Blog 3 Columns

When Equal Access Means Zero Access for All 0
- Culture
- March 13, 2017
There is irrational comfort taken in the belief that man-made laws somehow ensure equality for all. More often than not, the exact opposite is true. Within the next week, UC Berkeley will be forced to remove over 20,000 lectures, videos, and other digital documents from its free online library. While the prestigious school has been
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New York to Nix Literacy Tests for Teachers because too many Minorities Are Failing 0
- Education
- March 13, 2017
Should teachers be able to pass a basic literacy test before they set foot in a classroom? One would think that the answer to that question would be a solid yes. After all, it seems obvious that the ability to understand and communicate through reading and writing is essential to any teacher regardless of the
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Most People Now ‘Think’ in Pictures 0
- Culture
- March 13, 2017
Like us, many of you are alarmed about the decline of rational thought in Western society. In his book The Humiliation of the Word, philosopher Jacques Ellul theorizes that a major cause of this decline is the fact that most people no longer think in words, but in images. In what he refers to as
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Is Google a Good Place to Get Medical Advice?0
- Culture
- March 13, 2017
Who is your preferred source for health advice? Gwyneth Paltrow? Pete Evans? Or qualified medical practitioners – like Dr Oz? I hate to break it to you, but if you’re getting advice from any of these people, you’re quite likely being misled. For example, contrary to Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, experts advise inserting jade “eggs” into
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How Shakespeare Helped this Australian School Top All Others 0
- Education
- March 13, 2017
In recent years, parents have grown increasingly concerned about the state of their children’s schools. To put it frankly, students no longer seem to be exiting our halls of learning with a thorough, well-rounded slate of knowledge. Why does this happen? A possible answer to that question was recently provided by The John Colet School
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Does Socialism Require a Dictator?1
- History
- March 13, 2017
The idea of communism – the common sharing of productive property and its resulting output – is as old as the ancient Greeks and Plato’s conception of the ideal Republic in which the guardians all live and work in common under the presumption that a radical change in the social institutional setting will transform men
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Why Simone de Beauvoir’s Political Philosophy Resonates Today 0
- Philosophy
- March 10, 2017
Simone de Beauvoir is rightly best known for declaring: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ A less well-known facet of her philosophy, particularly relevant today, is her political activism, a viewpoint that follows directly from her metaphysical stance on the self, namely that we have no fixed essences. The existential maxim ‘existence precedes
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Why Americans Pay Triple the World Price for Sugar 0
- Culture
- March 10, 2017
Washington is once again massively screwing up the American sugar market. Because American farmers cannot compete with foreign sugar growers, the federal government has maintained an array of sugar import quotas and/or tariffs for most of the last 200 years. The regulatory regime has provided windfalls for generations of politicians and jobs for legions of
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School ‘Too Easy’ for a Surprising Number of Students, Study Finds (See Chart)0
- Education
- March 10, 2017
We talk a lot these days about how many students are doing poorly in school. For example, when it comes to 8th graders, the Nation’s Report Card tells us that: Only 1 in 3 are proficient in math 1 in 3 are proficient in reading 1 in 4 are proficient in civics 1 in 5
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When Equal Access Means Zero Access for All 0