Originally, civilizations kept the fun part and the reproductive part of sex intimately entwined, so to speak. You could have wives and concubines, but they were all supposed to produce progeny. Man’s ingenuity (excuse me, person’s ingenuity) then invented the solely recreational part-time concubine, or hooker. (By the way, the origin of the term dates to […]

In his classic work Leviathan, which invented the concept of the social contract as underlying civilization,  Hobbes declares that “Life in a state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short.” This is still the situation in primitive uncivilized backwaters, such as Somalia, Afghanistan, and Detroit. But in general, we have created civilizations that enable most […]

As the Roman Empire sank into the mire, leaving behind magnificent ruins and a landscape filled with peasants who would one day lift themslves up from degradation to create pizza, their theater went to hell. The diction remained classy, but the staging began to include amputations and actual murders on stage. Which brings me to […]

The legislature of the State of Washington, no doubt totally stoned pursuant to their recent legalization of marijuana (pot, maryjane, reefer, Maui wowie, etc.), has just enacted a bill requiring the use of gender neutral language in all official documents. For example, “chairman” must now be changed to “chairperson.” This will undoubtedly lead to some […]

We’re running out of people. National fertility rates have dropped below the population sustaining level of 2.1 children per woman in virtually every significant ethnic group except for the Indians (the nyaayyaya variety, not the woo-woo-woo variety). There are a variety of causes adduced by experts, but the consensus is that the chief culprits are the […]