Oberlin's Comeuppance by Anthony Esolen,

Oberlin's Comeuppance by Anthony Esolen

As I write these words, a jury in Ohio is about to decide whether an $11 million verdict against Oberlin College, for libel and tortious practices against a local family-run bakery, should be tripled for punitive damages. If it could be tripled and tripled again, it would still be only just.

It's great to hear this common sense take on what is becoming surreal

Classical Ed: What To Think or How To Think? by Joshua Gibbs

Classical Ed: What To Think or How To Think? by Joshua Gibbs

However, Christian education demands that we teach students what to love and how to love, for love is simply the greatest kind of knowledge. A classical education aims to train the affections and show a man how to “rightly order his loves” (ordo amoris), though a man cannot order his loves until he knows what they are. Rightly ordering our loves demands both body and soul, substance and idea, what and how.

Another brilliant iconoclastic essay by my favorite teacher. It reminds me of a debate taking place in conservatism right now over pluralism vs. monism. Monism can fall victim to a dogmatic belief in one Truth and oppress all non-believers, but pluralism can fall victim to relativism and no real truth. I think there is one Truth but the way to get there is pluralism. In Joshua Gibbs article, I believe there IS the good, true, and beautiful, so we need to tell our student WHAT to think, but they will get there on their own through knowing HOW to think.

I Thought There Was a Simple Solution to an Unwanted Pregnancy, But I Was Wrong by Mariel Lindsay

I Thought There Was a Simple Solution to an Unwanted Pregnancy, But I Was Wrong by Mariel Lindsay

But now, inexplicably, I couldn’t choose abortion even though it would give me the freedom I thought I desperately wanted. I began to suspect that there was something wrong with me. After all, I had a legal option to end my pregnancy. I had a choice. But I wasn’t so sure. What seemed so simple in theory was so far from simple in real life.

Brilliant read into a young woman's unplanned pregnancy and the process of bringing her daughter into the world.

Alone: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness by Kay S. Hymowitz

Alone: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness by Kay S. Hymowitz

Still, the loneliness thesis taps into a widespread intuition of something true and real and grave. Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of “deaths of despair” suggest a profound, collective discontent. It’s worth mapping out one major cause that is simultaneously so obvious and so uncomfortable that loneliness observers tend to mention it only in passing. I’m talking, of course, about family breakdown.

Fascinating article on a rarely mentioned effect of family breakdown. Scripture says "God places the lonely in families." We are doing our best to upend that!