The 1619 Project just won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize. More specifically, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the coordinator of the project and a staff writer for the New York Times, has been awarded a Pulitzer for her essay that serves as the introduction for the 1619 Project. The Pulitzer Committee cited their rationale for the award saying it … Read more
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducts polling about the role of religion in American life. Its stated purpose is to be “a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy.” Its partnerships with The Atlantic and the Brookings Institution would place its political orientation as … Read more
A Modern Parable Imagine that you are incredibly wealthy. This is not just the kind of wealth that allows you to have a half dozen homes. It’s a fortune that you will never use in your lifetime. From your detached perspective, you can see that things in the nation are not going as you think … Read more
Public officials dealing with the coronavirus have forgotten one measure—the importance of prayers. Such a consideration is discarded by a secular society that does not believe that God can act upon the nature He created. Prayer is thus ineffective. History proves otherwise. The Church recorded countless cases of individuals and societies that were saved by … Read more
Harvard University is a curious place. It represents the best and the worst of American tradition. Its red-brick buildings and well-manicured lawns are the symbols of the highest American intellectual traditions. At the same time, Harvard has made a kind of cottage industry of condescension. The May-June 2020 issue of their magazine of the same … Read more
There will be no second season any time soon for the highly popular television series Good Omens. The reason cited for the suspension is a Return to Order petition against the series. The cancellation shows that protest work. No matter how popular a series is, it can be defeated if enough people let their voices … Read more
How to Educate an American is a collection of essays edited by Michael J. Petrilli and Chester E. Finn, Jr. that embraces a serious task. The subtitle set out its goal – The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools. Unfortunately, this book cannot deliver something that does not exist. There is no unified conservative vision for … Read more
Recently, I went to a local funeral home for a viewing. The deceased was a former student. He was driving while intoxicated, and the resulting high-speed collision was horrible. His passenger died as well. I will refer to the young man as John, even though that is not his real name. John was in his … Read more
“If you were to examine any speech made by a university president fifty years ago, you would find that the word ‘excellence’ occurs with great frequency…. If you made the same examination now, you’d find that ‘diversity’ has taken its place.” This quote summarizes the main idea behind the book, The Breakdown of Higher Education: … Read more
Almost anyone in academia or business administration has seen a “TED Talk.” These are five to twenty-five-minute lectures first given at TED events. The presentations are then available on YouTube. The Power of TED The power of these talks comes from their easy availability. They have a Creative Commons license. They can be used for … Read more
