For more than 400 years, when 'ordinary' evidence was lacking, their legal systems asked God to inform them about defendants' criminal status.

There is an old Chinese curse which goes, "May you live in interesting times."

These days the latest hysteria is the toppling of statues by immoderate and ignorant people.

According to one of the founders of LinkedIn, each social network corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins.

Perhaps one of the more sensitive personal issues you can raise with people is that of dress.

A "factoid" was brought to my attention by the Italian journalist Giulio Meotti.

Did you have a good Easter weekend? If so, it wasn't Christian.

I cheer the non-experts.

In his diagnosis of the "malaises of modernity," the philosopher Charles Taylor claims that our disenchanted culture suffers from a lack of depth, particularly obvious "in what should be the crucial moments of life: birth, marriage, death."

No time or society, I imagine, is entirely without its ironies or contradictions.