Fascinating historical perspectives.

The Classics in the Slums
In 1988, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, president of the Modern Language Association, authoritatively stated (as something too obvious to require any evidence) that classic literature was always irrelevant to underprivileged people who were not classically educated. It was, she asserted, an ( Read more... )

This is an interesting article.

Why Study War?
Military history teaches us about honor, sacrifice, and the inevitability of conflict. Victor Davis Hanson
Summer 2007
Try explaining to a college student that Tet was an American military victory. You’ll provoke not a counterargument-let alone an assent-but a blank stare: Who or what was Tet? Doing ( Read more... )

Not all is well in suburbia.

What’s Wrong with the Kids?
After Columbine, the whole nation- egged on by the press- is asking this question. The answer is disquieting. Kay S. Hymowitz
Winter 2000
Nine months ago, two seemingly ordinary boys from normal middle-class families walked into their high school in an affluent suburb of Denver and shot and ( Read more... )

People interested in education may be particularly inclined to read this article.

An F for Hip-Hop 101
At El Puente Academy, progressive education’s quest for “relevance” produces mighty strange results. Heather Mac Donald
Summer 1998
As the M train crawls toward Brooklyn over the Williamsburg Bridge, it traverses a gauntlet of graffiti. Scrawls ( Read more... )

Link

I'd not have known who the "Masters of the Universe" were if I had not read Tom Wolfe's essay "Hooking Up: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the Second Millennium: An American's World," published in 2000 in his book Hooking Up.

How We Mate
Kiss love and marriage good-bye. Today it's hook up, break up, and get even. Is everybody happy? Barbara Dafoe ( Read more... )