Culture

Maybe You’re A Witch 0
- Culture
- December 6, 2018
Those who seek to control and to destroy like to play with words. The great Athenian sculptor Phidias was persecuted by those who whimsically used the words “embezzlement” and “impiety.” Joan d’Arc was burnt and Galileo prosecuted via an eternally elastic concept of “heresy.” The witch hysteria relied on a protean concept of “evidence.” The
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Moralitis: The Cultural Virus That Keeps Reason at Bay 0
- Culture
- December 6, 2018
Common sense has a bad name. Among the educated middle class, it has connotations with the backwardness of provincial folk, reverence to tradition, and outmoded mores on gender and cultural diversity. That so many people continue to think in this way is no validation, because the intelligentsia derides the very notion of ‘normal’. Our culture
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Pediatricians Offer 3 Simple Guidelines for Toy-Buying Parents 0
- Culture
- December 6, 2018
We’ve all seen it happen. Pick out the toy you only dreamed about as a child, wrap it up, watch a little tot open it, and… see him start playing with the box. It’s an old cliché that’s so true it’s laughable. So how can we avoid such a scenario and ensure that the children
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Jane Austen Forever!0
- Culture
- December 5, 2018
I’ve been reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to my ten-year-old daughter. I admit it was immediately motivated by my desire to watch with her the BBC mini-series, which the book was clearly written in order for them to produce one day. There’s a rule here that they have to do the book before they do the
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3 Weird Things That Are ‘Triggering’ People This Holiday Season 0
- Culture
- December 5, 2018
The commercialism of Christmas is obvious and, sadly, inevitable. With the grand kickoff that is the ever-ironic Black Friday shop-a-thon, commercial Christmas has a roaring start, a solid middle (built on holiday guilt and anxiety), and an equally grand finish (built on last-minute panic and close-of-holiday depression). Now, the other evil lens of Christmas
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Chicago’s New PlayStation Tax Shows How Greedy Politicians Can Be 0
- Culture
- December 5, 2018
“If it moves, tax it.” That’s government’s eternal motto, as Ronald Reagan quipped. To this, the city government of Chicago has added, “If it amuses, tax it.” A few weeks ago, PlayStation 4 users in Chicago were shocked when they turned on their consoles and saw a message from Sony. The message informed users that
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