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You Always Remember Your First
Embed from Getty Images “Stuart spotted me the minute I stepped onto the schoolyard.” ___ You always remember your first. Mine was a brawny six-year-old named Stuart. The scourge of all the...
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Loyalty, it Means Having Your Friend’s Back
Embed from Getty Images “Admonish your friends in private; praise them in public. And distrust anyone who does the reverse.”—Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Why’s Taleb right? Two reasons: People who praise...
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Trump University vs. Typical University
Embed from Getty Images Was Trump University a scam? ___ Typical University (TU) is, like Trump University (TU), overpriced; its teachers fail to live up to promised standards (you get TAs and...
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Dear Donald
Embed from Getty Images A letter about true democracy to the GOP nominee. ___ When advocates of affirmative action declare that diversity is key to justice, because you can’t expect to be treated...
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A Nightmare on College Street
Embed from Getty Images “You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today.”—victim’s statement read aloud at Brock Turner’s sentencing. — The monster in Wes Craven’s A...
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The Good Dinosaur: I Want That Time Back
Embed from Getty Images Sometimes, you watch a movie and then wonder what the heck you just did for an hour and a half. __ Watched The Good Dinosaur (2015) on Netflix with Anna-Liisa and the boys...
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Talkers, Doers, BSers, and Dullards
Embed from Getty Images It’s time to step up to the plate. ___ The difference between a talker, a doer, and a bullshitter is merely a matter of degree. Bullshitters rarely follow through on their...
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The Myth of the Happy Poor
Embed from Getty Images “Poverty,” as J. K. Rowling rightly observes, “entails a thousand petty humiliations and hardships; it is romanticized only by fools.” — I’ve encountered the myth of the happy...
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Celebrating Diversity
Embed from Getty Images If you wish to learn about Australia, talk first to Australians and those who’ve actually been to Australia; if you wish to learn about war, talk first to people who’ve...
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In Defense of Black Lives Matter Canada
Embed from Getty Images Some people seem to be criticizing social justice activists for their inability to appreciate nuance or to allow for a spectrum of different experiences and opinions within...
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Stranger Things Evoke Memories
“In nature we never repeat the same motion; in captivity (office, gym, commute, sports), life is just repetitive-stress injury. No randomness.”—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes:...
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Sympathy for the Devil
Embed from Getty Images Are liberals less imaginative than conservatives and libertarians? I highly doubt it. Jonathan Haidt has found that when you give conservatives a questionnaire and ask them to...
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Family Values vs. Christian Values
Embed from Getty Images It’s always odd to hear a Christian fundamentalist prate on and on about Christian family values because Jesus was openly hostile to family values: “I came to set fire to the...
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The Real Legacy of Rudy Giuliani
Embed from Getty Images Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Rudy Giuliani, he has been all over the news media of late as the go-to Trump surrogate on terrorism. Perhaps he is hoping to...
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Why Pick-Up Artists Should be Sued for False Advertising
Embed from Getty Images If you’re hot for a guy who’s an asshole, it’s not because he’s an asshole, it’s probably because he’s hot. This is precisely why pick-up artists aren’t just evil and gross,...
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A Man’s Obstacle is the World
Embed from Getty Images I don’t do very much. It wasn’t until recently that I learned to forgive myself for this. Sometimes I feel I might even embrace myself as someone who abstains from doing...
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Perfect Justice, or, Why Political Arguments Never Convince Anybody
Embed from Getty Images Put a libertarian and non-libertarian in a room and you get an argument, always the same argument. It might be over whether people who got cancer from industrial emissions...
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Here I Stand, I Cannot do Otherwise
Embed from Getty Images “In captivity (office, gym, commute sports), life is just repetitive stress injury.” ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes (2010) I’ve been getting these annoying leg...
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The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Gary Hall’s Pirate Philosophy
Embed from Getty Images The hypocrisy of Gary Hall’s new book is nothing short of breathtaking. Pirate Philosophy (2016) is an expensive book ($54.20) that rails against the profit motive, a...
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Helicopter Parenting and the Decline of Dad
Embed from Getty Images The gendered parenting model of the 1950’s had its flaws for sure, but at least there was a complementary division of labor that, like a well-rounded diet, ensured that kids...
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