With the rise of cell phones, email, and text messaging, face-to-face conversational skills have declined. We know that digital communication is most likely here to stay. Yet, at the same time, many recognize that there is still an irreplaceable value to face-to-face conversation. So, how can we revive the art of conversation? The following 10
READ MOREMany of those against the transgender lobby LOVE the Rachel Dolezal case. In case you don’t remember, Dolezal was the Spokane (WA) NAACP president whose parents outed her last summer for having been born white. Yesterday, Dolezal was back in the news for finally admitting, in an interview, that she “was biologically born white, to
READ MORELast week the news hit that U.S. student scores in math and reading had dropped. In stark terms, this news tells us that only 40% or less of American 4th and 8th grade students are proficient in math and reading. These poor results are excused by a number of issues, poverty being the most prevalent.
READ MOREHow big is the distinction between education and indoctrination? Not terribly, if you ask some Tennessee lawmakers. They are pushing to remove any mention of religion from Tennessee’s State Academic Standards. At issue is an apparently controversial unit in seventh grade world history class that spends some time exploring Islam. At some point, the students
READ MOREÂ Wendell Berry (b. 1934) combines knowledge and experience better than most intellectuals, having divided his time between writing and farming for much of his life. He is the author of more than 40 books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, including such notable ones as The Unsettling of America and Hannah Coulter. He is known
READ MOREFascinatingly, the term propaganda has roots in the Catholic Church’s missionary work and push-back against the Protestant Reformation. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, describes the development of the word propaganda as follows: “The word had been coined in 1622, when Pope Gregory XV, frightened by the global spread of
READ MORE