Blog 3 Columns

Hope for the Future is Not Blind Optimism 0
- Politics
- April 10, 2019
A Florida reader of Intellectual Takeout sent me a thoughtful email asking a question about my article from several weeks ago. It ran as follows: Yesterday, I read The Long March: Are Its Days Numbered? That essay is what prompted me to write to you. In your conclusion you wrote “That era is coming to
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Baseball: The Sport of Thinking Americans 1
- Culture
- April 10, 2019
Sometimes you can be in the right place at the right time. For me, it was in the middle of the summer of 1958—a few days short of my 11th birthday. I was at Bill Meyer Stadium to see our minor league Knoxville (Tennessee) Smokies, wearing my little league uniform as I had come straight
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What I Learned When My Students Began Jumping Rope 1
- Culture
- April 9, 2019
By now the outcry has been heard and confirmed: Children need recess or other forms of physical activity to thrive in school. But I could have told you that. As a veteran teacher, I stumbled on this fact in my own classroom quite by accident. Years ago my students took the required, but now defunct,
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The Zone of Adulthood 0
- Culture
- April 9, 2019
Like some of you, I suffer from insomnia. Try as I might, sometimes I just can’t close the deal when I put head to pillow. It started in my teens; I would take a walk or swim in an effort to get tired out enough for sleep. But the passage of time has granted me
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NEWS: Judge Blocks Trump Administration Policy of Returning Asylum-Seekers to Mexico 0
- Politics
- April 9, 2019
A U.S. judge on Monday temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing its “Remain in Mexico” policy, which returns asylum-seekers back to Mexico while they await a hearing. San Francisco Judge Richard Seeborg ordered the administration on Monday to halt the deportation of asylum-seekers and gave federal officials until Friday to contest the decision, according to
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Fox News Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Media’s Obsession with Fox News 0
- Culture
- April 9, 2019
The American press seems fixated on Fox News and its owners, the Murdoch family. Recently, The New York Times purported to explain “How Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Influence Remade the World.” This followed The New Yorker’s investigation into the “making of the Fox News White House.” Both articles claim to reveal the true political impact
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How the West Can Save Masculinity 0
- Culture
- April 8, 2019
What if the men who obsess over the decline of the West actually helped to restore it? There is no doubt that life is moving at a faster pace than ever before, accelerated by technology and intensified by our growing divisions. But inside the whirlwind lies a burning question: are there still effective ways to
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How America’s Gun Culture Cultivates Civic Virtue 0
- Culture
- April 8, 2019
“It is through the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that Americans learn the art of reducing freedom’s perils.” —Alexis de Tocqueville Many people are often surprised to learn that I am a gun owner and firm defender of the Second Amendment. After all, I, a first-generation Chinese-American immigrant, do not fit the stereotype of the
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Has Patriotism Gone out of Fashion?0
- April 8, 2019
“April is the cruellest month,” notes T. S. Eliot in his poem, “The Waste Land.” For most of us, however, April brings pleasures and celebrations. Where I live, the forsythias have exploded, causing my young granddaughter to wonder why all the bushes were turning yellow. Easter and Passover are just around the corner, my grandchildren, heartier
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Hope for the Future is Not Blind Optimism 0