Gun to the Head
Utah Prof B.C.K. Patel: In my 17 years of training and working in England in the National Health Service, I saw exactly one gunshot wound. It was someone from a local shooting party who had accidentally shot her toes. Just in the last month in the US, I have had three patients with gunshot wounds to the face. Since statistics won’t work, I believe that only by reviewing real-life experiences might one explain that neither is their form of democracy worth exporting nor are their gun laws sensible.
FT Weekend
Vision Problems
Sussex Hugh Sharp: In his obituary, you describe Andy Ganteaume’s experience of scoring a century in his only Test match as ‘strange’. But it is not unique. Rodney Redmond scored 107 for New Zealand in 1973 in his debut Test against Pakistan, but was never selected again. You ascribe Ganteaume’s failure to hold his place to his slow scoring. Wisden records that Redmond had trouble with his contact lenses.
The Times
Semisensical
Singapore John O’Callaghan: One bit of punctuation that should follow the diastole, the trigon, the interpunct and the diple onto the scrap heap of history is the semicolon. Very few people know how to use it correctly. Kurt Vonnegut said it best: “Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
The Economist
