Author: Lance Garrison
To the Editor:Re “Fight the Powerful Forces Stealing Our Attention,” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):In 2010, frustrated that I had to admonish the students in my large sophomore lecture course to turn off their cellphones at the start of each class, only to see them return to them immediately at the end, I told them a story.When I went to college, I explained, there were no cellphones. After class, we thought about what we had just learned, often discussing it with our friends. Why not try an experiment: for one week,…
These are troubling times for American higher education. On one side, some students at a handful of elite universities have made harsh anti-Israel statements, some crossing the line into outright antisemitism, and some university presidents have been diffident and mealy-mouthed in their responses. Ugly as these events have been, however, there isn’t much reason to believe that the quality of education at these institutions — which, in any case, account for a small fraction of America’s college enrollment — is under serious threat.On the other side, the State University System of Florida, which has more than 430,000 students, is under…
I think quite a lot about persuasion. What is it, exactly, that moves a person from one position to another? Where does one aim one’s efforts for maximum effect? At the head, or at the heart?One of the most interesting explorations of the art of persuasion comes from New York University’s Jonathan Haidt, who several years ago described the process of persuasion as well as anyone I know. In his book “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom,” he compares people’s relation to their emotions to a “rider on the back of an elephant.”The rider is our rational…
Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: Good News, With Some Complications 091e9c5e820faac4091e9c5e820faac4FED-Footermodule_FED-Footer_091e9c5e820faac4.xmlwbmd_pb_templatemodule0144002/02/2021 01:57:340HTML
This is a good week to remember that in the hours after Senate Republicans refused to convict Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, offered a hint of future comeuppance for the former president. Mr. Trump, he said, was still liable for everything he did as president.“He didn’t get away with anything yet — yet,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor on Feb. 13, 2021. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.”Almost three years…
Dec. 13, 2023 – You may have read articles about how a glass of red wine a day can improve heart health, or a study that showed how light to moderate drinking, in general, is linked to a lower risk of heart and blood vessel problems. The reality, however, is much more complicated, new research suggests. A team of researchers studied the impact that alcohol consumption has on our metabolites – the small molecules produced through metabolic processes – and what the prevalence of certain metabolites means for the risk of cardiovascular disease. They found that the metabolic traces left behind…
In my nearly three decades as an editor, author and former editor of The New York Times Book Review, a shorthand has often been used to describe contemporary authors — the Latino poet, the Indigenous novelist, the Black writer. Often this extends to a reductive way of viewing their work: This book is by an X person telling an X story.After a presentation to the Book Review in which a publicist referred to yet another book as “unapologetically gay,” a gay editor on staff said in jest, “I wish for once they would talk about an apologetically gay novel.”But his…
The Mental and Emotional Impact of Hearing Loss 091e9c5e820faac4091e9c5e820faac4FED-Footermodule_FED-Footer_091e9c5e820faac4.xmlwbmd_pb_templatemodule0144002/02/2021 01:57:340HTML
As a memoir, however, Cheney’s book is overly narrow, and at times curiously uncurious. Yes, anyone interested in the author’s recollections from inside the House chamber on Jan. 6 will find plenty of material (when Jim Jordan of Ohio approached her to help “get the ladies” off the aisle, Cheney swatted his hand away, retorting, “Get away from me. You f — ing did this.”), and Cheney is unstinting in her contempt for Kevin McCarthy, then the Speaker of the House, whom she describes as unprincipled and unintelligent in roughly equal doses. (She even finds McCarthy less substantive and capable…
Hearing Loss: What You Can Do About It 091e9c5e820faac4091e9c5e820faac4FED-Footermodule_FED-Footer_091e9c5e820faac4.xmlwbmd_pb_templatemodule0144002/02/2021 01:57:340HTML