Note: This article is excerpted from the author’s new book “One-line Wonders: Humor in the Fast Lane.”

Music is said to be the universal language. The same could be said of humor. Just as people the world over like to listen to and play music, so they like to listen t...

(The following is an edited transcript of the keynote speech that opened a Toastmasters international speech contest among contestants from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Toastmasters is a worldwide club dedicated to improving public speaking. The contest took place on 20 Ap...

Conspiracy theories are rife and according to some observers more so today than at any time in recent history. This would be a difficult assertion to confirm; what is incontestable is that hatching conspiracy theories seems to be inherent in the human psyche.

I am ...

I am a devout agnostic. I consider claims of religion per se, this means all religions (Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, etc.), to be doubtful, often to the point of absurdity. I do not actively campaign to convince religious people to share my doubts; however, when...

It is amazing what you can learn on the internet. Recently while surfing the Web, I came across what could be the solution to the never-ending dispute over prayers in schools and other public places, which for so long has generate so much heat and so little light. It came in ...

The question posed in the title of this essay “should single-parent families be abolished” is not facetious. It is a direct outcome of the current heated debate about homosexual marriage, and by extension homosexual adoptions.

The Background

The idea of homos...

Native English-speakers are increasingly exhorted to learn foreign languages to play a more effective role in globalization. However, we tend not to learn foreign languages for three very valid reasons.

1. Many other peoples in the world are not just exhorted to lear...

For someone who loves science, as I do, it is disheartening to know that most people don’t love it. Some positively hate it and proudly announce the fact. But how many people would openly confess to hating art, i.e. painting, sculpture, theater, literature, etc.? Quite to the...

Many people believe that understanding science requires a special kind of thinking, i.e. that your brain must be wired differently from other people. According to Albert Einstein, who knew a thing or two about it, “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of eve...

Almost like clockwork, controversy regularly erupts over whether or not the biblical Ten Commandments (Decalogue) should be posted in courthouses, schools, city halls, state houses, Congress, etc. Proponents of posting the Ten Commandments claim that they provide the moral fo...