Transforming Britain from Brutality to Kindness

HIGH INTELLIGENCEThe Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britainby Simon Heffer Writing during the Second World War, George Orwell drew attention to the contrast between the “softness” that characterized contemporary British civilization and the “brutality” that characterized British life a hundred years ago. Though not mentioned in Orwell’s “Higher Minds,” the transformation he grasped forms …

Transforming the Desert into a World-Class Golf Course in Abu Dhabi

Course director Corey Finn said that in this climate and environment, lawn care in Abu Dhabi is complex due to the use of water. He said the United Arab Emirates’ drinking water is obtained through desalination, but the golf course uses recycled water from nearby hotels and buildings. This lower quality water poses challenges for …

Albert J. Raboteau, Transforming Black Religious Studies, Dies

When Albert was just a baby, his mother, Mabel (Ishem) Raboteau, a teacher and domestic worker, accompanied him and his two sisters to escape the horrors of the Jim Crow-era Deep South and head to Mich. To find new opportunities in the north. Catholic in his family, Albert attended parochial schools both in Michigan and …

When Sorrow Is Transforming and Grief Is Complicated

At the beginning of “Wild Tongues”, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi’s third novel, Iranian-American narrator Arezu arrives in Marbella, Spain. For the first time in 20 years, she meets her 17-year-old stepmother’s nephew, Omar, who was then 40 years old. He will be “my lover, my tormentor, my confidant and my enemy,” he says. Ellie, …

‘A Crazy 15 Months’: Pandemic Spurs Transforming Offices into Labs

The epidemic has taken a big punch to the owners of office buildings. Realizing that working with home-based workers could continue, businesses across the country have narrowed their space or eliminated them altogether, resulting in lower construction and office rents. The collateral damage to this teleworking revolution has been millions of square feet of empty …