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U.S. Mayor Gives Panhandlers Jobs 0
- Culture
- August 15, 2016
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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Has Common Core Made Writing Worse?0
- Education
- August 15, 2016
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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Study: Men Are Getting Weaker 0
- Culture
- August 15, 2016
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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What happened when a Muslim student went to Cambridge in 1816 0
- Education
- August 12, 2016
Two hundred years ago, there arrived in London the first group of Muslims ever to study in Europe. Dispatched by the Crown Prince of Iran, their mission was to survey the new sciences emerging from the industrial revolution. As the six young Muslims settled into their London lodgings in the last months of 1815, they
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Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy 0
- Economics
- August 12, 2016
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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Is Contemporary Liberalism Creating a Soulless Monoculture?0
- Culture
- August 12, 2016
I was once called a “cracker” by a member of the Nation of Islam. It was in the mid-1980s and I was driving through Washington, D.C., in the kind of neighborhood that conservatives call dangerous and liberals call “transitioning.” I saw a member of the Nation of Islam, bow tie and all, on the corner
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