Guest Thinkers — May 23, 2010

Burqa Ban

Steve Chapman opposes France’s proposed ban on burqas because in a free society “none of us is obligated to integrate. The Amish don’t. Neither do the Hare Krishnas.”

bigthinkeditor

Steve Chapman opposes France’s proposed ban on burqas because in a free society “none of us is obligated to integrate. The Amish don’t. Neither do the Hare Krishnas…Wearing a suicide bomb around your waist is aggressive. Concealing your face is peaceable. Veiled women are not refusing to exist in the eyes of others. They, like all the rest of us, are merely deciding on what terms to make their existence visible.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Culture & Religion

Commie Picasso

Attempts to demonstrate Picasso’s communist ties through his art are unnecessary since the painter was overt about his politics, writes the Guardian, and doing so limits the scope of his works.