I don’t understand Donald Trump, he is anathema to everything I believe in, from the inherent worth of hard work, to the importance of intellectual pursuit and excellence, hell, even the idea that class is best represented by less not more. But more than simply not understanding him, I didn’t see him coming, I never imagined he would be the republican nominee, let alone the president, I was completely blindsided by this. Now, when I encounter something I don’t understand I always try to learn […]
Welcome to Westworld
Sometimes when reading a Cormac McCarthy novel I can’t help but wonder what kind of man he is, what kind of man would create such bleak and miserable worlds? This is pointless since I know from his biography that he is to all appearances a genial and downright nice human being. And perhaps writing books like this helps him in that regard, serves as a form of exorcism, his demons expelled onto paper allowing him go on living peacefully. But these are just useless random […]
Viruses and bacteria and parasites, oh my!
When I started reading “Pandemic” I was skeptical about whether it could teach me anything new, I’ve treated patients with Malaria, HIV, Brucella and Leishmania (although I have yet to encounter Cholera) and many more exotic pathogens, but was pleasantly surprised at how much there is to be gleamed from this short yet dense book. “Outbreaks are inevitable, but pandemics are optional”, this may seem like an odd proposition, but throughout her book, Shah shows how it is human agency and institutions that help spread […]
“Any country that would sacrifice a little liberty to gain a little security, deserves neither and will lose both”
When I was younger, my father told me that it is important to read the classics, the old masters. However, a person who only reads old stuffy tomes, tends to be a bit pretentious and what is worse, often boring. To avoid this worse-than-death fate, my father advised me to also be sure to read silly, weightless books, junk food for the mind he called it. And so when I was a child I picked up authors that would never be taught in any literature […]
God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but fire next time.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is divided into three short novellas, the first tells of a bumbling but gentle hearted monk, who during lent pilgrimage into the desert discovers a fall out bunker. This particular bunker seems to have been the final resting place of a Jewish scientist, dead these past 600 years, who sacrificed his life to protecting books and knowledge from ignorant hordes intent on burning them in a period aptly dubbed the “simplification”. The artifacts found in the bunker allow the monastery the […]
It’s good to be king
“I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.” Oh boy do I need to step up my review writing game, between a ridiculously long illness and studying for the USMLE exams, I haven’t had a lot of spare time to write. To compound the problem, I was tackling a mammoth of a book, […]