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Did Truman Capote Write ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’?3
- Entertainment
- June 15, 2016
Over cocktails a few weeks ago, I was discussing literature with friends. Conversation inevitably swung to which book had the strongest claim as “the Great American Novel.” Huck Finn immediately sprang to my mind, which I quickly changed. It’s a tie, I said. Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. A no-brainer. Neither
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13 Virtues in the Ben Franklin Code of Morality 0
- Culture
- June 15, 2016
I recently wrote how Ben Franklin had a strong aversion to church services, despite the fact that he believed in God. This posed a practical problem to him. Franklin took morality seriously and he found himself wondering how he could possibly complete his “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection” minus the structure
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Ladies: The Draft is Coming 0
- Culture
- June 15, 2016
UPDATE: The section of the Senate legislation, detailed below, that would have required women to register for the draft was later removed. However, the question of drafting women for miliary service remains alive, as in February of 2019, federal judge Gray Miller ruled that “the all-male military draft is unconstitutional.” The New York Times reports: In the latest and
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Fathers: Not as Worthless as We’ve Been Told 0
- Culture
- June 15, 2016
Over 300 years ago, philosopher John Locke presented a little nugget of advice for fathers in his work called Some Thoughts Concerning Education. He noted: “The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge, which would be of more advantage to them, than an hundred rebukes and chidings. Would your
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Washington on the 3 Qualities a President Should Have 0
- History
- June 15, 2016
On June 15th, 1775, the newly formed American Congress appointed George Washington as the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. As was the case when eventually elected as America’s first president, Washington’s letters to family and friends demonstrate his extreme reluctance in accepting such an honorable, but demanding, position. The following letter to his friend Colonel
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What would Enlightenment Thinkers have Thought of Trump?0
- Culture
- June 14, 2016
American democracy is feared to be under threat. Comparisons with the 1930s are rife, and Donald Trump is now routinely called a potential Hitler or Mussolini. But some of Trump’s Republican critics have found a different source of inspiration: the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, who have a good deal to say on the subject of
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