Dr Michael Hurd

Q: You often write that it's a good idea to identify your objectively positive behaviors each day, so that your morale and self-esteem will build. How can you practically go about doing this? A: The single most effective method I know of is to simply summarize, in...

Cicero wrote that, "There is nothing more fatal to friendship than the greed of gain." Although a popular sentiment, it's a deeply mistaken one. Think about the friends you have. Try to make yourself aware of what you enjoy about those friends -- that is, how they...

Congress and the Bush administration are looking for ways to reverse President Clinton's barrage of executive orders from his final months of office. The former president, for example, arbitrarily designated millions of acres of private lands as public property,...

Q: What is the difference between what is "immoral" and what is "criminal"? Isn't something criminal, so long as it's objectively judged, also immoral? A: If something is rationally judged criminal, then by definition it's immoral as well. For example, it's rational...

President Bush has dictated that airline employees may not go on strike for at least two months, and maybe not at all. People like me, who have travel plans next month, should be relieved. Right? Wrong. Why the ingratitude? As much as I want to reach my destination...

Q: How would you correct the problem of education in this country if you had complete control of the system? A: I would not seek "complete control of the system." Nor do I -- or anyone else (be it George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, the NEA, or whomever) --have the...

read a bumpersticker today which said: "It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity." This expression misses a crucial point. Our technology is in fact a consequence of our humanity. Technology comes about only because of the human,...

Many say that the recent presidential election debacle verged on a constitutional crisis. Looking back at last year's events, let's apply some perspective. Take a moment and examine what the real crisis is. Americans are forced to pay for an ever-expanding welfare...

You often hear the phrase "control freak" used in a negative sense. I have even used it myself to describe authoritarian personalities. Authoritarian personalities are people who place a desire to be "right" (that is, seen as right) above the desire to know what is...

The federal surplus for the close of fiscal year 2000 was nearly double the surplus for the prior year. This is a problem! A massive, growing federal surplus is a signal that the government is taking too much of our money.Back in the days of the federal deficit, we...

Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged wrote, "When people need help, the best of them (those who need it through no fault of their own) often prefer to starve rather than accept assistance -- while the worst of them (the professional parasites) run riot and cash in...

It used to be a raging debate in psychology: Are human beings primarily determined by physiology -- or by other factors such as environment, family, thinking habits, etc.? Today, such a debate is nearly non-existent. Instead of looking for the role of...

Q: There's a new corporate term in use lately -- "emotional intelligence." People are even being tested for their "emotional intelligence" levels. Is there any value in this? A: The very concept of "emotional intelligence" is preposterous. Your intelligence does not...