A recent piece in the NYT muses on the question of brain enhancement and the emerging field of cosmetic neurology that, like cosmetic surgery, intervenes to nip and tuck, as it were, minds not as beautiful as they might be with a bit of neuro-medical intervention. Continue reading →

“My green light?” asked a student who has been studying Gatsby in her sophomore English class at the Boston Latin School as reported recently in the NYT. “My green light is Harvard.” Later, she explicates a bit further: “Gatsby’s hopes and dreams are American ideals. His effort is the real ideal of the American dream.” Another student adds, “It’s a very inspirational tale.” The article goes on to report how a new generation of strivers finds new meaning in American literature’s most mulled-over symbol. What the article fails to report, however, is that these seemingly innocent student observations are symptomatic of how poorly our students are being prepared as readers (of even the most sophomoric of American high-school curriculum classics) even at elite schools with humanities-based curricula such as Boston Latin. Without belaboring the point too much, Continue reading →

Assuming that Hillary Clinton does on occasion converse with the man who once asked the nation to consider “what the meaning of is is,” it ought to come as no surprise that she has an ear more attuned than most to the nuance and power of the spoken word. As the former first lady’s campaign for the democratic nomination has moved into what must be its last gasp effort to salvage victory out of a ruinous campaign strategy that has lurched from her autumnal preening over the inevitability of an early-February coronation to her wintry performance of a snarling victimhood (we will leave further commentary to the political bloggers), Ms. Clinton has made language itself an issue. Continue reading →

Allow me to proffer one more sphere of activity for parents to worry about when contemplating their teenagers’ sometimes self-destructive on-line activity. I do not speak here of pedophiles or pornographers. Rather, I speak of the Continue reading →