The truth about much regarding the COVID-19 epidemic is that there is no knowledge. We do know what the virus does, and how it kills people. But why isn't the virus killing entire families, as did the Spanish Flu of a century ago. Alas, strapped for facts and pressed for sound bytes, that isn't crimping 'expert' commentary

Floundering, blind and deaf are our doctors and nurses. Each is concerned with finding and consolidating their own niche, finding somewhere safe where they will not be trampled upon, and resisting any moves by anyone who tries to direct their attention to the presence of the health system's elephantine deficiencies

As Paul Johnson put it, "What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria makes sense." Nevertheless it continues. Some random thoughts on the latest upsurge

Brexit, Trump, Macron, Wilders -- the final tallies list them all as winners, but the real victors have been the disgust and despair that directed voters to outsider alternatives. Democracy in action? Absolutely, but why does Lord Acton's famous maxim keep coming to mind?

If your ancestors, dear reader, were Europeans of any sort, know that they threw us out of their countries, or stood aside while we were persecuted, evicted and murdered. So emulate us and get a life! As individuals we have not spent 3,500 years wallowing in self-pity. We get on with it and so should you

AC Grayling's new book concludes with a pipe-dream of supra-national governance. History rejects any possibility of that being a workable option -- evidence rendered irrefutable by Europe's escalating exaltation of ethnicity, language and, in the case of Islam, aggressive intolerance

If reports are to be believed, one can now get sick with reckless impunity, as a swelling surplus of GPs stands ever ready to provide that sympathetic ear and appropriate prescription. Well that's what the newspapers say, even though your GP's answering machine begs to differ

The AMA website proclaims “Your family doctor: invaluable to your health”, but how many of us still have a family doctor? Far more likely is it that your needs are being handled by the first doctor available at a bulk-billing clinic. Continuity of care? Not these days

J by Howard Jacobson Jonathan Cape, 2014, 327 pages, $32.99 […]