These last few weeks have attacked me with musings on silence. It started with an anonymous quote I couldn’t shake off (“Never miss an opportunity to remain silent”) and threaded its way through my intellectual and social life. I began to see my unwarranted eagerness to speak in classroom discussions, group conversations, and even social
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I consider myself a scholarly expert on the Berenstain Bears. Not because I’ve actually written any scholarly works on the series of books by Stan and Jan Berenstain, but just because I’m an academic and I have read and reread dozens of Berenstain books for more than a decade with first one daughter and now
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“I’m going to have to ask you to put your cigarette out.” I was a college student working as a waiter at a Wisconsin restaurant more than twenty years ago when I sheepishly said these words. I didn’t like saying them, and was frustrated I had to. The guest, who was sitting with his date
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Last week the internet was shocked to learn that popular YouTuber MrBeast’s co-host Chris Tyson now fancies himself transgender. After a Twitter user tweeted a picture of a newly effeminate Tyson and asked what had happened, Tyson replied, “HRT [hormone replacement therapy], and it’s only been 2 months.” If you’re like me, you might be
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“Stupid is as stupid does.” That saying, popularized by the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, has been around a good while. The expression means that a person’s intelligence can be judged by his actions. Someone can have a law degree from Yale, but if he drives his car at 35 mph on an acceleration ramp while
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Poetry is not my strong suit, I’m no good at writing verse. My prose may be no better, but at least I could do worse. Oh my gosh, I’m a poet and don’t know it! If it hadn’t been for a couple good English teachers in high school, I might have never read more than
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