An unspoken maxim looms over the free speech crisis in our universities: it is only ever denied by those whose views fall in line with the current orthodoxy. For all its faults, and there were many, Britain’s previous government recognised …
My Professional Journey through Infectious Disease
In previous Brownstone Journal posts, I provided a view of American healthcare from the 30,000-foot level, and an experience I had back in 1978, while an internal medicine resident that had a profound impact on my subsequent professional practice. Today, …
Medical Education: A Critical Crossroads
Twenty years ago, as Director of Resident Education for the Department of Ophthalmology of a midwestern medical school, I was given a new task: transform our training program from structure-based to competency-based. There had been a sea change in medical …
Did Fauci Admit That School Closures Were a Mistake?
Anthony Fauci actually concedes that he may have been mistaken?
Stop the presses!
It’s hard to believe considering the list of his policy failures, spectacular misinformation, and revisionist history is almost quite literally endless.
Yet in a recent media interview, Fauci …
Children Are Gifts, Not Projects
A few nights back I had the pleasure of attending a Brownstone Supper Club presentation by Sheila Matthews-Gallo, the founder of AbleChild, an organization that fights against the widespread practice of plying our children—mostly boys—with psychotropic drugs in the name …
Why I quit as a school librarian
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided to quit my post as an assistant librarian at a private school, but it was most probably when Andersen Press defended its decision to publish a book intended for under-sevens that contained …
Why smartphones bamboozle politicians
The year is 2008. It’s break time, and my twin sister is a library monitor. A swell moves through the playground; packs of children are pulled like magnets to the big bay window of the library, where a note is …
What’s the Point of the Administrative Class?
The administrative class – at all levels, in all organizations – portrays itself as indispensable.
Nothing would get done without the smooth operation of the internal mechanics of a company, a government agency, any group you care to mention. Tasks must …
The Heroes Who Still Fight
For all my Covid writing, I probably don’t do enough to publicize the heroes of our freedom movement or the victories “our side” has achieved.
One group that’s clearly made a profound difference – and saved countless lives – is …
In defence of our new student radicals
Back in the Sixties, it was easy enough for conservatives to take pot shots at radical students. Not only were they out to subvert the state, but their lifestyle seemed calculated to transgress all standards of decency. They were long-haired …
The Service of Dissent
Is academic freedom becoming a casualty of the modern university, as the latter is transformed by the public-private partnerships that increasingly dominate our political life?
Just before Easter, a Montreal man, father of four and full professor at a university …
The truth about Britain’s teenage terrorists
To read a British newspaper or to listen to the rhetoric of counter-terrorism police, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country has incubated a new generation of child extremists. And not just any child extremists: unlike previous moral …
Letters to a Young Medical Student
The following text represents an interaction I had with a young medical student in the first year of medical school. I also include two brief excerpts showing how anti-intellectualism and closed mindedness are sabotaging key institutions, in this case the …
Nightmares of the Elite
Almost every night, I have the exact same dream, which might be described as a mild nightmare. In my dreams, I realize the world needs to be warned about the 100-percent capture rate of society’s “truth-seeking” organizations. The dreams always …
The plot against Britain’s children
Last year, the Financial Times reported from the village of Ichinono in Japan. In common with a lot of Japanese villages, Ichinono’s population is small, old and vanishing: just 53 people, most of them over retirement age. In Japan as …