Blog 3 Columns

San Francisco Creates First Transgender District 0
- Culture
- December 13, 2018
San Francisco created a special cultural district for transgender persons, marking the first legal transgender district created anywhere in the world. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district is now home to “Compton’s Transgender Cultural District,” The Daily Beast reported Tuesday. The Tenderloin is a triangular neighborhood located a few blocks from San Francisco’s City Hall. It is also San Francisco’s
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How School Districts Weaponize Child Protection Services Against Uncooperative Parents 0
- Culture
- December 13, 2018
Schooling is adept at rooting out individuality and enforcing compliance. In his book, Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky writes: “In fact, the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so
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Former Atheist Explains How Rationality, Not Emotion, Encourages Religious Belief 0
- Culture
- December 13, 2018
I recently ran across an interview with author Stephen Asma in The Irish Times. Although an atheist, Asma is a rather unique atheist because he believes religion is necessary, a fact evidenced in his recent book Why We Need Religion. According to Asma, a philosophy professor, religion does not make sense rationally, but it makes
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A Perfect Solution to the Statue-Toppling Problem 0
- Culture
- December 13, 2018
Schools ought to teach history, not protest it. A number of teachers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have pledged to withhold more than 2,000 grades in protest over the university’s plans to house “Silent Sam” in a separate on-campus building. Silent Sam is a statue of a Confederate soldier that stood in
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What the Fake History of Guns Can Teach Us 0
- Education
- December 12, 2018
In 2000, Emory University history professor Michael Bellesiles published the book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. The central argument of the book was that the culture of American gun ownership does not date back to the colonial era and, instead, emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century when technological advances made
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Ivy League Study Finds Liberals ‘Patronize’ Minorities, Conservatives Don’t 0
- Culture
- December 12, 2018
A study by Princeton and Yale researchers turns a common political narrative on its head: White liberals actually are more likely to act in “patronizing” ways toward minorities than are white conservatives. White Democratic presidential candidates and self-identified liberals are more likely to downplay their own competence when speaking to minorities, using fewer words that
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How to Keep Your Kid from Being a Brat This Christmas 0
- Culture
- December 12, 2018
A number of years ago, a friend of mine organized a Christmas charity event. Like many of its kind, this event matched less fortunate children with well-off families, eager to share of their bounty and provide the children with a present or two at a fun Christmas party. But the gift giving didn’t stay limited
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How Silence is a Balm for the Soul 0
- Culture
- December 12, 2018
My sister and brother-in-law were off on a tour of Central Europe, and I was spending a few days alone in their house. When I arrived, I moved my luggage and some groceries inside—I didn’t intend to leave the premises unless absolutely necessary—put the perishables in the refrigerator, and then dropped into a chair in
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‘The Great Awokening’: The Threat of America’s New Political Religions 0
- Culture
- December 12, 2018
The decline of religion in America is real—that is, depending on how you define “religion.” Weekly church attendance is in decline, as is self-identification with a formal religion, denomination, or belief system. Meanwhile, the rise of the “nones” seems increasingly steady in speed, replacing religious-cultural standards and norms of old with a modern menu of “personal spiritualties” based
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San Francisco Creates First Transgender District 0