2024

Mimì è Tanto Malata!

The title translates to “Mimì is very sick.” It’s from Act 3 of Puccini’s La Bohème. The outline of the episode is below. Mimì is dying from tuberculosis and her lover Rodolfo is too poor to help and wants her to leave him for another man who will better care for her. The scene represents…


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Malaria Prophylaxis with Subcutaneous Monoclonal Antibody

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates. Human malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, fatigue, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin 10 to 15 days after being bitten by an infected Anopheles mosquito. If not properly treated, people may have recurrences…


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New Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle Cell Disease is a disorder caused by a single mutation that results in the production of Hemoglobin S. It is an autosomal dominant disease as it is not on a sex chromosome. If both parents possess the abnormal gene and each pass a copy to his/her offspring the child has sickle cell disease. Thus,…


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Madama Butterfly Partially in HD -2024

No composer ever wrote a better opera than Puccini’s sad tale of love and abuse set in early 20th century Japan. The late Anthony Minghella’s production has been regularly staged at the Met since it opened the season in 2006. I was at that first performance and liked its colorful and spare staging except for…


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Van Gogh The Life – Book Review

In 2011 Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith published a biography of the Dutch artist in cooperation with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The volume at close to 1000 pages is an almost minute by minute account of the tortured life of one of art’s most acclaimed figures. The sequence of disasters that constitute…


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Lubbock – A Tale of Two Cities

There’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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Mammography Should Start at Age 40 Says Task Force

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) just released a new breast cancer mammography screening recommendation. It advised that mammography should start at age 40, though the report nowhere mentions this new start. The Task Force’s full report is appended below. Here are some direct quotations from the report which presumably contain the evidence for…


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Asmik Grigorian

Asmik Grigorian is a Lithuanian soprano (b 1981) who just made her Met debut in the title role of Madama Butterfly. She will repeat the role in the final telecast of this year’s Met in HD series on Saturday, May 11. Over the last decade, she has appeared in an astounding variety of roles at…


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