Assistant Village Idiot

The Australian article about the attitudes of those in poverty is different enough that I could choose a half-dozen topics from it to riff ...

Talking with my patient who believes he is a prophet, which is why he doesn't need to take medication, I was reminded of my observation ...

A liberal coworker (but I repeat myself) was irritated and angry that nothing was coming up on the Trump-Russia-collusion thing, and complai...

We bought ancestry DNA tests for our three younger sons.  Two are adopted from Romania and we suspect they might have different fathers, the...

I recall claims that interpersonal violence went down in western Europe prior to the restriction of firearms there, and similarly that many ...

I found floating baths referenced in Olmstead's Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (in the online version recommended by ...

I don't put much effort into it.  I might try and leave less of an online trail if I were younger. But a week ago I wondered what a cham...

Do trolls and the disingenuous question-posers serve a useful social purpose in spite of themselves?

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into t...

After reading a few books on an historical topic, one can pick up some of its slants pretty quickly. Over vacation I read books on New ...

Most evangelicals have encountered sermons, books, or marriage classes that start from this concept. Over the decades, my own views on its a...

Maggie's Farm put up a video of Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine interviewing John Mackey of Whole Foods about the response of intellec...

Lelia posted an interesting article , translating a common interaction for the benefit of those on the autism spectrum. Briefly, when ...

I followed track and field for many years, and still pay a little attention to it.  Marty Liquori and Jim Ryun were childhood heroes of mine...

Andrew Stuttaford reporting over at NRO on the moving of a statue of Engels from Ukraine to Manchester, England, had a reminder of what the ...

James has a great idea. A news source that tells you what happened after .

Grim linked to a story about grandparents arriving to take custody of their grandson, but being prevented from doing so until they had given...

I just finished Tom Wolfe's The Kingdom of Speech and found it pretty convincing. I have said for years that as much as I objected to...

I recall Evan Thomas, editor of Newsweek, claiming in the late 1990's or early 2000's that the effect of the media was worth 10-15% ...