It's Thursday, August the 17th, 2023. Good day and welcome to the Daily Article podcast.

Today's article is written by Denison Forum co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison, and narrated by Chris Elkins.

Quote, it will be pretty crazy when I watch him walk by, I'll be able to say,

there goes my kidney.

This is what Eddie McCarthy, a high school math teacher in Toledo, Ohio, told a Washington Post reporter

after donating a kidney to Roman McCormick, who was one of his geometry students.

The teacher and student are doing well following the transplant surgery. Stories like this

illustrate Albert Einstein's observation. Only a life lived for others is a life worth living.

And they are especially notable in a day when such altruism seems so rare. Maui residents say they

are being looted and robbed at gunpoint following catastrophic

wildfires on the island. On the mainland, retail theft is up 26.5% across the U.S. A recent video

showed more than 30 people stealing $300,000 worth of items from Nordstrom in Los Angeles. A few days earlier,

the same thing happened at an Eve St. Laurent store in the L.A. area. How America Got Mean

is the title of New York Times columnist David Brooks' latest in-depth article for the Atlantic. The subtitle explains his premise.

In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate,

self-referential world. As examples, Brooks documents the rise of hate crimes and murder and the

decline of social trust.

He writes that, the words that define our age reek of menace,

conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces.

In his view, quote,

we're emmished in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, and it

undergurge our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy. His explanation is

...