March 11, 2010, 6:44 AM
Thursday | Today's idea: The war in Afghanistan revives an ancient intellectual debate: Can individual agency prevail over determinism-"the belief that historical, cultural, ethnic, economic, and other antecedent forces determine the future of men and nations"? [The Atlantic]
March 10, 2010, 6:28 AM
Wednesday | Today's idea: An alternative musical system has attracted adherents around the world seeking to move beyond the basic building blocks of Western music and to discover how the brain learns a musical language. [The Boston Globe via Brainiac]
March 09, 2010, 6:29 AM
Tuesday | Today's idea: Assumptions about the rise of a cognitively different generation of "digital natives" may be wrong, an article says. [The Economist]
March 08, 2010, 6:40 AM
Monday | Today's idea: Too much Harry Potter and "Twilight"? Educators say the young should read more nonfiction to soak up knowledge of the real world and truly master language. [Class Struggle, Brainstorm]
The unsettled ethics of pillaging after a catastrophe acquired a new wrinkle in Chile, where some frightened citizens were allowed to take needed staples.
For months the right has had the momentum. Is the left too “snakebit” to snatch it back?
Pity Lewis Carroll’s poor Hatter. Why not “mad as a shoemaker”?
Could this Chinese Year of the Tiger be the last one with actual tigers still afoot in the world’s wild?
Jerry Brown’s unshakable nickname was coined by Mike Royko, the famed Chicago columnist, in 1976.
When Germans think they’ll have to bail out Greeks, centuries of bad feelings on both sides come out of hiding. Can a new Europe put them back in their cage?
Tehran is playing its hand as if its untapped oil reserves give it a trump card. But the longer the nuclear stalemate drags on, the more that strategy is in doubt.
The Supreme Court revisited the Second Amendment last week, and there were strong hints that it was leaning toward expanding gun rights.
Health care costs for older couples, and the percentage of Americans who say their job is “ideal.”
Disciplinary problems at a school in Derby, Britain, have dropped by about 60 percent since the school began piping classical music into a detention room.
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