Week 32 miscellany: check your prejudice, Olympics photos and faith, mascots, and trees
A bee amongst the lavender of Drummond Castle Gardens |
Everyone has prejudices but not everyone realises this. Serina Sandhu shares research which proves this, and Ross Douthat comments on the myth of cosmopolitanism. This is perhaps the loudest voice in our culture presently (though votes for Brexit and Trump say something else) so it's important to be aware of what it's really saying.
The Olympic Games are upon us, and if they don't have quite the same magical atmosphere as London 2012 for some of us, there are still some wonderful things going on. The story of sport photography is told by George Vecsey (the photo of the BASE jumpers in Utah is my favourite), and David Matthias introduces Christians to C.S. Lewis' idea of "transposition" - seeing the ultimate things of God through the things around us, for which the Olympics are a great setting.
Vinicius and Tom are the Olympic and Paralympic mascots; Neil Steinberg explains the rise of a cartoon bear in Japan who has become much more than just a cuddly toy.
There's a Greek proverb which says that a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in. The National Forest is a rare example of Britain apply this wisdom, as John Vidal reports.