If you have any say, you might want to avoid scheduling your next surgery on a Friday. The most comprehensive analysis of what happens to patients who have surgery on Fridays versus Mondays, published this month in JAMA by more than a dozen US and Canadian researchers, is unequivocal: The people who underwent all kinds […]

In the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the media did not exactly cover itself in glory. To quote myself from an early February 2020 piece, when the virus had already been spreading for more than a month in China and the US already had confirmed cases:  In the last week or so, new […]

Disney’s new live-action Snow White, dogged by controversy after controversy, must have been cursed at birth by a wicked fairy (oops, wait, wrong fairy tale). It has to be disconcerting for the studio. The original animated film was such a massive success when it was first released in 1937 that it more or less invented […]

The conservative philosopher GK Chesterton is known for a parable about two lawmakers who encounter a fence. One, brash and overeager, announces that he can’t see the point of the fence so it should be removed. The other, who Chesterton labels the “more intelligent type of reformer,” scolds his companion, warning him that they should […]

Conservative activists have been dreaming of dismantling the Department of Education for decades.  They’re closer than ever to achieving their goal. On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that he said would “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.” That comes after, earlier this month, the Department of Education […]