Culture

Homer on Why Hospitality is the Greatest Virtue 0
- Culture
- March 1, 2019
Perhaps you would like to know what virtue I consider the greatest of all. For me that question is not a difficult one. Though I celebrate courage in my Iliad and perseverance in my Odyssey, there is a third, greater virtue, apart from which civilization can neither thrive nor survive. I speak of xenia, a
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Experts Claim Assisted Suicide isn’t as Painless as We’ve Been Led to Believe 0
- Culture
- March 1, 2019
In places where assisted dying and euthanasia are legal, patients are promised a peaceful death without pain or distress. But in a chilling article in the journal Anaesthesia, an international group of scholars observe that some of these deaths could be inhumane, with patients awake and conscious but unable to move or react. In fact,
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Nine Ways to Actually Help a Friend Through Tragedy 0
- Culture
- March 1, 2019
Life is suffering. Tragedy awaits us all. I know from personal experience. Four years ago, my 37-year-old husband was killed in a car accident on a snowy road. Our children, aged 12 to two, were with him but were unharmed. In the midst of my personal tragedies I found listening to Dr. Jordan
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Are Marie Kondo and Jordan Peterson Using the Same Method to Build Their Audiences?0
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
About a month ago, my social media feeds were suddenly filled with pictures of aesthetically pleasing and space-conserving methods of folding laundry. Sale posts also skyrocketed as people cleaned out items that did not spark joy, and many of my millennial friends had a renewed interest in “tidying up.” The reason for these trends?
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John Wayne: The New Confederate Statue 1
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
Writes a reader from Southern California: “Apparently John Wayne is the new Confederate statue.” She sent a link to this op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times. Excerpts: Most people familiar with the life story of John Wayne are aware that the late movie star was a dyed-in-the-wool right-winger — after all, he was still
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Will the Future Judge Us in the Same Way We Judge the Past?0
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between In the summer of 1973, I spent a week in Bavaria, where I met an older woman whom I’ll call Heidi. Fifty years before, Heidi’s father managed a hotel on the Chiemsee, frequently hosting Adolph Hitler, who at that
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