People often distinguish between so-called “hot” (or “warm”) meals and “cold” meals, a distinction I’ve never fully understood.

For instance, someone will report they generally have their “hot” meal for lunch and something “cold” for dinner or vice versa, or they may evangelize with solicitous mien that everyone needs at least “one hot meal a day”—not one meal a day as opposed to nothing at all, but one hot meal as opposed to nothing but lowly cold fare—implying that hot meals supply us with something we require in a way that unhot meals do not, and that the former are of a somewhat more substantial meal-iness than their algid counterparts, as if only hot food were real food.

At least I don’t remember ever hearing anyone insist with parental inflection that in order to be properly nourished, one needed at least one cold meal a day.

I once overheard the following conversation on a train: … Read More →

On 17 March 2013, a boulder-sized meteorite allegedly crashed into Mare Imbrium on the lunar surface and “exploded in a flash nearly ten times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before,” according to Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

The moon having been struck by a rock—an occurrence about as common as a sunny day in the Sahara—sounds innocent enough. Although the atypical force of this particular impact may have justified the release of a statement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in order to brief amateur astronomers on the precise nature of the brighter-than-usual lunar blast they may have observed that day, why did it take NASA a full two months to do so?

Could it be that something other than a meteorite caused the exceptionally powerful explosion in March? … Read More →

Time of death is easily determined—but when exactly does human life begin?

The other day, I caught an interview with feminist in chief Gloria Steinem, during which she touted her decision to have an abortion at age 22 as the best decision she’d ever made and went on to extol elective pregnancy termination as an act of “liberation” for women.

Surely, though, if a woman elected to decapitate her toddler and bury the remains in the backyard, this would be no less an act of liberation from the trials and tribulations of motherhood as it would have been had she liberated herself a lot earlier in the process, yet we may assume that … Read More →

According to a 2007 Gallup poll, 55% of U.S. adults consider themselves morning people; 15% consider themselves afternoon people; 20% consider themselves evening people; and 6% consider themselves late night people.

Some research suggests that, on balance, self-identified early birds make more money; are more productive, healthier, and happier; and live longer. (If these qualities appeal to you, but you consider yourself an inveterate non-morning person, you can find instructions on how to become a morning person here.)

Although the jury on my personal longevity is still out, my excuse for never having any money is that I reside among the ill-fated 6% that … Read More →

Doing its part in helping to phase out the practice of labeling human beings, the AP Stylebook has officially mothballed the term “illegal immigrant.”

Henceforth, “illegal” shall be reserved for denoting actions and behaviors: although a person can still immigrate to or live in a country illegally, no person is illegal anymore.

Besides its dehumanizing—and racial—connotations, so the argument goes, when attached to a person the term “illegal” falls untenably short in the precision department, which is why courts and lawyers never use it in that way. In our legal system, after all, a person is innocent (= legal) … no, wait, “innocent” and “legal” are labels, too, are they not? … a person has … Read More →

Owing to the manifest difficulty of procuring objectively verifiable evidence one way or the other and the resultant unfalsifiability of individual claims, a measure of futility invariably attaches to disputes rooted in matters of personal taste.

If you were to insist that Hershey’s kisses are the most delicious candy on the market, I’d have a hard time “proving” to you that Hershey’s kisses pale in comparison to, say, Reese’s cups or Bounty bars. I know they do. I just can’t prove it. Truth, after all, is neither determined by a show of hands nor by unilateral profession of no matter how sincerely held a belief. And in some areas, such as sweetmeats or the arts, universal truths rendering alternative points of view inferior by definition may not … Read More →