Author Archive

The Nerve and Arrogance of Missionaries

Written by Lionel Tiger on May 22, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Everyone is now overfamiliar with the event of several weeks ago, when an American missionary mother and her daughter were killed by a bullet fired at their plane, which a Peruvian fighter pilot decided was running drugs. While it was first a poignant human tragedy, it was also a political one, especially since American antidrug
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Brain-and-Mouth Disease: Nonsense About Low-Fat Diets

Written by Lionel Tiger on May 8, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

In 1992 I published a book called The Pursuit of Pleasure in which I argued that there were evolution-based reasons for seeking out what provided pleasure. Included, of course, was food. In addition, I suggested that the wine with which it is often associated might also, when consumed in moderation, have moderate but real health
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The Lord’s Bureaucrats and This Whole Faith-Based Initiatives Thing

Written by Lionel Tiger on April 10, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

It must have seemed like a good idea in the small Texas town where it was incubated or considered. But it turns out the freshly innocent idea of giving churches money to do social service threatens to turn into an immense mess. But what could be wrong in principle with giving extra money to institutions
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Free the Carafe!

Written by Lionel Tiger on March 27, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

There are a number of words or phrases in the English language that are simply pleasing. They invariably evoke interestingly positive responses. One such word is "meadow." Such a phrase is "spring training." And another word is "bistro." Anyone who has spent any time at all in Europe and especially France from where the word
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Genomics: Finding the Secular Grail

Written by Lionel Tiger on March 13, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

During the Blitz of London in World War II, the authorities prepared bomb shelters in the subway. People were far safer there than on the surface of an area attacked repeatedly, especially at night. Henry Moore did a series of evocative drawings of the hushed and constrained life. As the planning of the shelters proceeded,
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Money and Human Nature

Written by Lionel Tiger on February 27, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

If you want to get a sense of how serious the current recession threatens to get, all you have to do is take the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. When you pass the dock facilities at Elizabeth compare to last year’s pile the number of empty shipping containers now mounted up with nothing to do.
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Dick Jokes for Women

Written by Lionel Tiger on February 13, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

One of the most dolorous public features of the breakdown of the Giuliani-Hanover marriage was the mayoral wife’s decision to take her earnest turn in the lineup of female actors reading The Vagina Monologues. It was clearly an aggressive and explicit act of revenge. However understandable it might have been, Hanover was willing to associate
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In Quebec, Everyone’s a Minority

Written by Lionel Tiger on January 30, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Stop the presses. A political leader has actually resigned on grounds of principle. This extraordinary eccentricity occurred two weeks ago in Quebec when the premier of the province, Lucien Bouchard, left office because he could no longer stomach the intransigent narrowness of too many fundamentalist separatists in his Parti Quebecois. While he was himself committed
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The Combustible Gas of Religion

Written by Lionel Tiger on January 16, 2001. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

They all of them committed a breach of national security. In the alarming new world of Jihad-for-breakfast they threatened to turn the United States into just another potential victim for just another holy war. It’s not the kind of war with which Americans are familiar. We’re learning, painfully, how to generate defense. But we haven’t
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What Are Those Well-Dressed Apes Doing?

Written by Lionel Tiger on December 19, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

The imperial women of wealthy cities set a high standard of personal decor. They turn the monthly flimflam of the fashion magazines into real people you can see in the streets, eateries, shops and the seemingly ceaseless cavalcade of charity balls. The various schemes of costume, makeup and creating a "look" that becomes the desirable
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