Lifestyle topics
CVS is the second largest pharmacy company in the US. Its public image has not been great – it has effective local monopolies in many parts of the country, its staff are generally so-so, and the look of its stores is uninviting (I compare it with the bright, clean modern look of Boots in England, …
Only 28% of children now say they read for pleasure – down from 38% in 2005 (UK National Literacy Trust/Telegraph). This because they are texting or watching something they shouldn’t be watching on the internet. Are we breeding new generations of ignorant, unread, maybe illiterate kids who do not understand the need for a mind-broadening …
It took 800 years from the date of the Magna Carta to the present for the democratic principles bsed onthe freedom of the individual to grow and mature among the English speaking people. It is a great irony that the creators of democracy have become its executioners. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, visitors …
Praising children with low self-esteem can actually do them more harm than good. “Inflated praise can backfire with kids who seem to need it most,” according to psychologist Eddie Brummelman, of Ohio State University. For the study, 240 children were asked to copy Van Gogh’s Wild Roses, and were then given a note from a …
There has been a remarkable rehabilitation of Confucianism in modern China. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong denounced the belief system as a vestige of “feudal” culture, yet Confucian ideas – particularly as condensed in the pithy prose of Dizigui – are now back with a vengeance. Chinese parents, alarmed by the pace of …
