A little over a month ago, in the heat of the war against statues, New York’s Mayor de Blasio expressed the thought that perhaps an explanatory note might be helpful in dealing with the dreadful conundrum represented by the offending … Continue reading →
It began with a seemingly-innocuous gift: To celebrate “National Read a Book Day,” the first lady [Melania Trump] had sent out a collection of 10 Dr. Seuss books to one school in each state across the nation. The titles included: … Continue reading →
A new survey about college students’ attitudes towards free speech has come out (1500 students were polled): While “hate speech” is odious, as long as it steers clear of well-established exceptions to the First Amendment…it is constitutionally protected. The survey … Continue reading →
Listen to this guy’s story (hat tip Legal Insurrection): Bad things are afoot at Evergreen and elsewhere. Every time I hear a story like this I think of Alan Bloom and his description of Cornell in the 60s, the seed … Continue reading →
Seven percent of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to an online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy. I’m not sure whether I’m more surprised that the number is so low, that it … Continue reading →
Or do you just think you do? [The following is a repeat of a previous post, somewhat edited.] I thought I remembered it pretty well. But when I started to research the subject, the first articles I read puzzled me … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I thought this post from 2013 could bear repeating, with some edits and additions to bring it up to date.] I’ve written before about Allan Bloom’s masterful The Closing of the American Mind, published in 1987, here and here. … Continue reading →
Hanson writes of how the university has become an expensive false-front of learning (that’s the “Potemkin” part) that is really devoted to fostering PC thought and behavior and monitoring itself and its denizens for any violations thereof. Well worth reading. … Continue reading →
In this thread from Saturday, quite a few people rhapsodized on how much they like audio books, and they recommended them to me. I’ve written before about my problems with auditory learning (see this and this), but now I’d like … Continue reading →
Remember the Miller Analogies Test? It was one of those “this is to this, as this is to which of these?” tests that supposedly tapped into a person’s logical reasoning ability as well as the person’s knowledge base. Analogies can’t … Continue reading →
Pence casts the tie-breaking vote: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer voiced his displeasure with the vote moments after she was confirmed, tweeting, “Today @VP Mike Pence did something no one else has ever done: cast the tie breaking vote on … Continue reading →
My ex-husband has been going through his papers, and yesterday he found something I thought had been long lost—a poem I had written as a 14-year-old sophomore in high school. How it came to be in his stuff I don’t … Continue reading →