Feeding Mind, Pursuing Truth
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What an Old Sears Roebuck Catalogue Teaches Us About Gun Control1
- Politics
- March 5, 2019
As I write these words, a reproduction of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, published in 1968 by Chelsea House, sits at my elbow. The fat catalog is a casual reader’s delight and a historian’s treasure trove. Here are medicines like laudanum, herb tea, and castor oil. Here are tools, bobsleds, gasoline stoves, windmills, bicycles, clothing
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Sorry, Marie Kondo. Most People Have Too Little Stuff.0
- Culture
- March 5, 2019
Marie Kondo’s Netflix show “Tidying Up” is a hit. Apparently, Americans love watching other people throw stuff into trash bags – saying “thank you” to each item first, per the KonMari method. In each episode, Kondo cheerfully sweeps into a new family’s home like a Japanese Mary Poppins and teaches them how to declutter their
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Quiz: How Strong is Your Thriftiness Quotient?0
- Culture
- March 5, 2019
Ben Franklin knew a lot about—preached and practiced — thrift. So how do you go about measuring thrift or any individual‘s thriftiness quotient? I get asked this question all the time, so I devised this handy Thrift Meter. Try it and pass it along. Is there an Index or some gauge that can give you a reliable account
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Minimum Wage Hike to $15 Wipes Out Jobs in Illinois and New York0
- Economics
- March 5, 2019
Big minimum wage hikes wipe out a lot of jobs. Illinois recently enacted a $15 minimum wage, a large increase in the minimum wage that will be phased in over several years. And businesses are already announcing plans to close up, move out of the state, or curb their expansion in the state. The Daily Gazette
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Arresting Homebirth Midwives Just Reduces Women’s Birth Choices0
- Culture
- March 5, 2019
After being arrested and charged with practicing midwifery without a license last fall, a midwife in upstate New York is wondering whether or not she will go to jail for the work she has done for decades. Elizabeth Catlin is a beloved certified professional midwife (CPM) who has caught hundreds of babies in the tight-knit
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The Essential Life Lesson in the Series Finale of ‘The Office’0
- Culture
- March 4, 2019
If it’s a good comedy, we laugh with the characters, not at the characters. Joining with them in our common humanity, we have a window to our own foibles. Today, 14 years after its premiere, reruns of The Office remain enduringly popular. The Office entertains while it helps us see how we make life hard
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Schools Renormalize Raising Adults0
- Culture
- March 4, 2019
Many of us are old enough to remember how childhood used to be. Our afternoons were spent outside playing with the neighborhood kids—no adults or cell phones in sight. Sometimes we got hurt, with occasional scraped knees or hurt egos, but we worked it out. We always knew we could go home. We had paper
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Netherlands Moving Towards Euthanasia for the Healthy0
- Culture
- March 4, 2019
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia in 2002. Today, they are still the global pioneers. The Dutch keep pushing the boundaries wider and wider. Euthanasia is becoming increasingly common. In 2017 (the last year for which figures are available), doctors reported administering lethal injections to 6,585 patients. In 2010,
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How Animal Farm is Playing Out in the Democrat Party0
- Culture
- March 4, 2019
Tennis great Martina Navratilova until recently had long been coronated as a social justice trailblazer. She was one of the first marquee celebrity athletes to come out as gay, and then to advocate lesbian issues in and out of sports. But suddenly the icon seems out of step with her progressive legend status. Navratilova had
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