HUMOR | MEMOIRS

I am not a regular consumer of user-generated content, so I was tickled to learn of the latest trend on TikTok: sea shanties. When I first heard about it on NPR, I was immediately transported back to my youth. Neurons crackled to life and sent me not to my college sailing trip in the North Atlantic, nor to my earliest memories of my mother’s Clancy Brothers albums, but rather to a bizarre scene in between.

Four young men are crowded into a Honda Civic with the windows rolled down. I serve as the chanty man, singing a line, and the…

American Jews have many wonderful winter traditions. We light candles, sing songs, recite prayers, visit family, give gifts, fry foods savory and sweet, and kvetch about the December Dilemma. In fact, although candles, blessings, and songs all have the trappings of religion, hand wringing is the only practice tackled with true religious fervor.

The “December Dilemma” can best be defined as the feelings of isolation, invalidation, and deprivation experienced by those trying to observe a non-Christian religion in the midst of an overwhelming Christmas season. …

Any casual student of the American democratic experiment would be forgiven for believing that our country’s wacky electoral college system is an accurate description of state identity. Every four years, the TV networks depict the electoral college map with clearly defined blocks of bright blue and red. Although this shorthand, first utilized in 1976, provides a useful graphic for understanding election results, it also provides a false narrative about the connection between the popular vote and the electoral college.

This is not to say that the individual states do not have defined histories, symbolism, songs, stories, and pride. But our…

As I sit here only days away from the U.S. presidential election, wondering whether I will be drinking to celebrate or drinking to drown my sorrows (the drinking part is a given), I can’t help but wonder if elections are exercises in true indeterminism or simple predestination. In other words, does anything we do amount to a hill of beans? I suppose it depends on how one defines political momentum.

The Myth of Political Momentum

Political momentum is one of those handy terms overused and poorly defined by the media. Typically, it refers to short-term momentum, actions happening in the present tense, measured through political…

It’s no secret that most people can’t handle their technology.

Take digital watches. Back in 1978, author Douglas Adams commented that the earth’s “ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” As a child at the time, I took umbrage with his statement, mostly because I was a tech geek who loved my digital watch with its seven different tunes and an hourly “signal” alarm. But then the general public starting buying digital watches without actually reading the instructions. …

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a scientist, mostly because both my parents were scientists, and I understood the career path. I loved science, I loved visiting their research labs, and I presented kick-ass projects at the local science fair.

At no time in my youth did I plan to become a Medical Science Liaison. It was never on my radar.

MSLs are non-sales pharmaceutical representatives that build scientific rapport with key medical opinion leaders, serve as scientific peers and resources within the medical community, provide internal and external training, and support clinical trials. The first…

I am done with black bean burgers. Over. Finished. Kaput.

Sure, early on in my vegetarian life, finding a black bean burger in a standard Americana restaurant was a coup. It was an actual vegetarian meal, not simply a weak combination of salads or sides. Black beans were almost exotic in the pinto-standard Midwest. But that was many decades ago. Now, every black bean burger I see, even a good one, reeks of tokenism. It tells me this is the best you’re going to find in our carnivore establishment.

I first became vegetarian in Boulder, Colorado, where ovo-lacto and vegan…