Leah Libresco's Blog, page 33
March 3, 2015
Life Lessons that Can’t be Taught at College’s Scale
In Ethika Politika, Margaret Blume explains why she’s preferred her studies at Notre Dame to her undergrad years at Yale, my own alma mater. Yale has distribution requirements (Writing, Science, Humanities, Quantitative Reasoning, etc), but no single course is required — your math credit can come from econ or astronomy or set theory. Blume found that [Read More...]
March 2, 2015
The Word Gap Needs More Than Individual Effort
I’m posting at Fare Forward today, talking about the word gap, and why solutions should include structural reform of work schedules, wages, and zoning — not just increased effort from individual parents: Poorer children start falling behind the richer children in their age cohort long before they toddle off to their first day of school or [Read More...]
February 28, 2015
Sad Stories of the Deaths of Kings (and Queens) [Radio Readings]
You can listen to “Fights in Good Faith,” my weekly radio program, streaming today at 5pm ET and tomorrow (Sun) at 1pm. The episode is now available to download and stream. In the past week, I’ve watched the entire BBC Hollow Crown cycle (Richard II, Henry IV pt 1, Henry IV pt 2, and Henry V), the Folger Theatre production of Mary [Read More...]
February 26, 2015
7QT: Stoicism Man, Semi-Imaginary Money, and Second Moons
— 1 — Did you know that Earth has a second moon? Because I sure as heck did not (I’m in the lucky 10,000!). Apparently, the astronomical body 3753 Cruithne is also in orbit around the Earth, but its orbit is bizarrely convoluted — to the point where it takes 800 years for it to make a full, [Read More...]
Can’t I Love You Into Being Happy?
When Ellery Weil guest posted yesterday on The Last 5 Years and the demanding kind of support that Jamie offers Cathy, I realized that Jaime could have benefited from internalizing a meme I’ve seen floating around on tumblr. Golbats for Equality spun up a quote from Nidoqueen into this image: In the musical, Jaime doesn’t know how [Read More...]
February 25, 2015
The Story of Shmuel and Tailoring Support [Guest Post]
This is a guest post by Ellery Weil on The Last 5 Years. I’ve included a video clip of a “Story of Shmuel” performance, but it’s not the one Ellery is discussing. The Last Five Years is a story of love lost, or maybe love that was never really there. But more than that, it’s a [Read More...]
February 21, 2015
Effective Altruism and Caritas [Radio Readings]
You can listen to “Fights in Good Faith,” my weekly radio program, streaming today at 5pm ET and tomorrow (Sun) at 1pm. I’ll update this post when the episode is available to stream. This week’s program is about the Effective Altruism movement ways to resolve tensions between its recommendations and the Christian aim of charity. I gave a [Read More...]
February 19, 2015
7QT: New Riffs on Prayer, Booze, and Logic
Last call to sign up for my book updates email list if you want to be eligible to win an early review of Arriving at Amen, my book on prayer. I’ll be sending this month’s email (where you can enter my lottery) this afternoon. — 1 — While reading an article about why cocktails have wound [Read More...]
Asking a Lover for Too-Limited Support
When I hosted a party to watch The Last 5 Years, one of my guests tried to play diagnose-the-heresy with the two leads and claimed that they were both Pelagians, seeing happiness/success/virtue as simply a result of their own efforts. I disagreed for several reasons, the most important being that I think Pelagians think that a [Read More...]
February 18, 2015
Contemplation and Comment Moderation for Lent
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent — the season of preparation for Easter. The whole church fasts from meat on Fridays, during this season, and individual Catholics usually make personal commitments to give something up or take something on as a discipline this season. In Lent and in any other time, I sometimes [Read More...]
