From ‘The President’s House: A History, Volume I’ (White House Historical Association: Washington DC). On a sweltering July afternoon during the Mexican War, Mrs. Polk and the president were in the upstairs oval room. Shaded by the deep overhang … Continue reading
Most people look at ‘business’ as something separate from everything else in life, and at best, a necessary evil. Something you have to do. Or a way to make money—in a practical, but never creative, artistic or (perish the thought) … Continue reading
Dear Dr. Hurd: My mother is a good, well-meaning lady. But every so often she reminds me of the fact that she grew up during the Great Depression, and so learned the value of saving things. And whenever I am … Continue reading
According to clickorlando.com and FoxNews.com, The Florida Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting last Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida’s standardized test, after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing … Continue reading
Dear Dr. Hurd: I am not black. I am the granddaughter and great granddaughter of Russian and Romanian immigrants (LEGAL). I honestly don’t understand where black people are coming from in their unqualified support of Barack Obama. Why do they … Continue reading
All the ruckus over gay marriage is single-issue politics at its worst. Don’t the people fighting over gay marriage — pro and con — understand that they’re merely pawns in the continuing quest for power by politicians? Obama, who was … Continue reading
A local store owner recently told me a story. She gets a lot of customers in her shop, which is a sit-down coffee shop, kind of like a Starbucks. One day, some people came into the shop. They didn’t want … Continue reading
In a work of historical fiction, one of the characters wrote to another about the leaders of the Communist-socialist revolution in Russia. “Their leaders were committed to peace; they had promised peace and plenty to their peasant followers, and it … Continue reading
Conclusion of yesterday’s column. The biggest mistake I see parents make is to assume that schools (public, private, whatever) can replace their own responsibility to ensure that their children learn to think. Parents just expect the process of thought to … Continue reading
A DrHurd.com visitor asks how she can help her children to keep developing their rational minds, to be objective and to develop a correct hierarchy of knowledge, in spite of government-run schools that teach the exact opposite. She says her … Continue reading
Have you heard of Trayvon Martin? Of course you have. He’s the young man who was killed by a neighborhood watch member. Martin was reportedly unarmed and the neighborhood watch person, George Zimmerman, claims he was acting in self-defense. There … Continue reading
Conclusion of yesterday’s column. Religious people are understandably threatened by the idea that genetics might be determining everything. Quite logically, they reject genetic and biological determinism for the same reason that a proponent of objective reality—a non-supernaturalist—would. Religious people offer … Continue reading