Dictum Diei: I bleed!

"I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "Ode to the West Wind"

This is in my opinion, perhaps the most hilarious line in English Romantic poetry. I can't read this line without imagining Shelley tripping into a bush, and immediately fainting with a shriek at the sight of his own blood. My image isn't appropriate in context of the poem, perhaps, but I still maintain that this is a rubbish line.

The Secrets of Superbrands: Fashion (VIDEO)

What does it mean to wear Levi's or buy Louis Vuitton? Alex Riley finds out.



I didn't realize to what extent brands create need for their products, rather than merely filling need. It's a fascinating world.

Good Advice for College

As the positive compliment of Bad Advice for College, I'd like to offer some of the best advice I received as a graduating high school senior, as well as a few conclusions I've reached after years of being a college and graduate student.

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"If your eye causes you to sin..." 

When you find yourself getting distracted or procrastinating, identify your distraction and kill it. If you can't write a paper without checking Facebook every two minutes, delete your Facebook. It is better for you to graduate without Facebook than with your Facebook to be cast out of your scholarship. You won't lose your friends and you won't die. When I deleted my Facebook in college, I felt freer and discovered that I had more time. I have never regretted it.

Take professors, not classes. 

Find out who the really good professors are in your department and take as many of their classes as you can. Exciting course titles mean nothing without good professors.

Learn to love research papers. 

Although they're often stressful, research papers are one of the most effective ways to learn in college. Take advantage of them, especially if you're allowed to choose a topic which interests you. You learn much more (and quicker) by writing research papers than you do by sitting in class.

If you can, talk to your professors outside of class. 

Find something related to the class which interests you and ask questions. I did this all the time, and sometimes learned more sitting in a professor's office for half-an-hour than I did sitting in his class for an hour. For instance, in one Freshman English class, we read a lot of poetry, and I didn't like most of it. So one day I sat down in her office and asked her, What makes a poem? And if it is a poem, how do we know it's good? I learned much from those conversations.

Don't go to college anywhere you can't find a good church. 

College is difficult and draining in every way: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This leaves you extremely vulnerable to falsehood, distraction, and temptation. You can't afford not to nourish your soul.

Remember the Sabbath day. 

Although the 4th Commandment is almost universally ignored, do your best to keep it. Knowing that you can't do any work on the Lord's Day will encourage you to work harder during the week. Taking a day off from your studies will keep you sane, healthy, and happy. It will also give you time to think and reflect, which is a lost but necessary art.

Be charitable and humble, even when you know your professors are wrong. 

Challenge your professors by asking questions. If you ask good questions, you might reveal an error in their logic and understanding or an error in your own. When you ask questions, they ought to be sincere. (That doesn't mean you can't ask someone question you know the answer to. It means that when you do, you should ask because you genuinely want to hear his answer, and not because you want him to look foolish. There is a difference between asking a question to expose an error and asking a question to embarrass a person. Make sure you ask for the first reason and not the second. Be sensitive.) Never forget that although your professor may indeed be wrong about something, you are more naive than you realize and have no reason to be smug. If you ask in humility, you will learn. If you ask in arrogance, you will only make a fool of yourself. But, with this in mind, never be afraid to ask questions.

Sleep. 

I hardly slept in college because I was so busy. I've learned a lot about sleep by not doing it. Fact: your body needs to sleep to process information and store your memories. This means that it's harder to memorize and remember things if you aren't sleeping. Also, you think more clearly when you're awake. Therefore, sleep is as important as studying when you're preparing for an exam.

Do you have good advice for students headed to college? Comment and share!

Bad Advice for College

It's that time of year when high school seniors everywhere, drowsy with senioritis, nap in the shade of looming graduation, and when well-meaning aunts, uncles, and neighbors offer horrific advice.

In the months before my high school graduation I received large doses of bad (albeit kindly meant) advice, and I recall being mildly horrified even as a naive seventeen-year-old.

It so happens that my youngest brother is graduating this year, so I'd like to offer this list of bad advice and falsehoods in honor of the class of 2013.

Bad Advice for College

1. Your college years are the best years of your life. Have fun!

The "college experience" ain't what it used to be. Nearly all American colleges are battle-grounds where freedoms of speech and religion are constantly being challenged in the name of tolerance.

Aside from that, you do make a few good friends in college and enjoy an artificial sense of freedom, but you also have to suffer four years of sleep deprivation, bad cafeteria food, anxiety over your romantic relationships (or lack thereof), and a growing suspicion that some of your classes are wastes of time.

So don't be fooled. Study hard. Life gets far better after college.

2. Go to college in another city. You need to get away from your parents. 

One of my former bosses gave me this gem my senior year. His reasoning was that if you go to a city where nobody knows you, you will be liberated to party, since your family won't know what you're doing. In other words, people who say this are telling you to misbehave. If this advice excites you, you should definitely go to college in your hometown.

What you do in college does not stay in college, despite what people want you to believe. Because college is such a formative time, bad decisions you make in college will affect you the rest of your life.

3. You should live on campus.

You should only live on campus if its absolutely necessary, for instance, if you're going to college far from home or your parents run a meth lab. Otherwise, the only benefit of living on campus is that you are nearer to your friends and get to imagine that you're independent.

The downsides, however, are legion. First, it's hard to study in a dorm. It's often loud at night, and not all roommates are courteous. (Remember, the reason you're going to college is to study. If you want to party instead, don't go to college. Rather, ask your parents for $20,000 and an apartment. You'll save them money.) Second, you have to exist with a fraction of your possessions. (If you're like me, that means being separated from your book collection, which is as traumatic as being left at daycare for the first time.) Third, you get a roommate. This means that your room will always smell like feet and your bed will become a shelf for the things that don't fit on the floor.

Live at home if you can, with your own private room and your mother's cooking.

4. College is a time for experimenting.

This is only true if you're in the science department. Otherwise, let others make themselves guinea pigs while you remain the control group. Most of the time "experimenting" is another term for "making bad decisions." Call it what it is.

5. You should go to the most prestigious school you can get into.

Fact: Higher education is overpriced, and the debt isn't worth it. Go to a college you won't be embarrassed to claim as your Alma Mater, but one which you can afford. Your education won't suffer by not having gone to Yale. You'll get out of your education whatever you put into it, this is true whether you go to an ivy-league university or to an obscure college.

6. You should rush. The best way to make friends is to join a fraternity or sorority. 

Fraternities are sororities are mostly a waste of time and full of fools. (Fortunately, this isn't always true. Different schools have different Greek cultures.) Peer pressure and blood-alcohol levels are often high, and drunk peers won't pressure you toward excellence.

Furthermore, although you may feel an overwhelming desire to be accepted by your peers, recognize that great men and women have often stood against the majority and taken unpopular positions. One day you may have to rise to your feet and become such a great man or woman. Learn to stand against the crowd now before the stakes get higher.

Well, that was negative. For a more positive list see Good Advice for College.

To Whom do the Children Belong?

Story: Professor argues that children belong to the State, not to Parents. Also here (Washington Times) and here (Daily Caller).

Almost nothing infuriates me more than when persons like Professor Harris-Perry (see links above) argue that children are property of the community. What this notion really means at bottom, of course, is that children belong to the state, because it is through and in the state that communities act and structure themselves.

Of course, what she means by saying this is that because children will grow up one day and take our place in the community, the community has a vested interest in the cultivation of children. This is true, so long as we leave it at that. But Harris-Perry insists on taking it further and shifting the primary responsibility of child-rearing away from parents onto the community. The idea that children belong to the state or community rather than to their parents is both wrong and dangerous

1) Parents are responsible for the birth of their children, and therefore are primarily responsible to raise and instruct them. This logic applies everywhere else in life. Why we wouldn't apply it here is baffling. If I make something, I'm responsible for it.

2) Just because society requires a certain type of citizen in order to function best as a society does not grant it the right to create that type of person. In other words, it's a violation of fundamental human dignity to cultivate a person primarily for an end other than his own good. If the good of the individual is contrary to the good of society, perhaps we ought to take a close second look at society, rather than harming human beings through ostensibly good intentions.

Take slavery, for instance. It works wonders for society (which is always defined in terms of the free, and not of the slaves), but it violates individual human dignity and rights, and is therefore wrong.

3) To say that children belong to the state or community rather than belong to parents is a false parallel. Belonging to the state is not like belonging to parents. They are two different uses of the word belong.

To say that children belong to the state (or the community) is to say that children are public property. They are possessions which the community holds in view of its own interests. But this is an inhumane position, treating children like cattle or real estate. Children are not merely potential adults or potential voters. They possess as much human dignity as anyone else and are therefore ends in themselves, and not means to an end (even if that end is a better society).

On the other hand, to say that children belong to parents is not to call children a material possession. Children belong to parents the way that acorns belong to oak trees or the way rain belongs to clouds, and not as a man owns a car or a dog. It's a belonging rooted in the natural order, in generation. I belong to my parents because I am from my parents (see point 1 above).

There's also another difference to saying that children belong to parents. It is not a legal possession. It is a super-legal possession. That is, it isn't a belonging instituted by law, because children would still belong to their parents even if there were no laws making the relationship explicit. This is evident throughout history in all but totalitarian societies. All a law can do here is reflect what already is the case by nature.

Nothing can be more evident than the natural bond between parents and children. A child is entirely dependent upon his parents for life, and at birth, dependent upon his mother for sustenance. As the child grows, he takes tremendous comfort in knowing that he belongs to his parents and that his parents also belong to him. You'll never see a lost child in the mall crying for his community leaders.

While the authority and possession that parents have over their children is based on the order of nature, it derives its power in love. It is true that some parents do not love their children, and some children do not love their parents, but this is a clear violation of nature, not its proper fulfillment. This is obvious in the fact that we call parents who do not love their children bad parents. It is also true that there are bad parents who love their children, but they are usually bad parents because they do not love their children more than they love themselves (and their own dreams and hopes).

4) Furthermore, it is only in the family unit that children begin to have a proper understanding of community. As G. K. Chesterton once pointed out, you don't choose your family. You're born into it. This means, of course, that there's no guarantee your family will suit your tastes. Nevertheless, you must learn to live with them.

Outside of our families, we have the freedom to choose those with whom we associate. I can surround myself with people that I like, and avoid with personalities and tastes different than my own. And this is exactly what we do. But we don't (or shouldn't, at any rate) foster a community by picking and choosing members. Communities (as Harris-Perry seems to mean the word) are groups of people who live beside each other and must therefore get along. But this isn't something we learn in community. Children hardly learn this art even in school; cliques form immediately because difference is uncomfortable. The art of living in community is cultivated in the family. After all, you'd never associate with Uncle Harry if you weren't related to him, would you?

Do we really think all of us who groan about family reunions will form better societies if we dismiss the very unit which forces us to settle our differences?

News to Know: The Ron Paul Curriculum & Liberal Media Bias in Winter Case

• Ron Paul launches his own Home School curriculum. And in true libertarian fashion, it's free!

• CNN Journalist criticizes liberal media bias in Jana Winter case. (Fox journalist Jana Winter may face jail time after refusing to reveal sources after breaking a story concerning theater shooter James Holmes. She appealed to the Colorado Shield Law, but the court may still jail her despite the law.)

Homosexual Marriage, Parenting, and Adoption

Here are few excerpts from an essay written by Gilles Berneim on the topics of homosexual marriage, parenting, and adoption. The essay offers a refreshingly clearheaded and common sense response to the shallow bullying rhetoric of the PC perspective and is worth reading in whole.

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Homosexual Marriage, Parenting, and Adoption - Gilles Berneim

What we hear: “Homosexuals are victims of discrimination. They must have the right to marry, the same as heterosexuals.”

What we often neglect to say: From the fact that people love each other it does not follow necessarily that they have the right to be married, whether they be heterosexual or homosexual. For example, a man cannot marry a woman who is already married, even if they love each other. Likewise, a woman cannot be married to two men on the grounds that she loves both of them and that both want to be her husband. A father cannot marry his daughter, even if their love is uniquely paternal and filial.

Of course, we understand the wish of people who are in love that their love be recognized. Still, there are strict rules defining what kinds of unions can be recognized as marriages and what kinds cannot. Thus “marriage for everyone” is only a slogan, since after the authorization of homosexual marriage the law would maintain forms of inequality and discrimination that would continue to apply to those who love each other but to whom marriage is not available.

The argument for marriage for all conceals a split between two existing visions of marriage. According to one worldview, which I share with a great number of people, both believers and nonbelievers, marriage is not only the recognition of a loving attachment. It is the institution that articulates the union between man and woman as part of the succession of generations. It is the establishment of a family—that is, a social cell that creates a set of parent–child relations among its members. Beyond the common life of two individuals, it organizes the life of a community consisting of descendants and ancestors. So understood, marriage is a fundamental act in the construction and the stability of individuals as well as of society.

[...]

What we hear: “What is most important is love. A homosexual couple can give much love to a child, sometimes even more than a heterosexual couple.”

What we often neglect to say: To love a child is one thing; to love a child with a love that provides the necessary structure is another. There can be no doubt that homosexuals have the same capacity to love a child and to convey this love as do heterosexuals, but the role of parents extends beyond the love they feel for their children. To reduce the parental bond to its affective and educative aspects is to overlook the fact that the parent–child bond is a psychological vector of fundamental importance for the child’s sense of identity.

All the affection in the world will not suffice to produce the basic psychological structures that address the child’s need to know where he comes from. For the child establishes his own identity only by a process of differentiation, which presupposes that he knows whom he resembles. Thus he needs to know that he issues from the love and the union between a man, his father, and a woman, his mother, thanks to the sexual difference between them. Even adopted children know that they originate from the love and the desire of their parents, even when these are not their biological parents.

[...]

“Homosexual parenting” is not parenting. The term itself was invented to mitigate the impossibility of homosexuals’ being parents. This new foundation, invented to promote the legal option of giving a child two “parents” of the same sex, is part of a fiction. Neither marriage nor parenthood has ever been based on the sexuality of individuals but rather on sex itself—that is, on the anthropological distinction between man and woman.


[...]

What we hear: “Homosexuals are victims of discrimination. Just like heterosexuals, they must have the right to have children.”

What we often neglect to say: The right to a child does not exist. The desire to have a child in no way establishes the right to have a child, neither for heterosexuals nor for homosexuals. The wishes of an infertile heterosexual couple may not be honored if conditions are not optimal. For example, one may judge that a young and healthy couple is better suited to have a child than an older couple in fragile health. If a right to a child for homosexual couples were recognized, then all heterosexual couples denied children would feel themselves victims of discrimination in one way or another and would have grounds for claiming the same right.

There is no question of denying the suffering experienced by homosexual couples owing to their infertility—a suffering they share with heterosexual couples who cannot procreate. Such homosexual couples now demand that their suffering be recognized and alleviated. But no one has the right to be relieved of suffering at another’s expense, particularly when this is to the disadvantage of the weak and innocent. Their suffering is not a sufficient reason to give them the right to adopt.

Read the essay in full HERE.