John Hainze— The Endangered Species Act is one of the premier environmental laws in the United States. It offers protection for endangered and threatened organisms both large and small—from orchids to insects to bears. That the Act does not differentiate between charismatic animals and those of a lesser pedigree is
Luca Fezzi— In the creative chaos of the reflections on the first election campaign won by Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, a daring parallel emerged between the newly elected president and the Roman orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero, for their status as well-learned politicians and excellent speakers. The article
On February 22nd, internationally-renowned Greek poet Kiki Dimoula passed away at the age of eighty-nine. One of Greece’s most beloved writers, Dimoula was decorated with the European Prize for Literature, the Greek State Prize, and the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Prize, among other awards, and in 2002 she was inducted
Charles D. Canham— The northeast is one of the country’s most thoroughly forested regions, with forests covering two-thirds of the nine northeastern states. But that statistic belies the extraordinary wave of logging and clearing of land for agriculture that followed European settlement 400 years ago. In the Mid-Hudson Valley where
Barbara Schneider, Joseph Krajcik, Jari Lavonen, and Katariina Salmela-Aro— The bell rings as first hour is about to begin. By twos and threes, students duck into Ms. Newman’s classroom just in time to begin science class, while others surreptitiously trickle in after the bell. Ms. Newman takes attendance while students
Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall— Elemental mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. Aristotle called it “quicksilver,” a term that captures its strange beauty. But this particular beauty is also deadly. Exposure to mercury can lead to a host of symptoms: sensations of bugs crawling
Giambattista Vico— Wisdom is the faculty that commands all the disciplines; by these, all the sciences and arts that complete our humanity are apprehended. Plato defines wisdom as that which is the perfecter of man. Man, in the being proper to him as a man, is nothing other than mind and
Musonius Rufus— In order to support more easily and more cheerfully those hardships which we may expect to suffer in behalf of virtue and goodness, it is useful to recall what hardships people will endure for unworthy ends. Thus for example consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of
Patrick Modiano— She introduced me to her brother a few weeks after we’d met, a brother she had never mentioned before. Once or twice I’d tried to find out more about her family, but I could tell she was reluctant to answer and I didn’t insist. One morning, I entered
Tim Mackintosh-Smith— Before sunrise on a winter’s day early in the year 630, a captive in the Arabian town of Yathrib looked on as the men of the place gathered in the courtyard outside his cell. He could make out little between the few splashes of lamplight. But when their