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Terrific: District Calls Teacher ‘Negligent’ for Trying to Break Up a Fight0
- Culture
- April 4, 2016
A week ago, I asked an out-of-state friend how her job as a teacher was going. “Terrible!” she responded. “The entire school is chaotic and out of control.” She went on to explain that the school’s students have caught on to the fact that there are no serious consequences when teachers send them to administration
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Physicist: You Don’t Need God to Get ‘Something’ from ‘Nothing’1
- Science
- April 4, 2016
Believe it or not, there’s been a controversy lately between physicists and philosophers about how to define ‘nothing’. The issue is more important than many think. As you may know, it’s one of the central tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition that God created the world “ex nihilo”—“out of nothing”—and that, metaphysically speaking, only a divine
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How Did Ancient Humans Interpret Eclipses?0
- History
- April 4, 2016
For the vast majority of history, people freaked out about eclipses. Ancient peoples in particular often could not rationally explain eclipses. Unsurprisingly, it was not uncommon to say the eerie, celestial phenomena foretold doom: floods, pestilence and famine. The earliest record of an eclipse we have comes from clay tablets unearthed from the ancient Sumerian
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Here’s Why Robots Will Never Achieve Consciousness0
- Science
- April 4, 2016
You know the doomsday movie scenarios: An army of robots we’ve made to serve us decides to enslave or even replace the inefficient, refractory human race, and to that end wages a pitiless war of extermination on us. But is all that mere sensationalism? It would be flippant to dismiss the possibility. As science writer
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Gandhi’s Warm Letter to Hitler0
- History
- April 4, 2016
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
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Former Clinton Advisor: Censorship on Campuses Un-American and Selective0
- Culture
- April 4, 2016
Lawrence 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
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College Isn’t for Everyone0
- Culture
- April 4, 2016
The 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
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Beverly Cleary on Why Today’s Kids Aren’t Free to Roam0
- Culture
- April 4, 2016
There’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
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The Tarantino-like End of Richard the Lionheart0
- History
- April 1, 2016
I 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
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