Friday 26th April 2024

The Campus-Left Occupation That Broke Higher Education

Elite colleges are now reaping the consequences of promoting a pedagogy that trashed the postwar ideal of the liberal university.

Fifty-six years ago this week, at the height of the Vietnam War, Columbia University students occupied half a dozen campus buildings and made two principal demands of the university: stop funding military research, and cancel plans to build a gym in a nearby Black neighborhood. After a week of futile negotiations, Columbia called in New York City police to clear the occupation.


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Why Your Vet Bill Is So High

Corporations and private-equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices.

In the pandemic winter of 2020, Katie, my family’s 14-year-old miniature poodle, began coughing uncontrollably. After multiple vet visits, and more than $1,000 in bills, a veterinary cardiologist diagnosed her with heart failure. Our girl, a dog I loved so much that I wrote an essay about how I called her my “daughter,” would likely die within nine months.


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The Supreme Court Goes Through the Looking Glass on Presidential Immunity

At this morning’s oral argument, the justices debated the ins and outs of Trump’s dangerous proposition.

Here are a few things that Donald Trump’s lawyer says a president ought to be immune from prosecution for doing:


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The Passover Plot

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.

“Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of murdered Christian children at the Passover festival,” the Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin wrote in The Atlantic in 1911. “Of course that was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing.” Antin grew up in the Pale of Settlement, an area spanning from modern-day Russia through Ukraine and Poland where Jews were permitted to reside from 1791 to 1915 but deprived of citizenship. Antin’s vivid essay describes her childhood there before coming to America, including the vibrancy of Jewish life at the time as well as its tribulations under the brutal Russian empire.


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How America Lost Sleep

Many Americans are reporting that they’d feel better if they slept more, but finding the right remedy isn’t always simple.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.


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Trump Is Getting What He Wants

At today’s hearing on Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority appeared poised to give him what he most desires in the case: further delays that virtually preclude the chance that he will face a jury in his election-subversion case before the November election.

But the nearly three hours of debate may be even more significant for how they would shape a second Trump term if he wins reelection. The arguments showed that although the Court’s conservative majority seems likely to reject Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, four of the justices appear predominantly focused on limiting the possibility that future presidents could face such charges for their actions in office, with Chief Justice John Roberts expressing more qualified sympathy with those arguments. Among the GOP-appointed justices, only Amy Coney Barrett appeared concerned about the Court potentially providing a president too much protection from criminal proceedings.


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Philosophical reflection often begins with a disruptive mood | Psyche Ideas

is a psychologist with a PhD in philosophy. He combines philosophy and a range of psychotherapeutic approaches in his private practice. He is based in Sydney, Australia, and has clients from different parts of the world. He runs professional development courses on the significance of philosophy for psychotherapy.

It’s often thought that philosophy begins and ends with abstract and rational thinking. Like science, it’s seen as a methodology of logic that allows the philosopher to be detached, disengaged, free from the irrationality and subjectivity of emotion, and precise in the pursuit of objective truth. However, the history of philosophy shows that disruptive emotions and moods are central to the experience of philosophising. Philosophy means love of wisdom. It includes a care of the self, and our attitude towards the world is extremely important for wellbeing.

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Ancient Maya Royals' Remains Were Burned in a Public Ceremony to Mark a New Political Regime

Archaeologists discovered charred remains of former rulers tossed “haphazardly” into a tomb in present-day Guatemala, suggesting they had been removed from their original burial sites

In the ancient Maya kingdom of K’anwitznal—a lowland city located in present-day Guatemala—dead royals weren’t always treated with reverence, archaeologists say.

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Historic Borax Wagon Destroyed in Blaze at Death Valley National Park

Beginning in 1883, 18 mules and two horses hauled wagons full of borax across eastern California

In the 1880s, workers began extracting borax from the ground in Death Valley. To haul the valuable compound to the nearest train station in California, they attached 18 mules and two horses to a set of wooden wagons—two loaded with borax and a third carrying water. Many years later, these “20-mule teams” remain an enduring image.

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Skies Over Athens Turn a Martian Orange Amid Saharan Dust Storm

Strong winds brought desert dust and heat across the Mediterranean this week, sparking health advisories and fires in Greece

The city of Athens was transformed into an orange, Mars-like landscape this week as strong winds carried in clouds of dust from the Sahara Desert. The Greek capital’s buildings, homes, mountains and famous historic sites became draped in a low-light, pumpkin glow on Tuesday.

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