All that time that we spend tweeting our thoughts and emotions to our next of kin, we could be writing the great American novel, starting a business, or just living.
YouTube is covered in comments that would be better expressed - and better spelled - via a simple thumbs-up or down.
No one has debates on Twitter.
People talk to pass the time, share information, and entertain each other.
Stereotyped as convention-going, pocket-protector-wearing, chess-playing, infrequently-showering types, nerds are one of our society's most ridiculed groups. And, for a university with an international reputation as a bastion of intellectualism, Harvard is startlingly devoid of them.
While MIT and the University of Chicago duke it out for the title of nerdiest school, James Franco and Renee Zellweger show up at Harvard to party. Somehow, miracle of miracles, Harvard is 'cool.'
In society at large, nerds are law-abiding, caring, fundamentally good folk who keep the wheels of civilization grinding.
Harvard is nerd rehab. You have to check yourself in. Those who seek a school filled with self-proclaimed 'nerds,' seek elsewhere. Dropping the H bomb may brand you as an intellectual or a Kennedy. But it will not give you much nerd cred. And that's a good thing.
Harvard is a wondrously tolerant climate for debate and exchange among a wide variety of thoughts, backgrounds, and beliefs, but the voice of religion on campus is largely inaudible.
Nearly everything faith-related that I have done at Harvard has been followed by free food, from going to services at Harvard's Episcopal Chaplaincy to attending a day of interfaith discussion and dialogue hosted by the university chaplains in the fall.
I can be serious for an hour; then I have to go lie down.
The biggest way to be productive is if you're procrastinating on another more important project.
I think, when you're doing a column and blogging every day, you get familiar with the sound of your own voice.
As long as I'm writing stuff and people are reading it, I'll be happy.
Journalists run many risks. It comes with the profession.
Dull words are what make many bright sentences shine. They do not call attention to themselves.
They will wrest 'dull words' from my cold dead hands.
It's easier to find the joke in something when you think, 'This - this is ridiculous.'
Comedy and politics have a lot in common. Both are great ways to pick up chicks - just look at Governor Spitzer. Or Ellen Degeneres. Both require spending time on the road meeting strangers who often have the desire to throw things at you. Both are difficult, if not impossible, to do all alone. And both rely heavily on personality.
Although no one explicitly wants a president who could have a reliable fall back career in stand-up comedy, everyone shudders at the thought of a Rutherford B. Hayes or John Kerry.
