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What do we know after 9/11? little, if anything

Columns

Like most Americans who were adults on Sept. 11, 2001, my life is divided into “before” and “after” 9/11. I awoke to a phone call from a friend at the airport, where her flight had been canceled, and turned on the TV just a few minutes before the second plane hit the World Trade Center towers. At some point, I woke up my now-husband, and we went to a friend’s house to watch CNN for the rest of the day. Someone immediately suggested dropping bombs on Afghanistan, for the media had made it quickly apparent that it was the Taliban, the leaders of their nation, that was ...

Dear Annie: Family summer vacation turned stressful

Columns

Dear Annie: This past July, my husband and I rented a house near us so our two daughters, their husbands and our grandchildren could all spend time together. Since everyone lives several states apart, we thought it would be a wonderful chance to reconnect and hopefully start a yearly family tradition. We live only about 15 minutes from the rental, so during the day we planned activities in the mountains, and in the evenings everyone would come back to our house for dinner and time together. For most of the trip, things went well. But during the last couple of days, it became obvious ...

Are we getting dumber?

Columns

Is it the end of the Flynn effect? Decades ago, the researcher James Flynn recognized a secular increase in IQ scores around the world that amounted to humanity getting smarter all the time. Now, technology appears to be pushing the other way. The new results are in from a 2025 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development test of teenage educational achievement around the world, and it looks like the Flynn effect in reverse. “Learning outcomes have stagnated or declined in many countries, in some cases for well over a decade,” according to the OECD. It’s a ...

Dear Annie: Feeling guilty about being happy

Columns

Dear Annie: My twin sister and I have been compared to each other for as long as I can remember. As children, people compared our grades, our looks, our friends and even our personalities. We always laughed it off, but now that we are older, I’m beginning to realize how much those comparisons still affect me. My life has turned out very well. I have a successful career, a happy marriage, a comfortable home and enough financial security to travel and enjoy things I worked hard for. My sister has had a much rougher road. She went through a painful divorce, had to sell the house she ...

When war comes home: A Constitutional warning

Columns

A failed war does not end when the drones stop flying. It creates a new danger: A government that refuses to admit defeat and a president who, having failed abroad, seeks muscular victories elsewhere. The war against Iran is a case study in the limits of military power, the dangers of presidential overreach and the enduring wisdom of the Constitution’s separation of powers. It was unauthorized, unconstitutional, illegal, strategically incoherent and — by the standards by which wars must be judged — a geopolitical failure. The American people were told that force would achieve ...

Explaining autoimmune hemolytic anemia and its treatments

Columns

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m about to turn 70. A month ago, I was diagnosed with autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) that’s idiopathic. Two CT scans and many blood tests have cleared me of all tumors; however, my spleen’s enlarged. My hematologist put me on prednisone, which is working very well. I don’t know how long I’ll have to take prednisone, which I’m tolerating very well. I’d appreciate any information and advice that you have on AIHA. — M.L. ANSWER: As its name suggests (“hemo-” is blood, and “-lytic” is destruction), with this condition, the body’s immune ...