Miss Talavera Bruce 2017, Mayana Rosa Alves, right, takes a cigarette break with two contestants before the start of the 13th annual Miss Talavera Bruce beauty pageant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018. Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo.
Viewpoint

Is smoking cool again?

Old habits die hard, apparently. While it may not be as ubiquitous a habit as it once was, smoking cigarettes appears to be the new retro, taboo-flouting trend of Gen Z’s It crowd.

People wait to enter the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Saturday, June 6, 2020. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press.
Viewpoint

Do we live in a civilisation?

We live in the valley between civilisations, in the shadow of a peak still visible behind us but unable yet to see the peak in front of us. This should not be cause for despair. Although the history of man has been the story of the rise and fall of civilisations, the most important thing is that civilisation has never yet died out altogether; it has always been preserved somewhere.

Chicago educator Tamisha Holifield spends time with her 2-year-old daughter Rian Holifield at Nichols Park, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. Erin Hooley/AP Photo.
Viewpoint

It's time to stop panicking about parenthood

The tidal wave of toxic, conflicting parenting advice and the pervasive (but biologically false) notion that a woman’s thirties are her new twenties feels almost impossible to reverse. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.