It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.
My daughter, Grace, was not killed by a gun. She died suddenly at age 5 from a virulent form of strep. As I stood stunned in a church at her memorial, one of the hardest things I heard someone say was, 'I'm going to go home and hug my child a little tighter. ' 'Well, good for you,' I thought. 'I'm going to go home and scream. '
The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
The "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.
Among the cancers devouring the American body politic, one of the most virulent involves liberals who play the race card as carelessly as children playing 52 Pickup.
The anger that appears to be building up between the sexes becomes more virulent with every day that passes. And far from women taking the blame. . . the fact is that men are invariably portrayed as the bad guys. Being a good man is like being a good Nazi.
Success is virulent. Once you get the bug then it's in you.
Americans are in serious intellectual trouble - in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.