Once upon a time in America’s schools, teachers were instructed to teach their students the basics of good composition. According to Bernard Sheridan, a school superintendent in Massachusetts in 1917, these basics included: An absolute mastery of ‘the sentence idea.’ Freedom from glaring grammatical mistakes. Correct spelling of all ordinary words. Unfailing use of the
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Like most Americans, I partake in the unparalleled commitment to digital eavesdropping that is social media. Some of the key vicarial activities participation in Facebook (I’m not a Twitter user) offers are to “like” and “share” posts. That sounds harmless, right? Of course, it does; but I would argue that, in liking and sharing posts, we’re actually
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In a previous life, I worked in sales. But not just your everyday, run-of-the-mill brand of sales: I worked in a sleazy industry that championed predatory lending practices and distorted the pricing of its lackluster product, which often sent my clients spiraling down a rabbit hole of debt. And to make matters worse, this entire
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For some 15 years, airport security has become steadily more invasive. There are ever more checkpoints, ever more requests for documents as you make your way from the airport entrance to the airplane. Passengers adapt to the new changes as they come. But my latest flight to Mexico, originating in Atlanta, presented all passengers with
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Many readers have probably heard, and a few may even have used, the slogan: “the personal is the political.” Though its original source is unclear, it first cropped up in the late 1960s and early 1970s (see this paper) within “second-wave” feminism. Back then, it had a legitimate point: women’s personal experiences and choices are
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Greater knowledge of the past would help improve America’s public discourse. Once again, President’s Day has come and gone and Americans spent little time reflecting on their past leaders—in part, because Americans know so little history at all, even about the country’s most well-known Founding Fathers. For example, in a 2012 survey commissioned by the
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