In the face of certain death, does being civilized matter? All the narrators of Beryl Bainbridge’s 1991 historical novel The Birthday Boys die. And still, knowing their deaths loom, they carry on with birthdays, religious practices, and virtues like loyalty and courage. Heavily based on real life diaries and letters, this novel is a hybrid
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In 1962, 93 percent of all murders in America were solved. In 2020, more than 50 percent of murders went unsolved. What happened? Why is it so easy to get away with murder in the United States? As with many terrible trends, the “Great Decline” in the murder clearance rate started in the mid-1960s. By
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In sorrow, we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Near the close of The Return of the King, Aragorn proclaims these words of farewell, seeking to comfort his friends as they depart to their homes
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Last week, my sons’ school went into lockdown. It wasn’t a drill. There was a real threat. Two high school-aged students, a boy and a girl, were discussing an alleged fight on social media when one of them wrote, “I’m shooting up the school at 9.” Thankfully, someone reported this information to the school, and the
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently admitted that 818,000 fewer jobs were added from March 2023 to March 2024 than previously reported. That’s no small number, and it’s an indication of how significant the issues with government statistics are. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time that government agencies have misrepresented vital economic statistics. Though jobs
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A fascinating study recently published in Science found that human lives may depend on the fate of bats. Not directly, of course. Rather, it’s the bat’s unique role in the ecosystems they inhabit that’s important for us. As a result, the decline of bat populations endangers human populations in an unexpected manner. The link between
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