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5 Quotes from Harriet Tubman, the New Face of the $20 Bill 0
- Education
- April 20, 2016
As you may have heard, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew just announced his decision to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Regardless of your view on the change, one has to admit that Tubman was a remarkable woman. Because Tubman could not read or write, her story was first officially recorded in 1869 by Sarah
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You Heard Me: We Need MORE ‘Liberal Scientists’0
- Science
- April 20, 2016
If you’re a responsible scientist, you shouldn’t adopt just one worldview. In this age of tolerance and diversity, that ought to be easy to see. Of course you do need to make a few assumptions. You need to assume that there are laws of nature—whatever they turn out to be—and that they are safe generalizations
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The Decline of Neighborliness 0
- Family
- April 19, 2016
It seems no amount of time passes without a headline about some couple (usually believers in the free-range-parenting movement) getting arrested and having their children taken away for perceived neglect. The case of Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Maryland received national media attention for an incident in December of 2014 in which they allowed their
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Tocqueville: How Individualism is a Sign of Equality 0
- Culture
- April 19, 2016
When it comes to an emphasis on the individual, Americans lead the pack. That’s according to a Pew Research report which compared American and European sentiments on various democratic principles. Interestingly, Alexis de Tocqueville described this same tendency toward individualism nearly 200 years ago in his work Democracy in America. Individualism, Tocqueville observed, is a
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Should Institutions Continue to Make Reparations for Slavery?0
- Education
- April 19, 2016
What do you do if you’re a contemporary institution realizing that it owes its very existence to having once profited from chattel slavery? A long and rich story in last Saturday’s New York Times describes, among other things, how in 1838, the Jesuit priests running what is now called Georgetown University sold off the plantation
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5’9” White Guy: ‘I’m a 6’5” Chinese woman’0
- Culture
- April 19, 2016
There’s another ‘interview-college-kids’ video floating around social media that’s getting a fair bit of attention these days. This one takes place at the University of Washington and involves a 5’ 9” white guy asking questions about his identity to a small group of students. It’s definitely worth a watch. Now, keep in mind that videos
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