Humanities Articles

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Ann Knapp @ Tuesday, 28th August 2007 @ 9:37 PM

For hundreds of years, what is now the Detroit area was so important to commerce between Native American tribes that only traders were allowed into the territory. As a city, Detroit wouldn't begin to shape into its current form until roughly four centuries ago. In the 1600's, France began establishing forts at strategic locations in North America, in order to try to keep the British from moving west out of New England and to establish a monopoly on trade. Antoine de la Mothe Cad... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Carolyn Moynihan @ Tuesday, 17th July 2007 @ 1:31 PM

Leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union are gathered in Brussels right now to hammer out a new treaty for the enlarged union. The grander idea of a constitution has been dropped, following rejection of a draft two years ago by French and Dutch voters, and because of deep scepticism about it in the United Kingdom and Czechoslovakia. With trappings of unity such as a flag (blue with 12 gold stars) and an anthem (Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy') shelved; with the idea of a... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Craig Chambers @ Wednesday, 27th June 2007 @ 4:44 PM

Native American drums are probably the most recognizable Native American instruments among American Indians and non Native people alike. Drums for generations have been at the center of Native lifestyle, forming what has become the foundation of religion and spirituality as well as social gatherings where a pow wow drum is center stage. Indian tribes in North America history have all used drums in various ways to connect with a higher power known to most as the Great Spirit. To Native p... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Carolyn Moynihan @ Saturday, 7th April 2007 @ 12:28 AM

The identification of this syndrome from among various symptoms of senile dementia, and its increasing incidence due to the ageing of the population, has made it a symbol of the (terrifying) burdens of old age. The report therefore focuses on this illness as it reflects in detail on the looming crisis of caregiving and the ethical challenges it poses. Crisis of caregiving Until now, family members,spouses, daughters and sometimes sons have supplied the bulk of long-term care. We have d... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Carolyn Moynihan @ Saturday, 7th April 2007 @ 12:27 AM

Last week United States health officials released the results of a survey of what some would call "reproductive behaviour", conducted in 2002. The National Survey of Family Growth revealed a striking decline in contraceptive use over the last decade, the New York Times reported. Among sexually active women who said they were not trying to get pregnant, the percentage not using contraception in 2001 increased to 11 per cent from 7 per cent in 1994. No survey of this type ap... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Carolyn Moynihan @ Tuesday, 27th March 2007 @ 6:04 PM

You have to admire the British, as represented by their current government and its intellectual constituency. They never stop trying to improve their society. What other country wants to keep schools open 10 hours a day and put every single child on a national database? Whether driven by a Marxist hangover or by ethics derived from Christianity, the commitment to a better Britain is tireless and impressively resourceful. It is also necessary. A couple of weeks ago the Institute fo... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Carolyn Moynihan @ Wednesday, 28th February 2007 @ 3:43 PM

There were two bombs in the news this week: North Korea's underground nuclear weapon test, and the population explosion - as some see it - that brought the number of people in the United States to the 300 million mark, and past it. It is hard to guess which caused more gloom in the office of Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth), which churned out a press release bemoaning the effects of growth on the environment and proposing a four-point plan for stabilisation. Mo... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Tim Mckeegan @ Monday, 26th February 2007 @ 2:25 PM

The Breed Street Shul, which housed the Congregation Talmud Torah, has quite an interesting and significant history. Located at 247 North Breed Street in the Boyle Heights district on the Los Angeles River's east bank, he Breed Street Shul served a once thriving Jewish neighborhood in Boyle Heights that has since become predominately a Latino community. The property on Breed Street was purchased after 1910. In 1915, Beth Hamedrash was built on the back of the property. Cons... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Rene Graeber @ Tuesday, 20th February 2007 @ 6:30 PM

Most people think that memory lapses are for the hopelessly disorganized. This is because some have systems. For instance, the keys go into the key jar. The point is, compulsive list makers never come home from the supermarket without the items they intend to buy. Imagine their annoyance when eventually they take three trips between two places before they remember why they went from one place to another anyway! A lot of us, faced with these glitches, worry that Alzheimer's is... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Saleem Rana @ Saturday, 27th January 2007 @ 6:55 PM

One of the most remarkable inventions ever in the history of the human race is the invention of the World Wide Web. In the middle of the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg a German goldsmith, invented the movable type printing in Europe. His technology replaced books that had to be created by hand . Knowledge spread like wildfire and the human race became more rational and less superstitious. The result, of course, was an improvement in the evolution of civilizations and the spe... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Michael Skye @ Thursday, 25th January 2007 @ 9:43 PM

A First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army has taken a stand. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, faces a court martial next month and up to 6 years in prison. He is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. Overy 100,000 people have commented on one of the blogs were this man's story and interview was published. Many of his peers call him a traitor and a coward. Others think he's anything but that. It's easy to take a position... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Michael Skye @ Thursday, 18th January 2007 @ 3:13 AM

In todays rapidly changing world, we need visionaries. Visionary mothers, visionary educators, visionary leaders, visionary children--visionaries, period! Many think of visionaries being those who have a special "gift" for thinking big, thinking creatively, etc. But consider that a visionary is simply someone who chooses to walk his or her own heroic path in life, inspired by his or her own vision. Most people do not choose the visionary path. Many people focus on achievin... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Tim Mckeegan @ Monday, 15th January 2007 @ 10:03 AM

The Los Angeles region of California is home to a Jewish population that is approximately 250,000 strong. Although this region is considered to be the most expensive and difficult area of California to undertake business activities, the vast Israeli Jewish population present here has more than overcome the regular barriers. They have made Los Angeles a thriving business hub, not just for the Jewish population, but for all of America. The Jewish people have traditionally been famous for th... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Saleem Rana @ Saturday, 13th January 2007 @ 12:23 PM

How do we move beyond our prejudices to distinguish what is sensible and what is nonsensical? When Albert Einstein created the Special and General Theory of Relativity, initially it seemed like nonsense, because nobody had ever thought of things like that before, but both the logical consistency of his arguments and the proof that was later found made them sensible theories. Understanding the difference between sense and nonsense is vital to your well-being. Unless you can draw som... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Judi Lynn Lake @ Tuesday, 12th December 2006 @ 8:03 PM

On Cultural Incompetence, Dr. Amaal V.E. Tokars states: "When you look around your place of employment, would you be surprised to see a wide variety of nationalities represented? Many would not. Today, most companies try to preserve some degree of cultural competence, accepting and understanding the value of cultural diversity in the work environment. Employers boasting policies of "equal opportunity" pervade our society. However, there is some evidence showing these compan... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Ben Franklin @ Wednesday, 6th December 2006 @ 4:15 AM

When you think of Amish people, you think of horse-drawn buggies, plain clothes, barn raisings, farms and quilts. However, the Amish came rather late to the quilt making. Long after their neighbors were piecing quilts the Amish still used the old German featherbeds and coverlets. There was a good reason for this. Amish communities were formed so that the members could remain apart from the temptations of the modern world. At this time, quilts were considered something new and modern. But what is... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Eddie Lamb @ Thursday, 2nd November 2006 @ 3:24 PM

Christmas is a very special time. This is a time when you would like to make people who are special to you know how much you love them. The best way to make this happen is by finding a unique Christmas gift for them. By definition, 'unique' means something that has no pair, no duplication anywhere else. Hence, this will not be an easy task, but let me tell you it has great rewards. How to Find A Unique Christmas Gift The question is wrong here. It should not be 'how ... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Saleem Rana @ Thursday, 19th October 2006 @ 11:39 PM

On a cultural level, most social conditioning, focuses on either repressing desires or permitting only a certain strain of desires. All this results in distorted desires and completely maladaptive emotions like fear, shame, and guilt. As an organism advances in intelligence, so, too, does its desires. There are the basic desires of the body for food, clothing, shelter, sex, and social relationships. Then at a mental level, there are desires for more knowledge, creating art, appreciatin... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Tom Berger @ Friday, 13th October 2006 @ 10:56 AM

It smelled the same as war. It looked the same as war. Grant Coates, the vice president of VVA's New York State Council, thought the memory of it might have been one of the good things he brought back from Vietnam. "Been there, done that," he thought. He knew the physics of war's destruction, recognized its immutable laws. He'd been in combat with the Army Rangers. He'd been a tracker, working with a Labrador retriever to find the enemy when contact brok... more...

Culture and Society » Humanities | By Tom Berger @ Tuesday, 10th October 2006 @ 2:12 AM

Destination: Vermont Twenty-five years after the war ended--and often longer than that since a loved one died in it--they still come to The Wall. Eighteen years after The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, 16 years after the first moving walls were built and began touring the country, they still come, oblivious to the differences in size or scope of the structure. They don't come for its size and scope. They come for the names. "There's nothing abs... more...