It’s safe to say that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is one of the most revered figures of the twentieth century. His method of patient, peaceful resistance to British colonial rule proved both wise and effective. He said many beautiful things, demonstrated powerful discipline, and was a deeply spiritual man. The full picture of Gandhi goes beyond
READ MORELawrence Summers, the former treasury secretary to Bill Clinton, wrote a blog in the Washington Post Thursday taking universities to task for the increasing lack of tolerance and civil discourse on campuses. He pointed out that this lack of tolerance is particularly unsettling because the “hypersensitivity” to alleged discrimination seems, well, selective: It has seemed
READ MOREThe best way to help a kid climb out of poverty and into the middle class is through a college education, right? At least, that’s what we’ve been told. But in our quest to get more impoverished kids into college, have we actually doomed them to a life of greater poverty? That’s a question explored
READ MOREThere’s lots of talk these days about how children’s lives are far too structured. Children (the narrative goes) need time to run, play, imagine, and have freedom to do things on their own. Beverly Cleary, famous author and creator of Ramona Quimby & Co. agrees. She recently made several comments on the state of childhood
READ MOREI admit it. I still picture Richard the Lionheart as the handsome, smirking, fellow Sean Connery depicted in the Robin Hood movie that came out in 1991. I do this even though I know that Richard I was not that fellow. Lionized for centuries, modern historians have treated Richard’s legacy less kindly than their
READ MOREWilliam Henry Ireland was born in London in 1777 (or 1775, records vary), the son of a British author and engraver. Ireland came of age during what can be called a Shakespeare craze. Though he was considered a poor student—one teacher deemed him so stupid that he told Ireland’s father, Samuel, not to bother bringing
READ MOREResearchers concluded that short men face statistically significant handicaps in the areas of education, occupation, income, and the ability to attract women. A study released in March, conducted by BMJ, a healthcare knowledge provider based in the United Kingdom, analyzed five criteria: education, degree level education, job class, annual household income, and Townsend deprivation index.
READ MOREScience got started much earlier than you think. Consider the example of the sphericity of the earth: “There never was a period of ‘flat earth darkness’ among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted
READ MOREWhen it comes to Christians’ views of secular society, there have historically been two predominant options. One stresses the radical incommensurability of Christianity and the world—that the Christian view of the world and its values share nothing in common with the secular world. That Christianity is “light” and the world outside is utter darkness. (Many
READ MORE