Culture

Finding a Great Getaway From Our Crazy Time 12
- Culture, Education, Literature, Politics, Uncategorized
- September 15, 2022
“You have to be always drunk,” wrote the French poet Charles Baudelaire. “That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.” “But on what?” Baudelaire asks. With “wine, with
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How Can You Befriend a ‘Semi-Fascist’?2
- Culture, Politics
- September 15, 2022
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, at a recent event with a liberal audience, praised Justice Clarence Thomas, her ideological adversary. Sotomayor said, “He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution.” She added that while the two often disagree over judicial decisions, “We share a common understanding about people and kindness
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Forgetting Self, Finding Happiness 7
- Culture, Religion
- September 14, 2022
A while back I started an experiment of smiling brightly at perfect strangers while out and about doing my daily routine. Knowing that times are difficult, my intention was to bring a little joy into random people’s lives, while also causing them to wonder where my joy came from. Admittedly, I don’t always practice this
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Exposing the Woke School Counselor Cabal 7
- Education, Culture, Politics
- September 14, 2022
Back in the day, guidance counselors were those helpful (but not unduly intrusive) high school officials who dispensed vocational and career advice, reminded you of college application deadlines, and made sure your transcripts and letters of recommendations got where they needed to go. But like so much else in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional roles
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The Plague of Presentism 12
- Culture, Politics
- September 13, 2022
Presentism: Now there’s one ugly duckling of a word. My online dictionary defines presentism as “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.” To my surprise, the 40-year-old dictionary on my shelf also contains this eyesore of a word and definition. To be present,
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It’s Time to Root Students in Fertile Soil 0
- Education, Culture, Family, Religion
- September 12, 2022
I’ve been doing a lot of gardening and landscaping lately, building new flower beds and filling them with salvaged soil, edging them with rocks and planting them. I’ve moved plants to give them more suitable growing conditions—more or less light, or wind, or exposure to street traffic, depending on their sensitivities—plants sort of tell you
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