Tolerance is the virtue of the 21st century. Because of this, we’ve seen a new clamor regarding certain opinions viewed as intolerable in America’s political discourse. What makes for a tolerable opinion? That’s hard to say. Yet the arbitrary standards are quickly enacted by certain gatekeepers as soon as someone expresses an opinion deemed too uncouth for our
READ MOREWhat happens when trees are planted in a “perfect” growing environment? Give the trees rich soil, just the right amount of water and no wind, and they grow rapidly, but topple over before they reach maturation. Wind stimulates the tree to grow stress wood, which “helps a tree position itself for optimal sun absorption, and it
READ MOREDystopian fiction is hot. Sales of George Orwell’s “1984” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” have skyrocketed since 2016. Young adult dystopias – for example, Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games,” Veronica Roth’s “Divergent,” Lois Lowry’s classic, “The Giver” – were best-sellers even before. And with COVID-19, dystopias featuring diseases have taken on new life. Netflix
READ MORERemember the Common Core, the national curriculum standards that sparked a conflagration over who should control what every public school child in America would learn? If nothing else, you might recall a little Core comedy, though in many places the Core is still with us in various forms. What you might not recall is how
READ MORELittle boys are sexist. At least, that’s what recent headlines want us to believe. A new study hit newsstands the other day, claiming that young children, boys especially, exhibit indicators of sexism even into early middle school. This sexism, however, is not likely to be aggressive, mean-spirited behavior toward females. In fact, it could be
READ MOREThe BBC, which in September 2018 announced its decision to censor any reports by climate skeptics, continues to propagandize for climate alarmists. On March 12, BBC “Science Correspondent” Jonathan Amos published an alarming article entitled “Greenland and Antarctica ice loss accelerating.” According to Amos, “Earth’s great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, are now losing mass
READ MOREWith our country wrapped in the coils of coronavirus, April has brought its usual splendors to Virginia: brown lawns turned green, forsythias in bloom, flowering dogwoods and Japanese maples, balmy temperatures and soft rains. The contrast between this wealth of ornamentation and a season of economic hardship, sickness, and fear – all caused by a
READ MOREIn the increasingly polarized America, Black Swan moments like the COVID-19 pandemic have further confirmed growing divides in the country. Our textbooks would like us to believe that emergencies create fertile grounds for unity. But when you have a populace that is politically dividing itself even when it comes to the TV shows it watches,
READ MOREIn his 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles MacKay wrote, “During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was coming. Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity.” During the COVID-19 crisis, there has been no shortage of
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