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Blog 3 Columns

  • Don’t Skip the Boring Parts

    Don’t Skip the Boring Parts2

    When I taught literature, I had to frequently remind my students not to skip the “boring parts” of the books—things like long paragraphs describing scenery in Dickens’ Oliver Twist or the long list of ships that appears near the beginning of The Iliad. I understand the temptation. When I was their age, I frequently skimmed

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  • Shareable Snack: A Firsthand Account of the Civil War and Its Causes

    Shareable Snack: A Firsthand Account of the Civil War and Its Causes18

    Julius Franklin Howell joined the Confederate Army when he was 16. After surviving a few battles, Howell eventually found himself in a Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. In 1947, at the age of 101, Howell made a rare recording at the Library of Congress, in which he described his enlistment, sudden capture, and

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  • The Right to Speak Evil

    The Right to Speak Evil0

    Words can harm. The childhood saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is obviously untrue. Words bring ruin and despair, drive people to suicide, and foment massacres and war. They are used to justify the enslavement of nations, and the genocide of entire ethnic groups. This is exactly

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  • Restrictive Schooling Imperils Our Children

    Restrictive Schooling Imperils Our Children0

    Last week, my sons’ school went into lockdown. It wasn’t a drill. There was a real threat. Two high school-aged students, a boy and a girl, were discussing an alleged fight on social media when one of them wrote, “I’m shooting up the school at 9.” Thankfully, someone reported this information to the school, and the

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  • Fake Government Statistics

    Fake Government Statistics1

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently admitted that 818,000 fewer jobs were added from March 2023 to March 2024 than previously reported. That’s no small number, and it’s an indication of how significant the issues with government statistics are. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time that government agencies have misrepresented vital economic statistics. Though jobs

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  • A Delicate Balance: What to Make of the Link Between Falling Bat Populations and Rising Infant Mortality

    A Delicate Balance: What to Make of the Link Between Falling Bat Populations and Rising Infant Mortality1

    A fascinating study recently published in Science found that human lives may depend on the fate of bats. Not directly, of course. Rather, it’s the bat’s unique role in the ecosystems they inhabit that’s important for us. As a result, the decline of bat populations endangers human populations in an unexpected manner. The link between

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