Vladimir Putin decided to adopt tactics from the 1930s and 1940s to wage war against the Ukraine. This meant taking territory by killing as many inhabitants as feasible and destroying whatever buildings and infrastructure existed in the area declared “captured.” Each village, town Continue reading “Germ Warfare”
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic failure. During an unscheduled and allegedly unauthorized safety drill, one of the nuclear reactors overheated and exploded. A fire in the containment building was extinguished with water, but this worsened Continue reading “Column: Chernobyl Revisited”
Father Robert Drinan addressed my medical school class several months before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. He was a soft-spoken, modestly dressed Jesuit priest, who was invited to discuss with us and a patient, whom I shall call Mary, a distinctly spiritual dilemma. Continue reading “Column: Soul Search”
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree,” or so the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge imagined. Kublai Khan was the Mongol emperor of what is today China, Mongolia, Tibet, Myannmar and many other regions in southern Asia. He had enormous wealth and power and could do Continue reading “Column: Xanadu Takes Flight”
Forty years ago, two police detectives came to my office to question me about a murder. They did not flash any badges or provide any proof that they were actually police detectives.They both wore shabby suits and unpolished shoes. That was proof enough for me that they were what Continue reading “Columns: Privacy”
