Blog 3 Columns

Odd Things People Say to Families with Lots of Children 0
- Family
- July 25, 2018
Several of Intellectual Takeout’s Alcuin Fellows come from big families – one from a family of twelve children, the other from a family of thirteen. Because of this, we recently started swapping stories about the strange things people say when they realize the size of our crews. We get it. We’re a bit of a
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Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’: The Science Fiction Masterpiece You Probably Haven’t Read 0
- Culture
- July 25, 2018
What if we could use science to predict the future of humankind and, thereby, prevent the collapse of civilization as a result of wars, economic crises or any other unforeseen event that could endanger its existence? This is the starting point of the Foundation saga, a series of seven books written by the brilliant and
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I Used to Loathe Guns and the NRA -Then I Got Mugged 0
- Literature
- July 25, 2018
I’d hated guns since I was a teenager. It was a gun that killed John Lennon, after all. Guns killed President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Get rid of the guns, problem solved, or so I thought. In December of 2012, I even tweeted President Barack Obama, urging him to
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The Top 10 Presidential Vetoes in American History 0
- Politics
- July 24, 2018
President James Garfield named his beloved dog Veto. The pooch was a monstrous but lovable black Newfoundland weighing more than a hundred pounds. Congress got the message: A bad or unconstitutional bill would go straight to the Garfield doghouse. (Sadly, none ever did because Garfield served only five months in office.) The veto itself is a
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Leonard Bernstein’s Search for Faith 0
- Culture
- July 24, 2018
”I’m no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes.” Thus did Leonard Bernstein famously conclude his Norton Lectures on the nature of music at Harvard University, 1973. This year we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth Aug. 25, a good time to unpack his statement.
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George Orwell Knew We’d Buy the Screens That Are Used Against Us 0
- Culture
- July 24, 2018
Sales of George Orwell’s utopian novel 1984 (1949) have spiked twice recently, both times in response to political events. In early 2017, the idea of ‘alternative facts’ called to mind Winston Smith, the book’s protagonist and, as a clerk in the Ministry of Truth, a professional alternator of facts. And in 2013, the US National
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Does Political Correctness Erase Cultural Substance?0
- July 24, 2018
Does it ever seem to you that a politically correct student can do no wrong? That question crossed my mind when I read about a recent incident at the University of Manchester. According to The Guardian, the University of Manchester recently refurbished its students’ union. Part of the décor involved a mural of the poem
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$3 Million Government Study Finds Link Between Excessive Drinking and Aggressive Nightclub Behavior 0
- Culture
- July 24, 2018
Perhaps unaware of centuries of evidence that suggests some kind of connection between excessive alcohol consumption and aggressive behavior on the part of revelers, including its own, the U.S. government launched a series of studies to learn more in 2014. Since then, the cumulative tab for the ongoing studies into the behavior of alcohol-consuming nightclub
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Why the Russian Hacking Narrative Is So Important to the Deep State 0
- Politics
- July 23, 2018
Sometime before the collapse of the German civilian government in the summer of 1917, chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg became aware that his phone had been tapped. According to the German diplomat Kurt Riezler, during calls Hollweg would scream into the line—“What Schweinhund is listening in?”—whenever he heard the click. (Schweinhund is the German word for
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Odd Things People Say to Families with Lots of Children 0