I'm working on columnness right now so that I won't have to send one in while Leonard and I are away. My most recent published MC Masala: on the history of medicine and perspective. There …

Freaking prejudice! Freaking lack of metacognition! Aaargh! If our assumptions blind us to what's really going on, how can we make sure we're acting ethically? One example: in sex, in psychology experiments, in drug use, …

"What about taking Communion moves you so much?" In one gesture it sort of sums up the craziness and beauty of human life, which is that you are a soul in a piece of meat, …

I'm reading Roy Porter's book The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity for my class on emerging technologies. My group is studying the introduction of digital patient records, so I'm reading the …

One of the things I like best about Hugo Schwyzer's blog is that he regularly posts poetry, such as W.H. Auden's "A Walk After Dark." Poetry requires the most concentration of anything that comes into …

Yesterday I took the day off from work to help Leonard get his Indian visa at the Indian consulate. (Later this year he's coming with me to see my parents in India, just before our …

I used to work at Salon, which means that I got to meet a lot of writers and editors. I had lunch with Cary Tennis a few times, hung out fairly regularly with Page Rockwell …

"I think that's how you get stronger, is working through the pain." "Not if you die!" "You might fall over, yeah. But that's just ... heightening the contradictions. It's a Leninist model of personal fitness."

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Jordan + Danny doesn't make sense. A strong, competent, funny woman is going to fall for the plainly incompetent unimaginative junkie stalker? Somehow it's okay for the senior black …

Every year I try not to pay attention to Valentine's Day or the Academy Awards, and every year I catch them out of the corner of an eye. They're manufactured fusses, and the more secure …