More info about #Flag Day Camping and Randa Handler's children's books amazon.com/author/randahandl…

Sweden is committing more than €100 million to a sweeping classroom overhaul: replacing tablets and screens with traditional printed textbooks to help reverse falling student performance and sharpen focus. After more than a decade of embracing digital-first education, Swedish authorities are now pivoting back to paper-based learning. Official data and recent studies cited by the Ministry of Education show that prolonged screen use in class has been linked to shorter attention spans, weaker reading comprehension, and reduced critical-thinking abilities. Research consistently finds that reading on illuminated screens requires greater mental effort and invites more distractions compared to the calm, linear experience of physical books—factors believed to have contributed to declining academic outcomes in recent years. Under the new plan, every student will receive printed textbooks for all core subjects, restoring books as the central learning tool. Digital devices and online resources will remain available as supportive tools, but they will no longer dominate daily instruction. This bold €100 million investment signals Sweden’s leadership in rethinking the role of technology in education. It underscores a broader, growing recognition worldwide: while screens provide speed and access, the hands-on, distraction-free engagement of physical books supports deeper concentration, stronger memory retention, and more effective long-term learning. By choosing paper over pixels, Sweden is charting a path toward a more balanced, evidence-informed classroom future—one that puts proven pedagogical principles ahead of unchecked digital trends.

The Family Of Writers

The final trailer for Steven Spielberg’s ‘DISCLOSURE DAY’ has been released. The film follows the disclosure to the world that aliens might be real. In theaters on June 12.

Congratulations to my friend Alejandro G. Iñárritu on this incredible art installation celebrating 25 years of Amores Perros and the art of filmmaking around the world.

check out Randa Handler's early reader, #Flag Day Camping. So cute and fitting our #Americas250 The #Trump approved on cover is hilarious! amazon.com/Flag-Camping-Taka…

Randa just published Does #AI Get Confused? medium.com/p/does-ai-get-con…

Connecting young people to digital networks serves no purpose if they remain disconnected from themselves, others, and their own interiority. We must help young people rediscover silence, reflection, the ability to ask questions, the depth of relationships, and openness to transcendence. To listen to the soul, we must lend an ear, because the soul's voice is not a shout, but a whisper.

An appropriate birthday present on my uncle's birthday today. A federal judge ruled that President Trump and the Kennedy Center Board acted unlawfully in renaming the Kennedy Center. The judge held that only Congress can change the Center's name and blocked the planned two-year closure. I know they'll probably appeal and the story isn't over, but for today let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.

Yes, my children's book, Flag Day Camping shows how and why we fold our #flag. amazon.com/author/randahandl…

Happy Memorial Day everyone. Today we honor the brave men and women who gave their lives defending this great nation 🇺🇸

Very inspiring and cool! Never too late to learn something new

'This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this politie and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication' Logan Pearsall Smith .

Always a good idea to support #indieauthors

I am in love with this quote from Fahrenheit 451.

“Read books. Travel when you can. Learn how to cook one meal exceptionally well. Sit in old bars and talk to strangers. Wear your best jacket to dinner. Appreciate good wine, good music, and good conversation. Do the right thing, even when no one is watching. Set the example for younger men who are watching you. Call your parents. Take long walks. Leave your phone behind sometimes. Become the kind of man people feel better after being around. Life is short, so live it well.” -J.B. Lloyd

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami

People are not beautiful for how they look or speak. They're beautiful for how they love, care and treat others.

Research data from 160,000 adults in 31 countries concludes that a sizeable home library gave teens skills equivalent to university graduates. Build a home library.

While Dexter has been home recovering from a successful bionic elbow surgery in Milan, Italy . . . he won a book award! That dog is unstoppable! #kidlit #bookawards #dexterdogouray

The modern state highway from Rome to Brindisi still broadly follows the same geographic corridor as a road the ancient Romans began building more than 2,300 years ago. And it's not a coincidence... A 2023 study in the Journal of Regional Science found that modern Italian motorways and railways still largely trace the paths of the old consular roads. The Roman network, the authors write, became "the foundational physical capital" of Italy's current transport system. That network began with a single road. It's called Appian Way. The poet Statius called it regina viarum — the queen of roads. Construction began as a military project during the Samnite Wars to connect Rome to Capua. Over the next century, as Rome pushed south, the road kept extending with it, until it reached Brindisi on the heel of Italy — roughly 540 kilometers of stone. The engineering behind it is extraordinary. Deep foundations of cemented rubble. A surface of polygonal blocks of volcanic basalt, cut and fitted so tightly the historian Procopius later wrote they looked "grown together rather than set by hand." The stretch closest to Rome — the old Appian Way — is a free public park. The original stones are still there — the same ones walked by Roman legions and medieval pilgrims. Cars still use the first few kilometers and after that, the road belongs to whoever wants to walk it. Much of what shaped the ancient world moved along the Appian Way... In 71 BC, after Crassus defeated Spartacus, six thousand of his followers were crucified along a nearly two-hundred-kilometer stretch of it as a warning. The Apostle Paul was brought into Rome as a prisoner on this road. And, according to tradition, Saint Peter walked it the other way, fleeing Nero's persecution. If you want to learn more about one of the oldest and most important of the great ancient roads — and about five other wonders built by the Romans — you can check out today's article here: james-lucas.com/p/what-we-bu… It's a 5-minute read, and the engineering details alone are worth it. And if you enjoy this kind of deep dive into history, follow and subscribe — there's a new one every week.