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Blog 3 Columns

  • Not All Adults at the Park Are Predators

    Not All Adults at the Park Are Predators3

    I’m trying not to obsess about child overprotection, but … obsess I do. Here’s the latest object of my ire: the playground signs in my berg, New York City, that say, “Playground rules prohibit adults except in the company of children.” Apparently, any adult who simply wants to sit on a bench and watch kids

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  • The Disturbing End of Our Modern ‘Me’ Culture

    The Disturbing End of Our Modern ‘Me’ Culture4

    In his popular work Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch wrote: To live for the moment is the prevailing passion—to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.

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  • The Cruelty of Modern Death

    The Cruelty of Modern Death0

    Progress involves improving on the past. Once, we used leeches to suck out an excess of cancer-causing humors, or just blamed them on the wrath of the gods. In modern hospitals, we now image such tumors deep within the body, target them with synthetic chemicals or narrow beams of radiation, or excise them with clinical

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  • The Humanity of Huck Finn

    The Humanity of Huck Finn1

    Huckleberry Finn is no hero, though he is clearly a child on the cusp of adulthood. That perhaps is one reason I enjoy reading and teaching Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn every year. Like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck and Tom’s imaginary childhood adventures quickly become real. From pranking the ever-suspicious Jim at night to

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  • The American Dream: What It Means and Why It’s Important

    The American Dream: What It Means and Why It’s Important3

    Have you ever known a friend who said, “Next year I’m moving to Rome and living the Italian Dream?” How about a buddy who over coffee declared, “I can’t stand this country anymore. I’m off to Ankara, where I can live the Turkish Dream?” Or an uncle who slapped his open hand on the table

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  • ‘The New York Times,’ the 1619 Project, and ‘Quid Est Veritas’?

    ‘The New York Times,’ the 1619 Project, and ‘Quid Est Veritas’?4

    Many of us have heard of the 1619 Project and its attempt to reinvent American history. 1619, according to The New York Times writers, is the year that the first slaves arrived on American soil. And since, according to the 1619 Project, unjust slave labor initiated and sustained the socioeconomic structure of America, 1619 is

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