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Blog 3 Columns

  • Universities Should Bring Back Military History

    Universities Should Bring Back Military History0

    War defines the United States. Domestically, it is the country’s greatest budgetary priority: $598 billion, 54 per cent of discretionary spending, in fiscal year 2015. Globally, we have more than 800 bases in some 80 countries, and spend more than the next nine nations combined. Yet academic historians, especially those at the nation’s most richly

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  • U.S. Mayor Gives Panhandlers Jobs

    U.S. Mayor Gives Panhandlers Jobs0

    The Washington Post last week published a story about a unique initiative in Albuquerque that puts panhandlers to work. There’s a Better Way, a program initiated by the Mayor Richard Berry, offers $9 an hour (plus free lunch) to panhandlers who are dispatched around the city on beautification projects. The results, so far, look pretty good. Via

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  • Study: Men Are Getting Weaker

    Study: Men Are Getting Weaker0

    Young people, it seems, increasingly regard the word “masculine” with derision. Based on the findings of a recent study, one wonders if such attitudes could stem from some latent insecurities. Via the Washington Post: Researchers measured the grip strength (how strongly you can squeeze something) and pinch strength (how strongly you can pinch something between two fingers) of 237

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  • Has Common Core Made Writing Worse?

    Has Common Core Made Writing Worse?0

    In 2011, only 27 percent of the nation’s high school seniors were deemed to be proficient in writing. According to information recently revealed by The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, those numbers will likely not be improving any time soon. In dissecting an Education Trust report on the state of America’s classrooms, Mathews highlighted some “depressing

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  • Actor: Western Civilization is in Danger of Losing

    Actor: Western Civilization is in Danger of Losing0

    John Rhys-Davies is famous for playing Sallah in the Indiana Jones movies, and more recently, Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But he has also become an outspoken defender of the West against its perceived enemies, both within and without. In an interview last week with FOX411, he decried the growing intolerance that

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  • 5 Reasons Schools Should Teach Debate to Students

    5 Reasons Schools Should Teach Debate to Students0

    The other day a friend of mine was describing a video clip of a student debate he had seen online. According to my friend, the video showed a student who was clearly trying to make a logical argument, but was grasping at straws and clueless on how to debate in a rational manner.  Such a

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  • Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy

    Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy0

    In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning

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  • Why Women (Still) Aren’t Funny

    Why Women (Still) Aren’t Funny0

    January will mark the 10-year anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’ famous (notorious?) essay, “Why Women Aren’t Funny.” In the impolite article, Hitchens, as only he could do, delivered a devastating exposé explaining the causes behind “the humor gap.” The article enraged female comedians and sparked a slew of indignant (and unfunny) letters to the editor. Looking back,

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  • Why Grad Rates are Meaningless

    Why Grad Rates are Meaningless0

    In a recent Intellectual Takeout piece, Daniel Lattier pointed out that colleges are now having to deal with incoming “book virgins”. To gain admittance to college in the 17th century, students had to be able to read and translate various Latin authors on sight. 100 years ago, students were required to have read various classical works

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