Culture and Society Articles

Culture and Society | By Derek Dashwood @ Monday, 12th May 2008 @ 9:51 AM

Chinese antiques have long held fascination in the west. In fact, the oldest continually settled city in the world, Damascus, was for 7,000 years the natural western terminus of the fabled Silk Route to the Orient. Merchants from Egypt and north into modern Turkey or west into Greece would have gathered at Damascus, which had valley routes past burning deserts and high mountain passes all the way to China. In Damascus was crafted woven Damask from raw silk from faraway Cathay, or China, the only... more...

Culture and Society | By john mce @ Sunday, 11th May 2008 @ 4:48 PM

Remember those first photos of Brangelinas baby Maddox? He was wearing a Black Sabbath tee - quite the rocknroll infant. Kingston Stefani has been papped in some seriously urban babywear, ditto the Beckham trio. To clad your baby in similarly funky attire eschew the high street and embrace the internet. To help you in your mission (and because we love cool kids clothes) weve done some internet shuftying and come up with these veritable gems: Nippaz with Attitude Whats it about: t... more...

Culture and Society | By Derek Dashwood @ Sunday, 11th May 2008 @ 10:31 AM

Chinese antiques wisdom is not to be seen in the coal burning, CO2 emitting factories that are being built weekly in China today. Nor on the new color NO2 map of the world, showing east China as red hot polluted, worst by far on earth. Yet while China is now shown to be spewing now more noxious poisons into the air than every other nation, the leaders and the people defend that the filthy air is the natural price of progress. And besides, we hear from leaders in speeches, and people in the stree... more...

Culture and Society | By Jim Williams @ Sunday, 11th May 2008 @ 1:46 AM

I had been laid off from the Chrysler plant for virtually 3 months and I wasn't certain what to do about my unemployment condition. The girl at the job service office said I needed to show proof I have applied to companies around the area but the truth is, after some time you start to run out of options. Every day, I checked the help wanted section and I oftentimes wondered if most of the jobs are even legitimate. One ad makes it into the area every single Sunday and it sounds reall... more...

Culture and Society | By MIKE SELVON @ Saturday, 10th May 2008 @ 7:34 PM

Reaching all the way into the histories of numerous venerable, ancient civilizations, jewelry has played an important role in the culture of various peoples. Often, the fine jewelry that people wore was reflective of the values, humanity and the artistry of that era and usually offers many insights into the way of life during that time. In addition to the works of jewelry, the jewelry boxes of each age can also lend additional insights and should be equally treasured. In fact, it is fair ... more...

Culture and Society | By Daniel Millions @ Saturday, 10th May 2008 @ 6:45 PM

A branch of medicine that focuses on health issues of the elderly is called Geriatrics. This is not the same as gerontology, which is actually the study of the aging process and how it works. The word is derived from the Greek 'geron' meaning "old man" and the term 'iatros' which means "healer". The idea of this specific branch of medicine was conceived in 1909 by a Dr. Nascher. Dr. Leo Nascher was the former Chief of Clinic in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York... more...

Culture and Society | By Patrick Omari @ Saturday, 10th May 2008 @ 4:21 PM

Undercover hotels, what are they? Major travel companies have introduced undercover airport hotels at major UK Airports. These undercover Hotels are a cheaper way to book Gatwick Airport Hotels and Heathrow Airport hotels, two places you would normally pay a premium to get a bed. Most of these hotels are within a 10-minute drive of the terminals using the Hotel-Hoppa buses. Usually if you book an un-named Four-star hotel you get cheaper rates than the normal rate for the named properties... more...

Culture and Society | By Derek Dashwood @ Saturday, 10th May 2008 @ 3:53 PM

Chinese antiques are being buried, bulldozed over, ground into dust, looted by excavation crews and others; permits to report artifacts ignored on a scale unknown in history. With it's need for two more power plants each week now, China's mountain valleys where millions now live, and for thousands of years have buried their ancestors are being moved off their farms for new power plants or hydro dams. Now, some ancient grave souls are lifting as the waters rise, creating potential for i... more...

Culture and Society | By Daniel Millions @ Friday, 9th May 2008 @ 6:28 AM

This is the sort of relationship and interaction that is a central and very necessary process in the practice of medicine. The patient must be able to trust his or her physician's expertise and knowledge. There are many points of view from which to understand this kind of relationship. From the somewhat idealized perspective of the physician, which is taught in the majority of medical schools, he or she sees the core aspects of their profession as the physician learning the patient&... more...

Culture and Society | By Patrick Omari @ Thursday, 8th May 2008 @ 8:45 AM

If you are a frequent traveller, you must have cursed your bad luck and jinxed trip upheavals. I have been stranded at the airport a couple of times. And each time I swear it will be my last. Unfortunately finances and the Curse of the Billy Goat conspire each time, for people of meager means like me, to dictate my travel needs. So I travel cheap and when stranded, I can't afford the VIP lounge. Having some advance knowledge of the airport you are flying through can be useful. Here is what ... more...

Culture and Society | By Ki Gray @ Wednesday, 7th May 2008 @ 1:42 PM

Austin is one of America's hot list cities. The housing is affordable. The landscape is pretty with rolling hills to the west and fields to the east. The weather is pleasant in the spring, fall, and winter, with summer being bearable, even welcomed by heat-lovers. The music, art, and film scenes are thriving and growing with new festivals like Austin City Limits and those established like the worldwide conference South By Southwest, otherwise known as SXSW. There's somethi... more...

Culture and Society | By Donald Mitchell @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 10:15 PM

Let me ask you an important question: How do you see your life in 2035? If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of an oncoming train. - Robert Lowell If you are over the age of 60, you may assume you won't be around in 2035. Read on anyway. I have some surprises for you. If you are younger than 60, you might focus on threats and describe your life in 2035 in dire terms after looking at where certain trends might lead: -Epidemics of... more...

Culture and Society | By Jarett Sabirsh @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 7:54 PM

The truth is the answer to every problem that ever has and ever will exist, and if we look at the state of the world today, it's pretty obvious that we are quite unaware of what the truth actually is. Why is it that we're so unaware of the truth? Because we don't want it, we think we already know it, or as a certain spiritual teacher points out, that "the design of the human mind renders it intrinsically incapable of being able to tell truth from falsehood." It'... more...

Culture and Society | By Ann Knapp @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 6:58 PM

It's tough being a TV character. Whether you're a crime-solving supersleuth or a wacky next door neighbor, the pressures are intense - villains that refuse to be caught, friends who don't share your enthusiasm for celebrating Festivus. When cigar-smoking had ceased, for a while, to be trendy - during the long lean years before the 1990s-era "cigar boom," cigar smoking enjoyed an abrupt, and steep, spike in popularity after years of quiescence - these iconic small-screen he... more...

Culture and Society | By Donald Mitchell @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 4:32 PM

Here's a question I'll bet you've never asked yourself: What could your life be like in 2035 with normal progress? Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun-Tzu First let's consider what life is apt to be like in the year 2035 if we make improvements at the normal pace. Then in the next guide we'll imagine how things could be if improvements occur much more rapidly. Let's start with life expectancy. Longevity is increasing by about ... more...

Culture and Society | By Derek Dashwood @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 12:09 PM

The recent news that China has overtaken America as the great polluter of our dear mother earth is worse news that we would think. The recent color world map of CO2, shows in red the worst coal carbon emissions into the air, from the Royal Netherlands Geographic Institute. This map shows, for the first time clearly to see, how the dispersal of red hot factory or nuclear or oil refinery sites around the world light up red. China is the CO2 horror smoke breathing dragon, as it's concentration... more...

Culture and Society | By Catherine Harvey @ Tuesday, 6th May 2008 @ 11:13 AM

One of the biggest debates that has raged since women got the vote is whether or not we are truly equal. Equal to what? To Men? If being equal to men is what women aspire to I've always thought we should aim higher! And what exactly is it about men that women want to be part of? I certainly have no desire, or the ability, to fix my own car but I do want the choice to know if that was the route I wanted to go down, then I wouldn't be stopped by society frowning on my choices. Des... more...

Culture and Society | By Piercarla Garusi @ Monday, 28th April 2008 @ 6:28 AM

Moving to a new country can be very demanding - there is not only the physical removal to organise, but also a new accommodation to find, a new job, perhaps a new school or university, perhaps a new language to learn. Not to mention the strain of leaving behind friends, family and familiarity. And furthermore there is the new culture. A culture is not simply the visible things; it is also all the subconscious programming of beliefs and values we carry with us, which makes us have certain... more...

Culture and Society | By Anna Stenning @ Sunday, 27th April 2008 @ 10:32 PM

So now you have hit the age of nineteen, you are eager to get that coveted tattoo that you have kept your eye on for many months, during the run up to your birthday. However, you find yourself arriving at the entrance of the tattoo shop and are completely blown away by the amount of needles involved during the process. Suddenly the idea begins to make you think twice about you what you are going to put yourself through - perhaps at this point you may be thinking that you should have done your re... more...

Culture and Society | By Patrick Omari @ Sunday, 27th April 2008 @ 4:27 PM

You arrive at the airport 2 hours early for security: airport security is such a big deal these days but the line at the security and immigration desk is a stretch of several hundred people. For some passengers their passports have to be photocopied. This means the clerk has to walk over to the copy machine and back each time. The machine is slow and the papers need to be changed. Glancing at the clock on the wall, you realise you are now within 20 minutes of missing your flight. You feel like r... more...