For many of us the image of the little Syrian boy lying face down on a beach evoked almost unbearable pathos. Even the media, so used to revelling in misery and gore while affecting a tone of gravitas, seemed shocked. Journalists and newsreaders too could not help but think of their own child or grandchild lying there.

It...

While the refugee crisis provided main focus for Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the European Union address, he also grappled with the whole project of the EU itself. And above all, he made a clear attempt to present himself and the European Commission as having a “political” role in the running...

Oliver Sacks, the celebrated neurologic storyteller who died at the end of August at age 82, once described himself as “strongly atheist by disposition.”

Sacks could write sensitively about religion, including a recent article on the role of the Sabbath in his own life, but in writing...