“Is this process infuriating? Yes. But is it crucial to their development? Far more than most of us think. … Conversation – and question asking – allows young children to grasp highly abstract concepts, from religion to history, at an earlier age. … [And] the way young children learn can vary surprisingly between working-class and middle-class children, and people from different ethnic backgrounds.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Leaky Roof Drain Stops The Show At Miami’s Arsht Center
Shortly after internmission at last night’s performance of The Lion King, the audience was told to evacuate. [B]uckets dotted the lobby’s floor and water dripped from light fixtures.” Flooding on the roof following a 1-2″ rainstorm (common in a Miami summer) caused a drain pipe leak.
What TED Has Devolved Into (A Brief Polemic)
Alex Pareene: “At this point TED is a massive, money-soaked orgy of self-congratulatory futurism, with multiple events worldwide, awards and grants to TED-certified high achievers, and a list of speakers that would cost a fortune if they didn’t agree to do it for free out of public-spiritedness.”
What The Ancient Olympic Games Were Really Like
Sure, there were lots of naked men racing and wrestling, and basically no women allowed, but there were also religious processions and animal sacrifices, poetry recitations and philosophy lectures, an enormous (and poorly sanitized) campsite, and – of course – brothels.
Amazon Customer Reviews Really Are As Good As The Pros (Harvard Business School Says So)
“Amazon reviews are just as likely to give an accurate summary of a book’s quality as those of professional newspapers, according to a study from Harvard Business School.”
What’s The Hot Thing At Cannes This Year? Literary Adaptations
“The Cannes festival is, famously, the keeper of the flame of the auteur tradition. … Since the turn of the millennium, only two winners of the Palme d’Or have been literary adaptations: Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and Laurent Cantet’s The Class. … This year, however, things are different: it is a bookworm’s Cannes, with directors as likely to have had their noses buried in novels as dreaming up original ideas.”
This Will Probably Be A Trend: Tajikistan Bans Sacha Baron Cohen’s Dictator
“First it was Kazakhstan that was left unamused by Borat. Now it’s the turn of its neighbour Tajikistan. The central Asian country has decided not to screen Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest spoof blockbuster, The Dictator, after authorities concluded the movie was incompatible with the nation’s ‘mentality’.”
LA Philharmonic Signs First Overseas Broadcast Deal, With UK’s Classic FM
“The Los Angeles Philharmonic will launch its first international radio broadcast partnership with England’s largest classical music station. The agreement with Classic FM announced Friday includes a 14-part concert series of recorded concerts under the name ‘Live with the L.A. Phil,’ broadcast Fridays starting June 1.”
Western Classical Music Begins Catching On In India
In a culture with its own centuries-old, very strong and very different classical music traditions, European art music had only a tenuous toehold in the subcontinent. This situation is slowly but surely changing, with an increase in students and great improvements in teaching, notably in and around Delhi.
Bollywood Megastar’s Post-Baby Weight Gain Causes Huge Debate In India
The furor is over whether Aishwarya Rai, “the woman routinely referred to as the most beautiful in the world, and who occupies a place in Indian popular culture akin to Kate Middleton or Victoria Beckham, has an obligation to her fans to lose weight” six months after giving birth. Until relatively recently, Bollywood stars generally had healthy curves and hourglass figures.