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The Power of the Chorale: How One Choir’s Love of Music Keeps Them Going During the Pandemic
By Vanessa Blankenship January 27, 2022 Inside St. Luke in the Fields, a whimsical church in the West Village, a choir group gathered for weekly rehearsal in November. On that Tuesday evening, a crisp late fall breeze blew through the open stained-glass windows. Of the 36 members in attendance, more than half were bundled in their overcoats, and some passed out hand warmer packets to help soothe their shivers. In the rows of pews, everyone practiced social distancing, and everyone was wearing a mask. Despite the discomfort, they relished being there together – no small feat after more than a year of singing while being apart. The Stonewall Chorale, one…
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Clubhouse Rules: New York’s New Young Republican Leader Eyes the Future
November 8, 2022 By Asta Kongsted Gavin Wax sat on one of the many brown leather couches lining the studio apartment that serves as the “Clubhouse” of the New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC) on a recent Thursday afternoon. It is thanks to Wax that this group has that Midtown apartment at all – a fact which the 28 year-old Queens native does nothing to hide and which no one does anything to dispute. When Wax took over the presidency of the Club in 2019, it had 50 members and nowhere to host them. These days, membership stands at 1,100, while more than 76,000 have subscribed to their newsletter. With…
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Wanted: Moral Courage
Lawrence W. Reed June 20, 2023 When we see acts of moral courage, we should recognize and applaud those who show it. If moral courage means knowing what’s right and both doing it and defending it in spite of fear or obstructions, would you say we’ve improved over the years? My heart wants to say yes but my head tells me no. Every day seems to bring distressing news of moral courage in decline. When we see acts of moral courage, we should recognize and applaud those who show it. We should feel emboldened to practice more of it ourselves. Here’s an example. It happened three years ago but it’s…
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Reviving the ‘Can-Do’ Spirit Is Key to Recovering from the COVID Years
Lawrence W. Reed June 13, 2023 “In life, your attitude determines your altitude,” a wise person once said. I agree. I’ve observed many people with bad attitudes over the years. Without exception, they didn’t amount to much until they fixed their attitude problem. A bad attitude manifests in multiple forms: Arrogance. Dishonesty. A sense of entitlement. A thirst for power. Laziness. Pessimism and negativity. Cheerlessness. Jealousy. Defeatism. Disrespect for other people’s rights, choices, and property. After three years of destructive Covid policies—from lockdowns to mask mandates—some are finding it challenging to get their engines going again. That’s perfectly understandable, given what many have endured including illness and death among friends…
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How “A Bug’s Life” Revealed the Immorality of Socialism
June 11, 2022 Emmanuel Rincón There is no ethical or moral reason why somebody should work tirelessly to support a bunch of bureaucrats, and the 1998 Pixar hit seems to grasp this. Nowadays it is difficult to find a film that represents good ideals and lays bare the practices of totalitarianism; in recent decades, the major film producers have left aside in good proportion the stories of heroes and role models to focus on the victims and their suffering at the hands of the oppressors, without really offering any positive or hopeful message, other than to enhance the culture of victimhood. However, in A Bug’s Life this did not happen, although the…
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Why grammar mistakes in a short email could make some people judge you Julie Boland, Robin Queen I’m a cognitive psychologist who studies language comprehension. If I see an ad for a vacation rental that says “Your going to Hollywood!” it really bugs me. But my collaborator, Robin Queen, a sociolinguist, who studies how language use varies across social groups, is not annoyed by those errors at all. We were curious: what makes our reactions so different? We didn’t think the difference was due to our professional specialties. So we did some research to find out what makes some people more sensitive to writing mistakes than others. What prior research tells us Writing…
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Jim Abbott
Amanda J Hales April 25, 2016 Baseball is a game that requires its athletes to run and to bat, catch and pitch a ball. We know the game as America’s Pastime and it’s about as summery as you can get. Young boys and girls play as youngsters with the hopes of one day making it to the big leagues, but the big leagues are only for the elite. What happens, then, if you have a disability? Well, if you are Jim Abbott it’s no big deal. Jim Abbott was born in Flint Michigan and attended the University of Michigan. He excelled at both baseball and football, albeit without the use…
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Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas
June 21, 2022 The rapid gains Republican women have made since 2018 could be a signal for how the party fares in this year’s midterms Mayra Flores was sworn in on Tuesday, becoming Texas’ first Republican Latina to join Congress. Flores’ victory also sets a new milestone: A historic high of 147 women overall and a record 41 Republican women now hold congressional seats, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University. Born in Mexico to migrant farmworkers, Flores is a first-time candidate who defeated her Democratic opponent this month in Texas’s 34th congressional district, which is historically Democratic. Flores’ addition to Congress…
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How recess helps students learn
Published: February 14, 2022 3.03pm EST Author William Massey Assistant Professor of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University As parents and schools seek to support students’ social and emotional needs – and teach them what they need to learn – some education leaders are missing one particularly effective opportunity. The U.S. Department of Education has offered guidance on how to help students navigate the stress and trauma of the pandemic and readjust to in-person schooling after long periods of closed schools. But as someone who studies recess in connection with child development, I couldn’t help but notice recess was missing from the federal guidance and from many local…
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Mama, don’t let your baby grow up to be a snowflake…
I do not want to raise a kid that can’t do anything for himself. I want Alex to be able to function on his own when he goes to college in a few years, to do his own laundry-especially to get dirt stains out of baseball pants-and to manage his time so that he can study and also have fun. So far, Alex is learning most of the skills he needs, so now I am tackling the biggie-money management. One of the best lessons I did as a parent was during the summer when Alex was about 12 years old and he wanted to buy fast food all the time…
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