In The Family Sandwich, The Older People

We Don't Do Ambivalence Well In America. We Do Courage Of Our Convictions. We Do Might Makes Right. Ambivalence Is French. Certainty Is American.

Being Accused Of Making Money By Selling Sex In Hollywood, Home Of The Casting Couch And The Gratuitous Nude Scene, Is So Rich With Irony That It's A Better Subject For A Comic Novel Than A Column.... On One Coast The Cops Are Busting Sex Workers On Eighth Avenue, Dragging Them Downtown To Night Court Where They Pay The Fine And Go Right Back To Their Corner; On Another They're Charging Heidi Fleiss With Pandering In A Town In Which The Verb Is An Art Form.

The Pursuit Of Otherness, The Sense That We Are Somehow Different Than Our Brothers And Sisters, No Matter Where We Find Them, Allows For All The Other Great Evils: Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Violence Against Gay People And Against Women.

God Bless The Physician Who Warms The Speculum Or Holds Your Hand And Looks Into Your Eyes. Perhaps One Subtext Of The Health Caredebate Is A Yen To Be Treated Like A Whole Person, Not Just An Eye, An Ear, A Nose Or A Throat. A Yen To Be Human Again, On The Part Of Patient And Doctor Alike.

The Life Of A Good Dog Is Like The Life Of A Good Person, Only Shorter And More Compressed.