Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

Review: ‘The Plains Indians,’ America’s Early Artists, at the Met

March 13, 2015

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“Painted robes, covered with figures and symbols and accessorized with leggings and gloves, became storyboards of oral history and epic adventure. One monumental example from the Branly collection, fittingly known as the Grand Robe, depicts, in more than a dozen episodes and with a cast of some 60 figures, the Homeric exploits of two Lakota warriors. There are debates over the gender of the artists of certain robes. But in general, paintings and drawings were done by men, and tanning, sewing and beadwork by women. And outstanding examples of beadwork, positioned throughout the show, glow with a kind of self-generated light.”

Parents’ Beliefs vs. Their Children’s Health

March 12, 2015

“The spread of measles has called attention to parents who don’t vaccinate children because of religious beliefs. New York City is accommodating an Orthodox Jewish circumcision practice that can infect babies with herpes. Some states even let believers in faith healing deny life-saving medical care to their children.

Should parents’ religious beliefs allow them to refuse medical care for their children or avoid standard medical practices?”

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/10/parents-beliefs-vs-their-childrens-health

Morning Joe Finds the Real Racists in Oklahoma: Rap Musicians

March 11, 2015

What makes a word offensive? This article gets into a discussion that has been going on for some time about who can say what words and what makes them offensive. It’s an interesting discussion on language and what gives it meaning and also what makes it offensive…or not.

http://news.yahoo.com/morning-joe-finds-real-racists-oklahoma-rap-musicians-145348684.html

My right to death with dignity at 29

March 11, 2015

“In April, I learned that not only had my tumor come back, but it was more aggressive. Doctors gave me a prognosis of six months to live.

Because my tumor is so large, doctors prescribed full brain radiation. I read about the side effects: The hair on my scalp would have been singed off. My scalp would be left covered with first-degree burns. My quality of life, as I knew it, would be gone.”

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/opinion/maynard-assisted-suicide-cancer-dignity/

‘By separating nature from economics, we have walked blindly into tragedy’

March 11, 2015

“We need a new way of thinking, one that tightly links the human-made world of economics and politics with the natural world of climate and biodiversity and with the designed world of 21st century technology. Consider my own home field of study, economics. Sometime in the 19th century, economics largely dropped its traditional attention to land, water and food, as industry replaced agriculture as the leading economic sector. Economists decided, by and large, that they could ignore nature – take it ‘as given’ – and instead focus on market-based finance, saving, and business investment. Mainstream economists derided the claims of ‘limits to growth.'”

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/10/jeffrey-sachs-economic-policy-climate-change

Mathematical model explains marital breakups

March 10, 2015

“Most people know love takes work, and effort is needed to sustain a happy relationship over the long term, but now a mathematician in Spain has for the first time explained it mathematically by developing a dynamical mathematical model based on the second law of thermodynamics to model ‘sentimental dynamics.’ The results are consistent with sociological data on marriage breakdowns.”

http://phys.org/news193298961.html

Mood And The Visual System – Optimists Literally See Better

March 10, 2015

“Seeing the world through ‘rose-colored glasses’  may be more biological reality than metaphor, according to a University of Toronto study that provides the first direct evidence that our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience.”

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/mood_and_visual_system_optimists_literally_see_better