Blog 3 Columns

4 Bits of Advice from Ben Franklin on How to Be a ‘Rational Being’0
- Culture
- March 16, 2018
Have you ever noticed that there seem to be fewer calm and level-headed people these days? Almost everyone seems to operate through a lens of emotion and feeling rather than plain ol’ common sense. This is perhaps no surprise as schools and society have encouraged a feelings-oriented approach to life through the advancement of positive
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10 Things to Know About the Real St. Patrick 0
- Culture
- March 16, 2018
On March 17, people around the world will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by parading in green hats, sporting images of shamrocks and leprechauns – tiny, grinning, fairy men – pinned to their lapels. Patrick’s picture will adorn greeting cards: an aged, bearded bishop in flowing robes, grasping a bishop’s staff and glaring at a coil
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Thomas Sowell: Social Justice Philosophy Is a Blank Check for Government Power 0
- Culture
- March 15, 2018
“In politics, the great non-sequitur of our time is that 1) things are not right and that 2) the government should make them right. Where right all too often means cosmic justice, trying to set things right means writing a blank check for a never-ending expansion of government power.” This key passage from Thomas Sowell’s
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This High School Senior Explains Why It’s Better to ‘Walk Up’ to Help Others Than to Walk Out of Classes 0
- Education
- March 15, 2018
While students across the country protest school shootings Wednesday with walkouts, one senior says her school in Utah is encouraging students to “walk up, not out” and show an act of kindness. “I feel like the media tends to focus a lot on the anger, hurt, and destruction of our youth in society,” Alessa Love,
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Motherhood: What Women Really Want (and Many Aren’t Getting)0
- Culture
- March 15, 2018
I recently ran across an ABC News article by Jessica Mendoza, a mother of two. As an analyst for ESPN, Mendoza has a pretty high-profile, demanding job to balance with her role as a mother. Yet in spite of these demands, Mendoza decided to add something else to her plate a few years ago: homeschooling.
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Hannah Arendt on How Loneliness Breeds Terror 1
- Culture
- March 15, 2018
Thinkers as early as Aristotle observed that man is, by nature, a social creature. For this reason, there has been a surge of media attention on the “loneliness plague” which the Information Age has wrought. Most media attention has focused on the health consequences of loneliness, which stand to overwhelm government health systems in the
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Utopia is a Dangerous Ideal: We Should Aim for ‘Protopia’1
- Philosophy
- March 14, 2018
Utopias are idealised visions of a perfect society. Utopianisms are those ideas put into practice. This is where the trouble begins. Thomas More coined the neologism utopia for his 1516 work that launched the modern genre for a good reason. The word means ‘no place’ because when imperfect humans attempt perfectibility – personal, political, economic
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Stephen Hawking’s Greatest Success 0
- Science
- March 14, 2018
Soon after I enrolled as a graduate student at Cambridge University in 1964, I encountered a fellow student, two years ahead of me in his studies, who was unsteady on his feet and spoke with great difficulty. This was Stephen Hawking. He had recently been diagnosed with a degenerative disease, and it was thought that
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Philosopher Erich Fromm on Why People Fail at Love 0
- Culture
- March 14, 2018
Seeking advice about the qualities he should look for in a mate, an unmarried man in his 30s posted at the online sports forum of my alma mater. He invited comments on his list of top attributes: looks, camaraderie, cooking ability, love of the alma mater (this man attends every game), and patience. He thought
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4 Bits of Advice from Ben Franklin on How to Be a ‘Rational Being’0