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Muslim in hijab should have had US flag-bearing honor at Olympic Games… says everyone on the internet except me 0
- Culture
- August 8, 2016
People are upset that Michael Phelps, who won his 19th gold medal Sunday while competing in the 400-meter freestyle relay, was tapped to be Team USA flag bearer at the Olympic Games in Rio. Editorial writers around the world—here, here, here, here, here, here, here (I could keep going)—thought the honor should have gone to
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The (Chilling) Reason Slaves Didn’t Revolt More Often 0
- Education
- August 5, 2016
In grade school, I often naively wondered why slaves didn’t revolt more. The reasons seem fairly obvious now, of course. Oftentimes slaves had nowhere to go, and if they did (say, to a free state in the North before the Fugitive Slave Law was passed) they had to travel a long, perilous road to get
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Is ‘devouring’ books a sign of superficiality in a reader?0
- Culture
- August 5, 2016
Last year, a reporter in the Guardian described how the Man Booker Prize judges spent ‘a summer… devouring novel after magnificent novel’, culminating in their selection of ‘a (baker’s) dozen’. This is nothing unusual. The language of eating is often used to describe reading habits. If pressed for an explanation, one might say that to
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Banishing the Bible 0
- August 5, 2016
A headline in The Washington Post the other day caught my attention by proclaiming “Newspapers were once full of Bible quotes.” The story explained how a George Mason University professor named Lincoln Mullen has recently been going through American newspapers from the 19th and early 20th centuries and searching them for biblical quotations or references:
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Silence is Very Important for Our Brains 0
- Culture
- August 5, 2016
As the old saying goes, “Healthy body, healthy mind.” It’s become common knowledge that exercise does wonders for human beings in numerous different ways. Not only does it release endorphins, making us feel great, but it’s been seen to affect the brain in positive and sometimes unexpected ways. Now scientists are discovering that silence is one more
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10 Truth-Bombs Courtesy of Milton Friedman 0
- Economics
- August 5, 2016
American economist Milton Friedman rose to prominence in the second half of the 20th century as one of the leading critics of the prevailing economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, whose mixed economy model became the standard for many developed nations during and after the World War II-era. Born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family
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