Public Untruths
John Lukacs in The Passing of the Modern Age (1977). “The sometimes hopeless slowness in the movement of ideas makes life difficult for the young who, even more than adults, are very much dependent upon the ideas of others. This…..
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News & Updates
Strategies for Leveling the Educational Playing Field
BY Elizabeth M. Ross As an academic, David Deming says it is always tempting to think that we have to better understand major problems before we can solve them but, when it comes to the profound disparities in K–12 education in America, he…..
2023 In Eight Points: Meditating On Our Planetary Moment
Otto Sharmer As the year draws to an end and we head into 2024, I feel the need to close the feedback loop between all the challenges of 2023 and my own sensemaking. Here are three tangible things that stand…..
The Joy of Communal Girlhood, the Anguish of Teen Girls
OPINION JESSICA BENNETT New York Times December 31st 2023 OK, I’ll admit it. When I learned of hot girl walks, I tried it: Go on a walk, think about how hot you are, do not talk (or think) about men. I thought girl dinner was pretty funny, too. Adult…..
Moore promises no tax hikes, trims money for state programs in a ‘refocus’
By Erin Cox Washington Post January 18th 2024 After warning for months that Maryland needed to rein in its costs and boost its economy, Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Wednesday released a $63.1 billion budget proposal that aims to do that without raising taxes.F His budget,…..
Robert Rosenthal, Who Linked Subtle Cues to Behavior, Dies at 90
Jan. 19, 2024 New York Times By Clay Risen Robert Rosenthal, a psychologist renowned as an expert in nonverbal communication, and in particular what he called the “self-fulfilling prophecies” in which subtle, often unconscious, gestures can influence behavior, died on Jan……
Maryland’s economic woes predate pandemic, report finds
By Erin Cox. Washington Post Jan 4th 2024 Maryland’s economic woes predate the pandemic and “serve as flashing yellow lights for the state’s fiscal health,” according to a first-of-its-kind economic analysis released Wednesday by Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman’s office. The report, written by state economists and policy…..
How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won
By the Editorial Board. Washington Post Dec 22nd 2023 In September last year, three days after widespread protests broke out across Iran over the death of a young woman detained for not fully covering her hair with a hijab, the authorities blocked the internet. Mahsa…..
7 life lessons I’ll rely on this new year
By Steven Petrow. Washington Post January 8th 2024 Before I slammed the door on 2023 — good riddance! — I took some time to reflect on it. Specifically, what useful lessons, insights and practices can I pack up and carry into the new year to…..
Living with Our Pandemic Trade-Offs
Dhruv Khullar September 18, 2022 New Yorker Isaiah Berlin, the twentieth-century philosopher, spent much of his life arguing that we can’t have it all. In any weighty societal matter, worthwhile values invariably clash: liberty and equality, justice and mercy, impartiality and…..