February 4, 2010
In our last post, we mentioned our new catalog and in this post, we’ll dig a little deeper into the titles contained therein. One of the books that has been getting the most interest so far is the new collection of essays, New Threats to Freedom: A Guide to Spiritual Resistance. In it, you’ll find not only an impressive roster of contributors (including a Pulitzer prize winner, a Tony Award winning playwright, a perennial king of the non-fiction bestseller list), but also truly insightful and provocative thinking on some dangers that may have slipped past our intellectual defenses.
What are some of these new threats? I’ll let a handful of the essays speak for themselves:
“As traditional marriage declines, the ranks of single women are growing, and increasingly these women are substituting the security of a husband with the security of the state.” — Jessica Gavora
“Ending the freedom to fail is a mean-spirited attack on the freedom to succeed.” — Michael Goodwin
“Since when has authority not claimed, when imposing trammels and curbs on liberty, that it does so for a wider good and a greater happiness?” — Christopher Hitchens
“The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.” — David Mamet
“The new behaviorism isn’t interested in protecting people’s freedom to choose; on the contrary, its core principle is the idea that only by allowing an expert elite to limit choice can individuals learn to break their bad habits.” — Christine Rosen
Single women? Multiculturalism? Behaviorism? Haven’t we been taught that these are good things?! As you can see, this book is going to inspire some serious debate when it comes out in May.
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Freedom and Free Enterprise, Spring 2010 | Tagged: Adam Bellow, bahaviorism, Christine Rosen, Christopher Hitchens, David Mamet, feminism, first ammendment, free speech, Freedom, Jessica Gavora, Michael Goodwin | 
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 27, 2010
Thrift Week may have come to an end, but our campaign to bring it back has not. To build awareness about the virtue of thrift and our campaign to Bring Back Thrift Week, we recently designed Bring Back Thrift Week T-shirts. T-shirts were distributed to various individuals and organizations including, thrift stores such as IMPACT Thrift Store Inc and our Bring Back Thrift Week Facebook fans.
We’d like to offer you a complimentary Thrift T-shirt! Be one of the first ten people to email your favorite “thrifty” website to publicity@templetonpress.org and you’ll receive a FREE Bring Back Thrift Week T-shirt!
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 21, 2010
With thrift week coming to an end, we encourage you to keep the spirit of thrift week alive by writing your elected officials and telling them to Bring Back Thrift Week!
With a few adjustments in our own personal financial habits, we can all renew a sense of thrift at the individual level, but a nationwide culture shift that reestablishes thrift as a core value can only be achieved in the context of a broad-based, well-sponsored, and government-backed social movement.
Click here to access a form letter.
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 19, 2010
In it’s recent article, Thrift Week? It makes sense, the Philadelphia Inquirer notes the benefits of reviving thrift week.
A revival of National Thrift Week offers endless opportunities for civic and business engagement. Banks and credit unions could partner with local schools or youth organizations to establish savings clubs for young people and to teach about the “miracle of compound interest.” Community groups could sponsor classes in budgeting and savings. Greening of America projects could build “thrift cadres” for local conservation and recycling efforts. Organizations from various sectors could work together.
What got us into the economic downturn is a corrosive culture of debt, waste, and arrogance. What will put us on the path toward sustainable, shared prosperity is a culture of thrift. Bringing back National Thrift Week would be a good start – and the home of America’s Apostle of Thrift is the perfect city to lead the way.
Click here to read the full article.
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 15, 2010
The National Education Association was one of many sponsors that supported the original National Thrift Week (1916-1966).
David Blankenhorn stated in his article, American Apostle of Thrift:
…the leaders of the National Thrift Movement of the 1920s believed that their movement was vital to the broad goals of moral reform, character education, and civic progress.
They formed a national Thrift Education Committee to promote the teaching of thrift in the public schools. A number of states eventually adopted thrift curricula and many individual schools and school districts joined in as well. In at least 500 cities and towns across the country, thrift leaders worked with educators and local banks to sponsor more than 7,000 school-based savings banks, complete with student tellers and cashiers. They organized hundreds of annual Thrift Parades and thrift essay contests for elementary and high school students.
They conceived of thrift in broad, progressive terms. They wanted parents to teach thrift to children as a part of character education.
David Lapp, in an article for Education Week, proposes a good argument towards instilling the virtue of thrift in students once again.
If you are a subscriber of Education Week, click here to read Lapp’s article. If you are not subscriber, Atomic Learning offers a well written summary of Lapp’s commentary as well as their own comments.
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 14, 2010
If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you can take the Thrift Challenge to see how you measure up! It’s an App that we here at Templeton Press created to show how thrift can be fun.
Earn points for thrifty behavior like picking up loose change, carpooling, or paying down debt. The more points you earn, the more levels you unlock. More importantly, as you hone these thrifty behaviors over time, you’re sure to also notice a positive impact in your real-world finances.
Best of all, it’s free!
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 7, 2010
If you’re like many Americans, the answer very well might be no. The unfortunate truth is that it seems that some Americans can’t even remember the concept of thrift itself!
Up until 1966, National Thrift Week was a coast-to-coast celebration of American ideals like diligence, hard work, responsible consumerism, and smart saving.
In 1916, with the First World War looming imminently on the horizon, the leaders of America’s major civic organizations launched an ambitious education campaign designed to ready the American public for a wartime economy. Dubbed “National Thrift Week” and sponsored primarily by the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.), the campaign became a recurring celebration, beginning each year on January 17, in honor of the birthday of Benjamin Franklin, the “American apostle of thrift.”
Even after the war had ended, the relatively prosperous decade of the 1920s witnessed the peak celebrations of National Thrift Week. By that time, the Y.M.C.A. had lined up a broad array of cosponsors, ranging from the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts to the American Red Cross and the U.S. Postal Service, totaling some fifty partnering organizations. Thrift Week celebrations were held in cities and towns across the nation.
So what happened to National Thrift Week? National Thrift Week fizzled out in 1966, after being passed from one sponsor to another. Around that same time, thrift as a national virtue seems to have faded from the collective public consciousness as well. As the ensuing decades passed, our nation entered more wars, endured periods of economic downturn, and watched complacently as both personal and national debt ballooned exponentially, seemingly without ever feeling any urgency to revive thrift as a cherished value.
To read more about the history of National Thrift Week, click here.
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Posted by Templeton Editor
January 5, 2010
The year 2010 blew in with its cold, blustery, winter weather. Before we know it, it will be January 17th, the official start of National Thrift Week!
Last year, Templeton Press started a movement to Bring Back Thrift Week (BBTW). In hopes of reviving the lost virtue of thrift and building awareness of National Thrift Week, we created a Bring Back Thrift Week website, ran multiple thrift contests, and teamed up with the Boy Scouts of America.
In 2010, the Press will continue our movement. One of our efforts to build thrift week awareness includes the creation of our new BBTW Facebook page. Throughout the month of January, we will run multiple contests on our Facebook page. Our first contest is as easy as becoming a fan of the new BBTW Facebook page. Just by becoming a fan, you will receive a chance to win $250!
In 2010, we also plan to highlight thrift stores. What’s your favorite second hand store?
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Posted by Templeton Editor
