From MG re my essay in the Oct. 3 issue: 

“Your essay ‘How to Be a Conservative, Part II’ hit home with me.

“My wife and I have been together a very long time by today’s standards. We met at 18 and are now in our late 40s. In the early years of our partnership, I found her dad taciturn and scary. And her mum a hippy-dippy, card-carrying socialist who also had a nice, well-meaning side-hustle in judging other people’s lives and getting in their business!

“How things change.

“These are two of the most important people in my life. Both, in separate ways, have guided me through decisions, been there at the coalface when it was required, offered perspective when it was in short supply, and modeled how you go through life properly when you’re a few stages further along. Perhaps more so than my own parents.

“They are not just my go-to fonts of wisdom, they are true friends. And I would probably have retched in my mouth at the thought of that 20 years ago!

“I used to rail against the fact that my wife’s family were outliers, living and interacting like most families do in the non-Western world. SO MANY bloody birthday parties and family dinners! What a drag!

“Now it’s one of the aspects of my life I cherish the most.”

From DM re what I’ve been saying about financial conflicts of interest in the medical industry: 

“As someone who’s been in the medical industry for almost 40 years, I can attest to the enormous effect the big drug producers and surgical tool manufacturers have over the ordinary practitioner.

“The most unethical aspect of it all is that Big Pharma influences the studies that result in ‘best practices’ protocols, which result in a severe pressure to follow a recommended drug or surgical procedure that many doctors would otherwise avoid.”