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‘Empathy’ is Becoming a Joke 0
- Culture
- June 23, 2017
Empathy is one of the trendiest words in the English language today. The Google Ngram below shows how the use of this word has surged in the modern vernacular. Many people would view this as a good thing because they see empathy—the ability to understand and share the feelings of others – as a
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The Taste of Strawberries: Tolkien’s Imagination of the Good 0
- Culture
- June 23, 2017
Near the end of The Return of the King movie, while Frodo and Sam are making the arduous climb up Mount Doom to destroy the ring once and for all, their strength fails and they stop climbing. Sam claws himself over to Frodo, takes him in his arms, and asks him this poignant question: Do you remember
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Trump Is Falstaff with Power 0
- Literature
- June 23, 2017
Tyler Cowen’s recent piece over at Bloomberg View argues that the kerfuffle over a production of Julius Caesar that portrayed Caesar as Trump is a sign that we’re living in an age where Shakespeare is particularly relevant to our politics. This is a bad thing, suggests Cowen, because Shakespeare is a writer who specializes in
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Up to 5.7 Million Noncitizens Voted in Past Presidential Elections, Study Finds 0
- Philosophy
- June 23, 2017
As many as 5.7 million noncitizens voted in the 2008 election and potentially more voted in 2016, according to a new study by Just Facts, a New Jersey-based research group, drawing on information from other studies. The study—based on data compiled from Harvard University’s Cooperative Congressional Election Study, an analysis published in the journal Electoral
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Stevie Wonder: If Black Lives Matter, then Stop all this Black-on-Black Killing 0
- Culture
- June 23, 2017
If I was to name one of the more interesting and unpredictable parts of my week, it would have to be the handful of hours I spend volunteering in a children’s program in the inner city of Minneapolis. The kids I see week after week come from a variety of backgrounds, but if classified according
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How People Used to Celebrate ‘Midsummer Night’0
- History
- June 23, 2017
Tonight, June 23, is the setting for Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The setting was chosen for the fanciful comedy, presumably, because of the character of the feasting that took place throughout Europe on this night in times past. In his introduction to the 1878 edition of the play, Samuel Neil provides us with
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