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When determining who to blame for the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, don’t’ forget Sacha Baron Cohen. More than any other single person Cohen has established that it’s okay to lure others into humiliating themselves on-camera, then make the results public so the rest of us can enjoy a good laugh. The two classmates …

In a recent photo of the Obamas bicycling on Martha’s Vineyard, Michelle and their two girls are wearing helmets, Barack isn’t.   Message to the world: women and children need to wear bicycle helmets; real men don’t.

I can tell from the way my book The Quote Verifier gets referred to online these days that most of those who refer to it have only seen that work on Google Books. Needless to say this doesn’t please me. Better they should buy a copy, or at least look at it in the library. …

Years ago, while doing research for a book on risk-taking (Chancing It: Why We Take Risks), I interviewed lots of skydivers, rock climbers and the wire walker Philippe Petit. Even though such activities have caused countless fatalities, all told me they were sure they wouldn’t be one. Why? “Because I’m good at it.” The implication …

I’ve been a runner for decades, fully aware that the pounding was probably destroying my knees. A recent article in the Times says that to the contrary, this longtime conventional wisdom is wrong. Studies have found runners’ knees are stronger than those of non-runners, and less susceptible to injury. The same issue of the Times …

During a Los Angeles radio show about retrotalk, a caller told me that someone had recently told him, ‘’Don’t gaslight me.’’ The host, Patt Morrison – more of a movie buff than me – said that this alludes to the 1944 film Gaslight in which a man played by Charles Boyer tries to drive his …