I’ve written extensively about the value of reading good books, especially old ones, but I’ve never written about the need to quit books. Yet while there are many good reasons to read books that have stood the test of time, there’s also something to be said for putting a book down. As paradoxical as it
READ MOREThere’s a grim scene near the end of The Iliad in which the Greek hero Achilles, because of his rage and grief over the death of his comrade Patroclus at the hands of the Trojan prince Hector, slays Hector in battle and drags his corpse behind his chariot, day after day, desecrating the body in
READ MOREIt is January 2024, and Covid vaccine mandates persist at 70 of the top 800 colleges in the US, and who knows if they will ever let them go. If you are a healthcare major, nearly every clinical partner site still mandates that healthcare students take the most updated Covid vaccine (often no exemptions accepted) even
READ MOREIn George Orwell’s 1984 are dichotomies now familiar to many Americans: “War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.” Inscribed on the outside of the white, pyramid-shaped Ministry of Truth, this is the motto of Oceania, a nation governed by “The Party.” The Party designed these slogans to obfuscate the meaning of words, thereby
READ MOREIt was once unthinkable for nations like Canada to arrest journalists for asking questions. Not anymore. That’s precisely what happened last week when David Menzies of conservative news outlet Rebel News was accosted and handcuffed by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for approaching Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland with a microphone in
READ MOREIn a winter of severe illness and death, without the aid of vaccines or even anti-biotics, and during a global pandemic of Spanish Flu, in the winter of 1918-1919, one of the richest men in the world was working to merge the two largest circus acts in the country into one enormous show. In March
READ MOREThe phrase “having it all” came from the title of a 1982 book written by Helen Gurley Brown, then editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. As Antoinette Lattouf, writing in The Guardian in early 2023, put it, this self-help book for women focused on “money, sex, diet, exercise, and appearance.” Notably, it made no mention of children
READ MOREThe Hollywood Reporter recently published an article warning of an “existential crisis” in Tinseltown, as domestic box office sales remain more than 20 percent down compared with 2019, the last year before the great COVID-19 panic decimated moviegoing. The report read: One out of every five moviegoers has vanished since the pandemic, according to research
READ MOREAlmost nobody doubts that the federal government wastes a lot of money. Every day we hear stories of fraud, mismanagement, and misplaced priorities that cost taxpayers millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars. But just how much money is wasted? In his annual Festivus report—named after the fictional Seinfeld holiday—Senator Rand Paul tallies up some of the most
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