The Best Paragraph I've Read...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "This school would probably not attract many of today’s Ivy League elite. But they are not the ones who require better and cheaper alternatives. It is striking how most major institutions of higher learning are many decades or centuries old, and how reluctant they are to change their models or to become significantly more inclusive. Am I sure that my “fantasy universi...

The Best Paragraph I’ve Read: Worsley, in trying to cross Antarctica on his own, had embarked on a mission that exceeded his body’s capacity, and no amount of mental strength and tenacity could change that calculation. But if that’s true, then why is death by endurance so rare?  Why don’t Olympic marathoners and Channel swimmers and Appalachian Trail hikers keel over on a regular basis?&...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "We estimate that a typical classroom in the PPSD is interrupted more than 2,000 times per year and that these interruptions and the disruptions they cause result in the loss of between 10 and 20 days of instructional time. Several findings suggest that there exists substantial scope for reducing interruptions. Administrators appear to systematically underestimate the...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Four waffles down. Been here for 1.5 hours, so that means I have 18.5 to go. I am already in immense discomfort. Please, somebody, launch me into the sun." This paragraph comes from the Twitter Feed of Lee Sanderlin.  Mr. Sanderlin spent twenty-four hours in a Waffle House after losing his Fantasy Football League.  You can read about Mr. Sanderlin's experience throug...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: A truly consequential innovation is one that makes possible entirely new business models that touch the lives of millions. The car enabled motels and shopping malls, the internet enabled e-commerce, and smartphones and GPS enabled ride-sharing. What business model that touches the lives of millions have cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin made possible? American motorist...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Some tourists say their visits are less pleasant because of the crowd of Disneyland caliber crowds at popular attractions… But the surge in tourism is now reaching new heights. Dead Horse Point State Park, near Arches and Canyonlands, saw twice as many visitors in March 2021 as in March 2019. Buffalo Bill State Park in Wyoming saw a 37% increase in visitors last year...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: 'I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world,' Churchill predicted to his friend Murland Evans; 'great upheavals, terrible struggles, wars such as one cannot imagine; and I tell you London will be in danger - London will be attacked and I shall be very prominent in the defence of London... I see into the future.  This country will be subjected, somehow, to...

To celebrate Father's Day, Zac and Don ask their dads to share their own life advice.  In addition each father is asked about how America has changed, and who they looked up to when they were young.  There is a lot of wisdom shared in this episode!

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Welcome to the curious case of Hobbs Kessler. As the school days wind down to a precious few, this is not how Kessler imagined his senior year would have gone. “I thought I would be rock climbing a lot more and spending time doing that,” he said. “Just running cross-country just for fun, as a social outlet.” A social outlet? Then why is the Ann Arbor Skyline sensation...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "I have a routine, just like nature. That extends to what I eat. I’ve had the same supper for 10 years, even on Christmas Day: two pieces of fish, one big onion, an egg, baked beans and a few biscuits at the end. For lunch I have a pear, an orange and four sandwiches with paste. But I allow myself a bit more variety; I’ll sometimes have soup if it’s cold.   When I go...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "There is a summit. And then there is everything below it.  Can close ever be good enough?  Revelations from a team of respected researchers have thrust that question into the open like never before, putting special attention on the world’s highest mountains and most acclaimed climbers.  By asking a simple-sounding question — What is the summit? — the researchers are...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: As the global population approaches eight billion, and science discovers increasingly promising ways to slow or reverse aging in the lab, the question of human longevity's potential limits is more urgent than ever.  When their work is examined closely, it's clear that longevity scientists hold a wide range of nuanced perspectives on the future of humanity.  Historical...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "If there’s an “It” breed of the 21st century so far, it’s these dogs, with their squat figures, flat faces, and outsize bat ears. American Kennel Club registrations for the breed have risen steadily for over a decade, growing by 830 percent since 2009. At around 20 pounds and perfectly sized for carry-on luggage, Frenchies have been marketed as the dog best suited to...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: To fully understand progress, we must contrast it with non-progress. Of particular interest are the technologies that have failed to live up to the promise they seemed to have decades ago. And few technologies have failed more to live up to a greater promise than nuclear power. In the 1950s, nuclear was the energy of the future. Two generations later, it provides only...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The one case in which I think I can see the finger of God in contemporary history is Churchill's arrival at the premiership at that precise moment in 1940.  Churchill put his remarks... far more poetically three years later in the final lines of his book The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his war memoirs.  Recalling the evening of Friday, 10 May 1940,...

Th Best Paragraph I've Read: "To Ms. Hostetter's backers, the entire affair is being overblown by an intolerant mob of woke liberals who have no respect for the privacy of someone's personal politics.  Yet Ms. Hostetter's politics, while personal, are hardly private..." This article comes from the New York Times.  The article is titled: "A Teacher Marched to the Capitol.  When she Got Home, the Fi...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS. It almost always seemed negative, regardless of what was he seeing in the data or hearing from scientists he knew. When Covid cases were rising in the U.S., the news coverage emphasized the increase. When...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "We have become a country with vanishingly few paths out of poverty, or even out of the working class. We’ve allowed the majority of our public schools to founder, while expensive private schools play an outsize role in determining who gets to claim a coveted spot in the winners’ circle. Many schools for the richest American kids have gates and security guards; the me...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: On April 12, 2117, the field-modulator brake-valve in the Door belonging to Mrs. Richard Hanshaw depolarized for reasons unknown. As a result, Mrs. Hanshaw's day was completely upset and her son, Richard, Jr., first developed his strange neurosis. It was not the type of thing you would find listed as a neurosis in the usual textbooks and certainly young Richard behave...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Each year, March Madness opens a fire hose of cash, as gamblers, advertisers and television networks try to get in on the action. Americans wagered an estimated $8.5 billion in 2019 on the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, as March Madness is formally known. Television networks paid $1.1 billion to broadcast the games. And businesses spent an estimated...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The time parents spend in the presence of their children has not changed much, but parents today spend more of it doing hands-on child care. Time spent on activities like reading to children; doing crafts; taking them to lessons; attending recitals and games; and helping with homework has increased the most. Today, mothers spend nearly five hours a week on that, compa...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Big League Advance uses a proprietary algorithm to project the performance and earning potential of players, in order to establish the set amount it would be willing to pay a player in exchange for each percentage point of future major league earnings that player is willing to give up.  For instance, if Big League Advance offers a minor leaguer 100,000 up front for 1%...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The size of the problem is difficult to measure, says Penn State professor Linda Treviño, coauthor of the 2012 book Cheating in College. Part of the challenge is defining what constitutes cheating. Is it getting an answer to a homework problem from a friend, peeking at a classmate’s paper during an exam, paying someone to take a test for you, plugging in answers from...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: For our first case, the moderator projected a picture of a smiling girl in a yearbook photo, with a cartoon thought bubble that read “Kill All Men.” Facebook had removed the post for violating its hate-speech rules, which ban attacks based on “sex, gender identity.” To many, this seemed simplistic. “It’s a joke,” one woman said. “There has to be an exception for humor...

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The International Olympic Committee's pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games.  Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Those three sports will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games which were...