Category: Humanist

Pay Now — Or Pay Later – paying summer students – Brief Article Karen Ann Gajewski Will paying students to attend summer school save taxpayers in the long run? This is a question under debate by educators and citizens over a controversial pilot program designed for select students in an effort to improve their academic […]

Where Have All the Journalists Gone? Bush’s Immaculate Reception John R. Cole I use the term journalist intentionally–because we know where all the reporters are: parroting the White House party line as they lap enthusiastically at George W. Bush’s heels. News investigation has evolved unsatisfactorily into rubber-stamping press releases issued by the subjects of the […]

Teaching humanities in new ways—and teaching new humanities Mark Wagner At Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, where I teach, our faculty are part of a generation of scholars, writers, and teachers now living out the dream of tenure. And it is a dream–of job security and freedom of speech and pen. In some ways the […]

ETHICS, GOVERNMENT AND SECURITY The Democratic Imperative Gregory D. Foster The subject of corruption–its causes, effects, and implications–is one that is central to the growth and preservation of democracy everywhere. Because the subject can’t be divorced from larger issues of responsive and responsible governance–especially that involving law enforcement and national security officials–I have chosen to […]

Nursing: a humanistic profession – P.S.: reader commentary Lori Przymusinski Nursing is humanistic profession. We nurses care and do our very best to save lives and if we can’t, we provide dignity until the moment of death arrives. We face ethical dilemmas daily–it is a calling. James VanOosting shared in the November/December 2002 Humanist that […]

Rage Against the Veil: The Courageous Life and Death of an Islamic Dissident. – book review Barbara Stocker Rage Against the Veil: The Courageous Life and Death of an Islamic Dissident by Parvin Darabi and Romin P, Thomson (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999); 274 pp.; $26,95 cloth, On February 21, 1994, in the middle of […]

Extensive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest Karen Ann Gajewski * Environmentalists are alarmed over plans in Brazil for extensive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Soya bean farmers are demanding that a 600-mile-long highway be paved through this ecologically vital region to enable cheaper and more efficient exportation of the country’s major food crop. Karen Ann […]

MTV and morality – Column John Hamerlinck Religious moralists have always hated the music of youth culture. Jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and now rap have been excoriated, condemned, and even banned throughout their histories. In recent times, however, Christian pop-culture critics have chosen to link the rebellious nature of youth and its […]

Killing women: a pop-music tradition John Hamerlinck If there has been anything positive about the flood of media coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial, it has been an increased public awareness of the disturbing incidence of violence against women in our society. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, an act of domestic violence occurs […]

Brownlash: the new environmental anti-science Paul R. Ehrlich Humanity is now facing a sort of slow motion environmental Dunkirk. It remains to be seen whether civilization can avoid the perilous trap it has set for itself. Unlike the troops crowding the beach at Dunkirk, civilization’s fate is in its own hands; no miraculous last-minute rescue […]