I have a new piece up at ConstitutionalDaily.com, “Why I Do Not Eat Doughnuts.” A few excerpts:
“Consider the endless varieties of vice in which one can engage. Sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, smoking… Each is bad for the body or mind. But each also provides something else: A respite from the tedium, or stress, of the instant… You know a cigarette’s bad for you, and that fourth martini does no kindness to the liver, but running the cost/benefit analysis, a case can be made for doing either, or both, or both at once… There is no case in defense of the doughnut.
…And let’s not avoid the elephant in the corner, aesthetics. Peter O’Toole has smoked and drunk prodigiously his entire life, and though he’s haggard in his dotage, let me ask you this: Would you rather resemble him, or that two hundred and seventy pound human resources manager availing herself of free doughnut holes by the fistful in your floor’s break room?”
Read the rest here.