Culture

Finding Cheer in a COVID Christmas 0
- Culture
- December 8, 2020
When the Civil War interrupts the Christmas plans of the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, the four lament their reduced prospects for a happy holiday. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” Jo says. Many of us likely feel similarly to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy as we reach the end of
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Scaring Ourselves to Death 0
- Culture
- December 7, 2020
As a child, I was hospitalized for a month with the “Hong Kong Flu.” The doctors couldn’t cure me; I was discharged but still sick. They were surprised I recovered. From my early brush with illness, I developed a longstanding interest in why some people with possibly fatal illnesses die and others recover. As an
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Amanda Suffers From CS. Do You?0
- Culture
- December 7, 2020
My daughter’s friend—I’ll call her Amanda—never wears a mask anywhere. When the clerk standing outside our local grocery store distributing free masks and hand sanitizer asks if she’d like a mask, Amanda smiles and says “No, thank you.” If he asks, “Are you sure?” she nods and says, “I don’t have to wear a mask.
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Light at the End of the Pandemic 0
- Culture
- December 4, 2020
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March, most people never imagined the government-imposed restrictions would be as harsh and arbitrary as they have been, nor that the entire affair would drag on into the new year. Yet glimpses of hope are arriving this week, small pieces of good news we can joyfully carry throughout Advent
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South Korea Started Shrinking in 2020 0
- Culture
- December 4, 2020
It is usual for the two East Asian giants, China and Japan, to hog the demographic headlines, especially those bearing bad news. China is struggling with the fallout of its self-inflicted one child policy disaster, while Japan is in a sustained demographic decline. But sandwiched between these two is a smaller nation with a similar
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Obama’s Opposition to ‘Defund the Police’ Is Common Sense 0
- Culture
- December 3, 2020
Former President Barack Obama took a bold step the other day when he suggested that calls to defund the police might alienate a number of voters. “You lost a big audience the minute you say it,” Obama noted in a Snapchat interview, “which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get
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