This column originally appeared on Dec. 7, 2022, in the South China Morning Post. CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Did you know that, in American-speak, a group of flying Corvids is not called a “flock” but a “murder.” You could look it up! Right now, amid the warm Laguna…
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – I submit for your consideration an American political figure named Jerry Brown. He turns 84 this week but is somehow still flamboyant and relevant, if sometimes slightly annoying. I have not only grown to admire him but come to feel this lifelong politician is…
TOM PLATE WRITES — The way it is going now, I might have been wrong. The professor had written a good book but (in my mind) smudged it with an ethically snarky title: Destined for War. A few critics (okay, mainly me) pointed out that the addition of a simple question mark (Destined for…
PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Winston Churchill is said to have said: “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” Sure, but what if too much of the wrong sort of jaw-jaw were to convert the idea of war-war to less of a no-no? Here is what is meant. No…
