A Better Tomorrow

A different kind of homework for Singapore students: get a date

"The courses are an extension of government matchmaking programs that try to address the twin challenges embodied in a falling birthrate: too few people are having babies, and too few of those who are belong to what Singapore considers the genetically desirable educated elite.

Over the past 25 years, the mating rituals organized by the government — tea dances, wine tastings, cooking classes, cruises, screenings of romantic movies — have been among the country's least successful social engineering programs."

Marriage & War

THE soldier, Ms. Rheem said, is trained to endure extremes. When it comes to problems in the marriage, “He is saying, ‘We are not really at the worst-case scenario,’ ” Ms. Rheem said. “For the spouse, it is like: ‘Yes, we are. To you, it is a small thing, because it is not life, or death, or bleeding. But if we don’t talk about these things now, it may feel like we are bleeding. I’m bleeding.’ ”

Alan Watts

"What is the essential difference between the world of nature and the world of man?"

"[Nature's] aesthetic forms somehow appeal more to me than the forms that man has created."

What about the case of the Highlands? Is manicured nature some combination of both elements? Does human engineering in the form of gardening and organization enhance the aesthetic beauty that Watts mentions? Or do human attempts to engineer nature simply obscure natural beauty?