Professor Raymond Dart was a famous anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. On the first day of the school year, in the manner of teachers everywhere, he opened his Introduction to Anthropology course with a lecture. However, a bit into his talk, he braced his hands on the lectern and, tucking...
Are you planning a trip to a foreign country, perhaps one whose language you don’t speak? There are many language programs available and one popular method they use is to group vocabulary words by categories. It is all well and good to learn how to parse grammar correctly but if you are looking to get...
One of the ways we sometimes subconsciously telegraph the nature of our character to others is by how often we employ the first person singular pronoun, I or me, whilst talking. There are pundits who rigorously count the number of first person singular pronouns in presidential speeches and correctly interpret a high count as a...
My wife and I have just returned from an amazing visit to Israel. One feature of the population stuck out, delighting us both. While Israel has many unique facets, in one way we felt that we had stepped into a time warp, beaming us back to healthier days in the United States. Regardless of actual...
Solomon & Socrates It would be difficult to overstate the reverence with which Jews who try to be faithful to the Bible’s teachings treat a Torah scroll. It is hand-written in carefully scripted Hebrew, on meticulously stitched together parchment sheets, by an expert known as a ‘sofer’. A Torah scroll is treated with the tender...
As the school year began anew, author (and courageous columnist) Abigail Shrier wrote about an increasing number of parents who are sending their children to classical schools or schools with dual-language curricula. She concluded that the draw wasn’t so much the foreign language acquisition as it was these parents dismay with what was taking place...
Here is one of the most important lessons to teach yourself and your children: Wrongdoers detest those who don’t join in. That idea illuminates a clear picture of much behind-the-scenes maneuvering in business as well as in much of our political process. More than one dedicated and idealistic candidate has won election promising to become...
I learned an important principle of how the world really works from one of my favorite animal books, the astoundingly illustrated book, Journey to the Ants. “If an animal is beautifully colored and acts with relative indifference to your presence it is probably poisonous or well armored.” An example of this principle is the South...
A study (conducted before inflation drove prices skyward) claimed that American women spend an average of $65 per month on anti-aging creams and treatments. American men spend just under $50 a month taking care of their own faces. These numbers seem wildly improbable but, either way, the Bible provides advice on how to look younger...
Are you a specialist in your field of work? What career field should I go into? Will history graduates find work in their field? Why is the word field by far the most common metaphor for work, career, or profession? Why not ask, “what river do you work in?” Or, “what road of work do...
