Blog 3 Columns

Spreading Their Wings: How to Help Young People Succeed in College 3
- Culture
- August 23, 2019
It’s that time of year and that time of life. You pack your car or van full of clothes, electronic devices, a lamp or two, sheets, blankets, and a pillow, some basic food supplies, and all the rest of the paraphernalia necessary for your 18-year-old to survive a first semester of college. On the drive
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Solar Roads: Another Government-Funded Energy Failure 0
- August 23, 2019
Surprise – solar panels don’t make great roads. The French government recently learned this the hard way after debuting a $6 million solar road in Normandy in 2016. The road generated about half as much power as expected, and costs exceeded any reasonable expectation for a road…or even a solar panel. An American experiment in solar roads fared similarly.
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Airport’s Ban on Plastic Water Bottles a Flight of Fancy 0
- August 23, 2019
Politicians in California like to show how much they care about making the world a better place by banning things. Making the world a better place isn’t something they seem to care much about, however, because if they did, they would be doing very different things. As Exhibit A, please consider San Francisco’s new ban
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50 Years Later, the Spirit of ’69 Feels Like a Hangover 0
- Culture
- August 23, 2019
The August 16 death of actor Peter Fonda comes as a jolt to Baby Boomers, including this one. Most of us will always think of Fonda as the young and vigorous star of the 1969 film Easy Rider. Perhaps Fonda, dying of lung cancer, willed himself to live long enough to see the golden anniversary of
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Politics By Infomercial 0
- Economics
- August 22, 2019
If you’re like me, you dread presidential campaigns. With nearly a year and a half to go until the next election, we are already being inundated with banal sloganeering. It’s like being bombarded with advertisements for products you have no use for, have no desire to purchase, and yet are forced to choose which one
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Politicians Don’t Seem to Laugh at Themselves as Much Anymore 0
- Culture
- August 22, 2019
As the 2020 presidential campaign gets underway, one of the key factors that shapes our perceptions is how the candidates use – or do not use – humor. One kind of humor that is in shorter supply among politicians than it once was is self-deprecating humor. That’s when politicians make themselves the butt of the
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Did Slavery Make America Richer?0
- Economics
- August 22, 2019
In the past few decades, a new subfield of history has emerged: the history of capitalism. The subfield is widely popular in the media as a result of hugely influential books such as those of Sven Beckert and Edward Baptist. These two particular authors tie the “peculiar institution” of slavery in American history to capitalism.
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Can We Have Free-Range Kids While Their Mothers Are Wage Slaves?0
- August 22, 2019
One reads about it too often not to believe there is something in the reports of an epidemic of anxiety and depression among children; tweens and teens mostly, some suicidal. Writing in the New York Times last weekend, mother of two Kim Brooks is the latest to cite the data and lament that “our kids are not
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‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’: Remembering a Culture War That Never Happened 0
- Culture
- August 22, 2019
(WARNING: Spoiler alert) The phrase “Once Upon a Time” generally opens fairy tales, but Quentin Tarantino’s film masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” is not the stuff of sweet stories. The phrase refers here to time, not as mythical memory, but as a turning point in the human condition. “Once Upon a Time in
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Spreading Their Wings: How to Help Young People Succeed in College 3