Under My Skin
Commentary
Emeritus
Asking what an emeritus does all day sounds fair, but the question is harder to answer than it sounds.
Under My Skin
The fundamental things apply
I wrote my first column for this periodical 22 years ago; this will be my last.
Under My Skin
I have seen the future
Sometimes you have to look backward to look forward.
Under My Skin
Rules of incivility
Our job, often hard, is to always be civil. Society has zero tolerance for our ever being anything else.
Under My Skin
Rescue fantasies
In Walter Mitty moments, many of us daydream of glory: We’ll make that big discovery, score that disruptive app, homer in the bottom of the ninth...
Under My Skin
I don’t have much use for evidence
Evidence applies to populations, whereas I treat people, one at a time.
Under My Skin
Fear
Fear mystifies. Fear masquerades. Fear can be trivial or terrifying. But fear is always there.
Under My Skin
Retail neurosis
When I stopped by last August to pick up new eyeglass lenses, Harold the optician sat alone in his shop.
Under My Skin
“I go by thickness”
One of our...
Under My Skin
Patient, heal thyself!
Octavio has prostate cancer. His prostate growth is large but localized.
“What do your doctors suggest?” I asked him.
“They sent me to...
Under My Skin
Tyranny by the numbers
Measurement without meaning is tyranny.