Category Archives: Education

Too Much Bread

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st January 2023

Man does not live by it alone, but too much makes him obese. Not just physically fat, but mentally flabby as well. Until about the last 80 years the main human activity was devoted to survival. Hobbes famous declaration that in a state of nature – ie, one without government – life would be solitary,…


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Alma Mater Bans Language

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th December 2022

Not to be outdone by the parvenu institution on the west coast (Stanford for those of you who are not au courant), my alma mater and that of my children has decided to go full frontal and has banned language. As a loyal alum, I can not name the institution as it no longer has…


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On the Practice of Medicine

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th May 2021

As student, trainee, educator, scientist, practitioner, and occasionally as a patient I have observed medicine as an insider for close to two thirds of a century. While the power of medical technology has grown exponentially over this span, the general principles of medical practice remain the same. My subject is the interplay between these two…


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On Equality

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th August 2020

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… This self evident truth is obviously not self evident. Thomas Jefferson undoubtedly knew such to be the case. He meant that we all should be equal before the law and that the laws should be designed without bias or special benefit not thought…


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Everybody Should Get the Gold

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st June 2020

Are 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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Does a Physician Need to Attend College?

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st September 2019

There have been a spate of articles about the value of a college education. Most conclude that its value resides solely in a piece of paper that gets its owner a higher paying job. They go on to declare that most jobs really gain nothing from a college education. All of them allow that a…


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From Tolerance to Equality – Book Review

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th June 2019

Subtitled How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage, this book by Darel E Paul examines the phenomenon of same sex marriage, and a lot more. Paul is Professor of Political Science at Williams College – my alma mater and that of my two kids; accordingly I know a lot about its collective attitude. For him…


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We’re Number One

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd March 2015

You may have heard that Texas leads the US in new employment. Well, here’s one reason. The University of Texas at Austin is the state’s flagship institution of higher learning. It takes a lot of administrative support to keep such a big university turning out scholars in  Architecture to Writing and  everything in between. There…


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Student Loans

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th September 2012

The only segment of our economy that had experienced the same inflation as medical care is higher education. While there may be many causes for this expansion of cost the biggest is doubtless the easy availability of student loans. The federal government has recently assumed full responsibility for the vast majority of these instruments. Until now it…


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Res Ipsa Loquitur

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th September 2012

But if you’d like to read more about this observation, ie SAT reading scores are at a decades long low, go here.


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