Essays
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Page 58
A Penn graduate's modest proposal
Dear Penn: You made me what I am today, so who owes whom?
I hold a master's degree in social work from Penn but no job in social work. I do, however, have a budding career as a standup comic (and a former stripper). So what can my alma mater do for me now?
Essays
4 minute read
Does grade-point average matter?
The college instructor's quandary: When students lobby for higher grades
All good academics, admissions officers and personnel managers agree on one thing: A student's grade-point average doesn't really matter in life. Except when it does.
Essays
4 minute read
My favorite journalist: Nicholas Kristof
Can one journalist make a difference? Ask the young mothers of West Africa
The world is such an unmitigated mess that my heart surges every time I see Nicholas Kristof's byline in the New York Times. His latest crusade spotlights a West African clinic where adolescent mothers— physically damaged in childbirth and abandoned for their “shame”— find healing.
Essays
4 minute read
The Eichmann verdict revisited (a response)
Crime, punishment and Eichmann: Hannah Arendt's contribution
Was hanging the appropriate sentence for the architect of the Holocaust? Hannah Arendt argued persuasively that Adolf Eichmann deserved to die. But can justice can ever truly be achieved in cases of “radical evil”? That question remains on the table.
Essays
9 minute read
Zimmerman's jury: The ideal vs. the real (3rd comment)
A jury of whose peers? George Zimmerman's trial, and mine
In the mid-1980s I served on a jury for a murder trial in Philadelphia. It soon became apparent that none of us jurors were “peers” of the defendant or his victim— the legal ideal. The same applies to the six women jurors who recently acquitted George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. So what's the decisive factor in a jury's verdict?
Essays
10 minute read
Up from poverty in Namibia
A new road out of serfdom
Mary was once an HIV-positive sex worker in Namibia. Now she's running an ingenious, socially useful— and profitable— business. Third World pessimists may find a useful lesson here.
Essays
4 minute read
When Anglophones speak French
How do you say ‘Wi-Fi' in French?
French is a beautiful language. Why do Americans, Britons and Canadians alike insist on mangling it?
Essays
3 minute read
Is Detroit beyond redemption?
The philosopher's solution: A ray of hope for beleaguered Detroit
My hometown of Detroit, once a haven for some very nasty notions, has filed for bankruptcy protection. But Detroit's current malaise gives those who haven't abandoned the city an opportunity to abandon old prejudices for new solutions. A 96-year-old philosopher may be the city's new Joan of Arc.
Essays
3 minute read
Where have all the servants gone?
It seemed like a good job, considering the alternatives
Today's relatively classless society has rendered the servants of “Downton Abbey” and “Upstairs Downstairs” virtually obsolete. Yet the gulf between rich and poor seems as wide as ever.
Essays
3 minute read
On crossing myself
Why do I cross myself? Funny you should ask
I'm a Lutheran, not a Catholic, but I can't help crossing myself. How come? And why are we Christians so preoccupied with our founder's death? One question answers the other.
Essays
6 minute read