Does your architect want to make you fat?

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How much can the design of your kitchen influence your health?  What do you think about the advice given in this article to make your kitchen encourage healthy eating habits?  How does your kitchen compare?

Gender and Gentility

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Are those who tend to criticize others simply trying to mask their own insecurities? Do people have a tendency to get more upset about a critical (and perhaps tactless) girl than they would about a boy?  Should girls be encouraged to speak up more, even when it is judged to be impolite? 

Giving everybody a sporting chance

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How can we encourage diversity in sports and make sure that national teams are made of the talented rather than the privileged?  Should state resources be devoted to equalizing chances like they are in New Zealand or China, say, for young hockey players in Slovakia?

What Swedish krona can buy in Cairo

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Is graffiti art?  Should it be funded or does this ruin its anti-establishment character and make it something else entirely?  (For instance, does the spray-painted artwork done before the hockey championship around Trnavske Myto and the Zochova bus stop count as graffiti?)  Is a street where protestors were killed a particularly appropriate or particularly inappropriate place for graffiti? 

Crosses in the Crosshairs

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What does it mean to have a secular state?  Does Slovakia fit the bill?  Do you agree with this author that the standards are not always fairly applied, depending on how acceptable a particular minority is?  Do the criteria set up for taking down crosses on public land seem fair to you?

The Googlization of Reality

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How much is Google influenced by prejudices and how can it in turn reinforce them?  What, if anything, can be done about this problem?

Anzacs as invaders or victims?

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How much do countries have a tendency to distort the history they believe (and teach) in their favor?  Is it a citizen’s duty to seek out more reliable information about their country’s history and the real horrors of war?  Should governments apologize for mistakes of the past?  Should New Zealand apologize to Turkey for the Gallipoli invasion 100 years ago?

Our coffee doesn’t give you that bitter aftertaste of exploitation

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Should concern about fair economic practices be a consideration in what we buy?  How can a consumer be guaranteed good information?  Do you think that skepticism about fair trade certification is justified, or do third party organizations like this provide the only labels that can be trusted? Would you be willing to pay more for a cup of coffee or a bar of chocolate if you knew that farmers were getting a fair price?

Are you too chicken to raise free-range children?

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At what age is it a good idea to allow children to go out on their own?  Should there be laws regulating this?  How should they be enforced?  How should other parents react?  What forms are interference are helpful, if any?

Bilak besmudged

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Are Slovaks trying to ignore the dark parts of their history by building memorials to communists and leaders of the first Slovak state?  Do you agree with this article’s analysis as to why Slovaks are attracted these periods?  Should the government forbid or limit such memorials?  Is their vandalism justified?

Aren’t you afraid that blood might ruin your manicure?

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Slovakia has long been criticized as an EU country with greater gender inequality, especially when it comes to the pay gap, than many others.  Do you think this applies to doctors and especially specialists and surgeons?  What causes sexism in this particular workplace and what can be done to combat it?  Do you admire female doctors?  Do you prefer them?

My baby but not my baby

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Here is a timely article given the recent referendum.  However, I think the focus of the article is more on the racial aspect of this family than on the fact that both parents are women.  Should potential parents take race into account when adopting children?  How can we learn from this woman’s experience?

Made in the land of the not free

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Is it a good idea to make or allow prisoners to work?  Should they be paid?  Are US prisons justified in trying to hide the fact that prisoners produce certain products?   Should Slovakia create similar programs for prisoners?

The evidence says otherwise? Well, actually, this is a matter of principle.

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Do you agree with the authors that people have a tendency to avoid inconvenient  scientific facts?  Does this have anything to do with the popularity of conspiracy theories? How can people best debate issues or persuade others to change their positions in light of this evidence?  Do the studies which the authors have carried out convince you?

Protesting performing pachyderms

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Does the presence of animals in entertainment venues like circuses automatically entail cruelty to animals?  What sort of laws should be passed regulating their use?  Is this the end of elephants in the Ringling Brothers the end of torture or the end of a great tradition?

Felix or Rosa?

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Have you ever been tempted to disguise yourself as the other gender, as this girl did?  What can her experience tell us about how boys and girls are socialised?  Would America and Slovakia be better places to live if we allowed girls to be more masculine and boys to be more feminine?

Billary versus Georjeb

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Why do you think people in America (and elsewhere) have a tendency to vote for people from established families?   Does the fact that so many politicians come from these families show that social mobility is on the decline?  How does this "dynasty" trend compare to the situation in Slovakia?

This is your brain on teenage hormones

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What do you think of this author’s explanations for teenage behaviour?  Does looking for the causes of behaviour in the brain provide too easy an excuse and an escape from individual responsibility?  Does she give good advice to parents?  What do the parents’ questions reveal?

I don’t see “Indo-European” on your list of languages…

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How can studying the history of language(s) be enriching?  Can studying our own language’s history, for example Slovak, help us feel more rooted–whatever that means?  How can we protect other, smaller languages/dialects and cultures from the pervasive influence of English, if such protection is necessary?

Preventing Prevaricating in Politics

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Do you agree with this author’s definition of lying?  How can politicians best be held accountable for their lies?  Would a law against lying in Parliament work?

Let’s get physical, physical (instead of digital)

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Are you attracted to non-digital film, books and music?  What do you think of the author’s explanation for why old technologies like these are making a comeback?  Will the comeback continue?  Why or why not?

Wisdom 101

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Here’s a text from an English teacher like me.  Should schools prepare students for careers, future studies, or life in general?  Should schools try to teach wisdom to students, or only skills?  Can students find it in their literature classes?  How?  What are the negative and positive effects of having government standards for curriculum on a student’s experience? 

Leaving no stone unturned

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This is the last entry you can comment on for February.

Is it acceptable for the government to gather information on its citizens and/or resident foreigners?  What is the motivation for gathering more than is necessary, as governments often seem to do?  Does the context (terrorism instead of the cold war) change anything?