Category Archives: Miscellany
The New Pandemic – Very Unique Verbal Tics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th January 2025There’s a current pandemic that no one seems to have noticed. Verbal tics and palsies have always been with us but they have grown to epidemic proportions since the recession of Covid. It has several variants, the most common of which is, you know. So pervasive is the you know variant that it has reached…
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San Francisco Ballet Goes to the Dogs
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd February 2024Some things are more eloquent than words. The brief video below serves no purpose other than mirth, though it shows that the dancers by the Bay have a sense of humor in posting the brief interlude. There’s always considerable risk when animals are assigned a part in a live performance. There is a great story…
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Disasters
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th January 2024Disasters come in many varieties. I will concentrate on one type which is man-made. Disasters are blame loaded. Preventing one accrues little credit. For example, no one writes a headline: Maintenace crew on Alaska Airlines tightens loose screws. Only after a sealed door blows off in midflight is public attention fixed. Or, Titanic completes maiden…
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Plagiarize
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th December 2023Plagiarism has become a hot button. The topic’s recent history is well-known to most people. I got the idea for this post from a source I will not acknowledge to remain constant with the subject’s tone. Tom Lehrer was a satirist who was popular a half-century or so back. One of his songs “Lobachevsky” was…
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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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No News
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th June 2023The title of this article is what’s available on the numerous TV outlets purporting to be purveyors of news. Their problem is time inflation. There just isn’t that much real news in comparison to the time devoted to its dissemination. The product delivered as “news” is largely devoid of content though enveloped in a sesquipidelian…
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Pronoun Dysphoria
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2023Pronoun madness has progressed to the point where even innocuous ones like us and we have been reshaped beyond analysis. Consider the following sentence from a New York Times article about bird flu published on April 23, 2023. The second sentence of the fourth paragraph reads as follows: “The Book of Matthew may assert that…
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Follow the Leader
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2022It (progressivism) is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby. GK Chesterton…
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Wisdom
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd September 2022Wisdom in an individual is hard to define. One almost has to resort to the Potter Stewart approach: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. Here’s a dictionary definition: “The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.” Neither Stewart or…
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Predicting Violent Behavior II
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th May 2022The latest shooting in Buffalo has prompted cries for the government to do something to prevent further events like the one now in everyone’s mind. The problem is that there is no ready solution. Predicting violent behavior is almost impossible. There was a study, now more than 30 years old, that presented case histories of…
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