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Merry Christmas! I hope that Santa brought you everything you wanted this year. I wrote that greeting because it’s December 25th, and I live in the United States. According to Pew Research Center, nearly three-fourths of Americans identify as Christian. While I don’t identify that way, it’s not unusual for me to say “Merry Christmas.”…
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Nearly eighty years ago, Glinda the Good Witch told us all how to get back home again: “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.” The Electoral College meets tomorrow. Barring a truly historic rebellion, the College will finalize the election of Donald Trump to…
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I am a white male. I am also a feminist and a black rights comrade. I have something to tell any of my fellow white males who want to join the fight: Don’t expect to be trusted by everyone you’re trying to help. In the wake of the election, there seem to be many of…
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[mathjax]What is the equation of a line that is secant to a circle with radius \(r\) and center \((0,0)\)? This question started as a challenge with a student. She wanted to draw a pentagram on a graphing calculator, and while she could do the five lines freehand, she needed the equation of a circle. So…
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I am a white American, born a year after the Detroit riots and a month before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a child in Pontiac, Michigan, I was bussed from my mostly-white neighborhood to a mostly-black elementary school as part of a legally-compelled experiment in desegregation. My family moved not long…
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I was routinely bullied as a child. I was a bully magnet, a perfect storm of targetable infractions: Visibly handicapped, highly intelligent, and reliably histrionic. Bullies didn’t usually need to beat me up; it sufficed to get me upset, and I’d have an impressive tantrum all on my own. Because this usually happened on school…
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The view supported by Black Lives Matter is that systemic racism results in higher arrest, conviction, and incarceration rates for persons of color, particularly for blacks. Given two persons—otherwise identical except for their skin tone—who commit comparable acts, the likelihood that the black person will be punished more than the white person is statistically higher.…
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From the beginning of comedy in movies and television, the “guy friends” relationship has been a go-to structure. In “The Honeymooners,” Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton illustrated the masculine status quo: Friends and co-workers who show affection through insults; the dynamic was repeated in cartoon form in “The Flintstones.” In “The Andy Griffith Show,” Andy…
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After a year of increasingly divisive rhetoric, the Presidential election is finally upon us. Whatever happens on Tuesday, we will be entering another stage. Whether Mr. Trump wins or loses this election, we as a society need to keep our mind on the big question: How did we get here in the first place? How…
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More often than not, TV sitcoms perpetuate stereotypes and rely on tropes for convenient laughs. With few exceptions, men are shown as being childish, self-centered, and emotionally detached. So I wasn’t optimistic when I saw a preview for CBS’s new sitcom, “Man With a Plan.” The premise is that Adam, played by Matt LeBlanc, agrees…