Category Archives: Uncategorized
To Err is Human, to Kvetch Divine
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th November 2020Earlier this month Commentary published its 75th anniversary issue. It contains a long dialogue (Editing Commentary – A Conversation) between John Podhoretz the magazine’s current editor and his father Norman a previous editor. The conversation, nine pages of it, is a largely congratulatory depiction of how heavily edited is the copy published. John describes an…
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Witchcraft
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th August 2020They’re back. Truth is, they never left. It’s just their cover that’s been discarded. In the age of gender fluidity they belong to whatever personal pronoun is in vogue. Plagues are NH4NO3 to them – ie, both fertilizer and explosive. Oedipus sought to end a plague which was caused by a curse which was cast…
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Where is Edmund Burke?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th August 2020The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer). Most have heard Burke’s famous observation about how easy it is to allow evil to prosper. His elaboration on the subject is less well known. His 18th century prose style is all…
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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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Maria Stuarda Not in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th May 2020Today was to be the final HD telecast of the Met’s 2019-20 season. But the company is as closed as an open mind. To compensate the Met broadcast, no TV, a 2013 performance of the opera that was to have been on had not the virus paralyzed the world. Maria Stuarda was Donizetti’s 100,345th opera…
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Chamber Music By Opera Composers
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th March 2020Most opera composers are specialists. There are only four greats who are equally noted for both operatic and instrumental music – Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, and Strauss. Chamber music is defined as: “Instrumental music played by a small ensemble, with one player to a part, the most important form being the string quartet which developed in…
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Nilsson in Italian Opera
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th March 2020Birgit Nilsson (1918-2005) was one of opera’s miracles. If you heard her during her prime, which roughly coincided with the first decade or so of her 22 years at the Met, you heard a unique voice. At its fullest, it was a Jovian thunderbolt. No technical challenge was too much for her. Vocally, she could…
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Porgy and Bess in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st February 2020The Met’s new production of Gershwin’s opera which opened its current season was telecast around the world today. Before getting to the performance, a few words about the opera. Though 80 years old, it is still under copyright as the Gershwin family has proved to be master manipulators of the relevant US law governing intellectual…
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On Tolerance III
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th January 2020You have to be a grown-up to be able to hear opposing view while remaining calm and granting these views a dispassionate analysis. Such behavior is beyond the capacity of most people – certainly those with strongly held beliefs. There are many people with such beliefs who feel compelled to insert them into ordinary conversations…
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On Tolerance II
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th January 2020As threatened last year, here is the continuation of my exegesis on tolerance. Our country’s founding document refers to”unalienable rights.” While only three were stated, it clearly indicated that there were more. In the almost quarter of a millennium since Jefferson’s Declaration the number of rights claimed by many has undergone an exponential expansion. Note…
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About Neil Kurtzman
Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.› Read the biography
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