Written
Cards on the table: I do not want my children forced to wear masks in school. Apart from discomfort and health (including mental health), masks unarguably impede the ability to understand what people are saying and almost obliterate the ability to read facial expressions, which is absolutely critical to education, especially for younger children. Furthermore,…
The story of Morgan Bettinger at the University of Virginia, as Mairead McArdle describes it for the Daily Wire, is terrifying. Driving home on a Friday last summer, before her senior year, McArdle came upon a BLM-related roadblock. She got out of her car and chatted with “a city dump truck driver who was blocking the…
I’ve slipped a bit on my plan to have one of these essays on Dust in the Light each week — partly because my time has had to be spent elsewhere, and partly because they take longer to write than a typical post. This weekend, I took up the ideas of sacredness and meaning in life,…
Watching gubernatorial candidates Nellie Gorbea and Seth Magaziner (the Rhode Island Secretary of State and General Treasurer, respectively) turn top-down, executive-order-imposed mask mandates for school children into a political talking point is clarifying. They’re going after Governor Dan McKee because he did not mandate by executive order that every child must be masked upon their…
This is dreadful. Haunting. Soul shaking. Short video clips tell the story of people attempting to cling to the outside of airplanes to escape Afghanistan after the Biden administration’s inexcusable botching of troop withdrawals. The image immediately brings to mind the people who jumped or fell from the Twin Towers on 9/11/01. That day, and…
Glenn Reynolds is correct to say that the situation Joel Kotkin described in a recent American Mind essay “might as well be a foreign plot to weaken America.” Of course, it needn’t be that. Reducing the rigor of American education benefits not only our global adversaries, but also the people and institutions charged with conducting education…
Last night, I pondered Luis Daniel Munoz’s argument for a single-payer healthcare system on a recent State of the State episode. He’s a compelling speaker, and it all sounds so reasonable. Smart, well-meaning people can pick a model and give it a try. Experts will keep an eye on the program, and if it isn’t…
My latest article for Accuracy in Media does some digging into what’s going on with critical race theory (CRT)–style curricula and teacher training in Providence schools: Congressional Republicans scored a victory for racial harmony in the American classroom with the passage of Senator Tom Cotton’s “Stop CRT Act“. Whether the legislation will actually halt the promotion of critical race theory…
Did you hear Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation speech? If not, you may wish to take an antiemetic before listening to it. (Transcript here.) His voice quavered with “emotion” at several points during the speech. “I have slipped …”; “In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line”; “Excelsior” (really; towards the end). Oh oh. So dramatic.…
Brad Polumbo reports for the Foundation for Economic Education: The promised long-term economic benefits from the sweeping $1 trillion expenditure will likely never materialize, according to a new Ivy League analysis. This runs directly against the president’s promises that it would create jobs and stimulate the economy. Indeed, Biden has insisted that the government spending…