Ward Farnsworth is Dean and John Jeffers Research Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. He formerly was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the Boston University Law School. He’s the author of The Socratic Method and The Practicing Stoic. The Socratic method as an orientation of mind, is different from the orientation of mind that we use by default and therefore challenging. It's a humbler, more inquisitive frame of mind, a path toward intelligence.

A few months ago, a Massachusetts high school teacher named Warren Smith went viral for the following exchange with a student. In it, he helps the student understand why he’s been thinking about J.K. Rowling all wrong. She’s not a “transphobe” for knowing how chromosomes work. What Smith does here is remarkable. In an age when the highest goal in any debate is to “own” your opponent — humiliate him, shout him down, ruin his life for daring to disagree with you — Smith helps this young man actually think about the things he’s saying.

[Warning: The following essay will contain spoilers for Warrior Nun seasons 1 and 2.] Who is Adriel, really? At the end of Warrior Nun Episode 10, Ava discovers that what everyone believed to be bones underneath the Vatican was actually an imprisoned, and very much still alive, Adriel. The same Adriel who, in the legends passed down through the Order of the Cruciform Sword (OCS), gave his halo to the first Warrior Nun, Areala, during the time of the Crusades.

Fifty years later, Eleanor Holm could still recall the events of July 23rd, 1936 in vivid detail. She would remember that night for the rest of her life—in part because people never stopped asking her about it. Every four years, in the run-up to the next summer Olympics, the questions about July 23rd and its whirlwind aftermath started up again. “Before the Olympics…they take me out of the trunk and review me,” she joked in the New York Times in 1984.

Well, it’s a new Substack run by Scott Mendelson, infamous film journalist, kill-joy movie critic and bloviating box office pundit. Yes, I’m taking the plunge and hoping for the best. This site will be free throughout December before going at least somewhat paywalled in early 2024. Kids, cats and nonstop supplies of Zevia soda cans are expensive. This will be a regular run of deep-dive analysis and (when applicable) deadpan commentary. Think box office punditry, film reviews, news analysis and think pieces.