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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

April 2023

Educating Our Next Generation (2 of 2)


Our last column explored the content of education today. This one will explore the structure itself: addressing the big problem of Middle School.

Most of the country divides up children into Elementary School (kindergarten through 6th grade; Middle School 7th and 8th, High School 9th-12th). These divisions are supposed to track the physical and mental changes in children as they transition through these years. Today, however, information is pouring in about Middle Schools- more...

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August 2022

Evolution of the State Department

What we now call the State Department began as Foreign Affairs, whose first Ambassadors, even before we were officially a country, were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, with Benjamin Franklin serving as an unofficial Ambassador.

A recent PBS broadcast in the series "American Experience" (Season 34 Ep 2), provided the experience of Black diplomats serving during the Cold War. Their experiences were like those of so many other "non-White Protestant males" who monopolized State Depar more...

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Critical Race Theory Conspiracy


The Republican "Base," the followers of Donald Trump, are scornful of "elites," by which they mean educated. Elites once included the rich and powerful, but these categories don?t bother the true believers as much as the "intellectuals."

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the product of scholar-advocates in the 1970s and 1980s at university level, who were interested in exploring how law and other forms of public policy could secure and protect civil rights, yet simultaneously more...

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The Two Faces of Faith

Faith has a place in human history?a mixed bag of good and bad consequences. Faith depends upon willing belief and assumptions that this belief is unchangeable.

Democracy depends on reasoned decisions, values that change as societies evolve. We think and know things today that were inconceivable for eons before our time.

Benefits of Faith
Faith can be a valuable unifying element, creating and sustaining communities. We do not do well as hermits. Even hermits more...

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