A Deadly Virus & A Disturbing Truth

New York Times-bestselling author Robin Cook wrote Pandemic, his medical-thriller more than two years before Covid-19. The pulse-pounding story begins when an unidentified, healthy, well-dressed woman is struck down by a sudden respiratory illness on the subway as opportunist thieves snatch her phone and backpack. By the time she’s rushed to hospital, she’s dead. Ending up on forensic pathologist… Read more »

Two Compelling Books

Peter Bergen – Trump And His Generals; The Cost Of Chaos It is a simple fact that no president in American history brought less foreign policy experience to the White House than Donald J. Trump. The real estate developer from Queens promised to bring his brash, zero-sum swagger to bear to cut through America’s most… Read more »

Bad Books, Bad Movies, & Polite Behavior

Since its publication in 1966, Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls has reigned as one of the most influential and beloved pieces of commercial fiction. Selling over thirty-one million copies worldwide, it revolutionized overnight the way books got sold, thanks to the tireless and canny self-promoting Susann. It also generated endless speculation about the author’s… Read more »

Challenging Covid With Music!

Barzin, the talented singer-songwriter, poet, all-round good guy, and friend of Life Elsewhere alerted us to a new compilation he had contributed a previously unreleased cut to. If Barzin was involved it had to be seriously worth checking out. We did. And, it is. “Love In The Time Of Covid” curated by Andrea Vascellari, is… Read more »

A Self-Isolating Conversation With Dr. Binoy Kampmark

The fourteen-hour time difference hardly seems to matter when you are self-isolating. Days seem to run into each other. Cable news doesn’t help, everyone is jibber-jabbering from their homes via Skype or Zoom, etc. The only slight relief from the monotonous drone of doom and gloom from the endless rotation of hostage-like videos is peering… Read more »

Two Cultural Phenomena

Each August staff and volunteers begin to construct Black Rock City, a temporary city located in the hostile and haunting Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada. Every September nearly seventy thousand people occupy the city for Burning Man, an event that creates the sixth-largest population center in Nevada. By mid-September, the infrastructure that supported the… Read more »

The Negativity Effect & Standing Out

Why are we devastated by a word of criticism even when it’s mixed with lavish praise? Because our brains are wired to focus on the bad. This negativity effect explains things great and small: why countries blunder into disastrous wars, why couples divorce, why people flub job interviews, how schools fail students, why football coaches… Read more »

Predictions & Resolutions 2020

Do you believe part of Nostradamus’s prophecies has come true? The famous French doctor and alchemist from the 16th century, apparently predicted the beginning of the Second World War, Hitler’s ascension, the fall of communism, President J. F. Kennedy’s assassination, India’s independence and the occurrence of Israel State on the world map. According to Nostradamus… Read more »

Peter Bergen. Jordan Ellenberg. Tana French. Matilda Mann.

Journalist, author and CNN national security analyst, Peter Bergen’s timely new book, Trump And His Generals reads like an outrageous fantasy thriller, set in Washington DC. The antics of the president and his cohorts as they proceed without customary norms to select generals for major posts in his administration could be sub-headed, “Truth Is Definitely… Read more »

Belief & Climate Change

Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope? Philosophers, theologians, social scientists, and historians have offered explanations for centuries, but their accounts often ignore or even avoid human evolution. Evolutionary scientists answer with proposals for why ritual, religion, and faith make sense as adaptations to past challenges or as by-products… Read more »

Neglected African American cemeteries are a haunting testament to perpetual racism

The Robles Park Village government housing project that sits atop Zion Cemetery is falling apart. Apartments are riddled with dangerous mold. Leaks and structural issues disturb the residents. Many are without air conditioning to ward off the deadly summer heat. Daily life is a struggle, and now there’s a spiritual fervor in the air. Since… Read more »