Opinion

Last week I had a chance to take a look at a little exhibit in the basement of International House, the residence hall near the UC campus where students from all countries live together in order to, as their web page says, “foster intercultural respect and understanding, lifelong friendships and leadership skills for the promotion of a more tolerant and peaceful world.” -more-

There’s a best-selling book with a title something like Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. As far as I’m concerned, I learned most of what I need to know in my ninth grade English class. One semester of ninth grade English in my school was devoted to what we called “Mythology,” that is, the stories that the ancient Greeks and Romans used to explain the universe. It never fails to amaze me how often contemporary human behavior can be described in terms of what I can remember from the old stories I learned fifty years ago. People haven’t changed much since ancient times. -more-