Paramus blues
The NJ town of malls
Deep purple
Why, in the Odyssey, are blankets and cloaks purple?
Jackass
Theatre owner Greg Boardman shuts down rather than show Jackass
McDonald's [sic] goes vegan
McDonald's India offers McCurry and other vegan items
American reading habits
Depressing statistics on reading
Expectations, extensions, achievements
Dr. Harold Koplewicz, director of the New York University Child Study Center, in today's New York Times : "Among the baby boomers, and I am ...
Words from Charles Van Doren
The name Charles Van Doren will bring to mind the quiz show Twenty-One and scandal. But here's another way in which Charles Van Doren might...
Kill your television
On turning off the tv
Aeschylus and RFK
RFK's famed (mis)quotation of Aeschylus
Dinner
NY Times on families eating meals together
Beards (signs of the Times)
Excerpt from NY Times article on the resurgence of beards
Thank you for not talking
On the growth of cell-phone-free zones
Cave bling
Our concern with material wealth and status and the Homeric world’s preoccupation with τιμη seem to have deep, deep roots. Here are some ex...
Empire
2601 students: There’s a long essay by Tony Judt on the idea of American empire in the November 4 New York Review of Books . Here’s the ope...
Where's my dinner?
The origins of the TV dinner
Veterans Day
The first World War ended on November 11, 1918. Armistice Day was observed the next year. In 1954, Armistice Day became Veterans Day. Tod...
The uses of theater
2601 students: An interesting article on women and theater in Afghanistan.
Quiet please
From an article in today's Washington Post on materials used in federally funded abstinence-only programs: Some course materials cited in ...
Alabama in the news
From an article in the Birmingham News : An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters fr...
Wal-Mart and cultural mores
Some good examples of what we talk about when we talk about cultural mores, from an article in the New York Times on Wal-Mart's expansion ...
Lost and Found
My friend Chris Cougill mentioned http://foundmagazine.com today, which reminded me that I meant to include a link to it here. Anyone who...
Hothouse parenting
It's bad enough that today's children are raised in a psychological hothouse where they are overmonitored and oversheltered. But that hothou...
Athens
From a piece by Nicholas D. Kristof in today's New York Times : We might recall what happened to ancient Athens, perhaps the greatest flowe...
A post-solstice post
From Jared Sandberg's article "Dark Days of December Leave Many Workers Yearning to See Light," in yesterday's Wall Street Journal : There's...
MLK
Here's a link to the most-requested materials at the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University. You'll find texts and...
Patriarchal names
From an article in today's New York Times : The gesture to the mothers of France seemed to shake the sacred pillar of patriarchy. New Yea...
January 24
[W + (D-d)] x TQ M x NA That's the formula a British researcher has used to determine that January 24 is the most depressing day o...
PBS series
3009 students: Slavery and the Making of America airs on WILL-TV in two two-part installments: Wednesday, February 9, 8:00-10:00 p.m., and ...
Happy New Year
Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese New Year. Happy New Year. 2005 is the Year of the Rooster. For more about the Chinese calendar, ...
Patriarchy and property
From an article in today's New York Times , "AIDS and Custom Leave African Families Nothing": Many tribes are patrilineal, meaning children ...