How King Charles's coronation will reflect his desire to be defender of all faiths

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How King Charles's coronation will reflect his desire to be defender of all faiths   Nearly 30 years ago, the then-Prince Charles indicated that as king he wanted not just to inherit the monarch’s traditional title of “defender of the faith”, but also to be a “defender of faith”. The monarch swears oaths of commitment to Protestantism and as supreme governor of the Church of England, but Charles has repeatedly said he also wants to be a protector of all main religious faiths, non-Christian as well as Christian.For decades, royal observers have speculated about the shape the coronation might take in an age of greater devolution, religious pluralism and increased secularisation. Contrary to some proposals for its reform or even its replacement by a civil ceremony, the new coronation liturgy remains a Church of England service. But seeking balance between old and new, it is now considerably expanded in its symbolic scope, with a larger and more diverse cast of religious participants. Continued here

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The mindset that brings unlimited willpower   We all face demanding days that seem designed to test our self-control. Perhaps you are a barista, and you have some particularly rude and demanding customers, but you manage to keep your poise throughout. Or maybe you are finishing an important project and you have to remain in quiet concentration, without letting your attention slip to other distractions. If you are on a diet, you might have spent the past few hours resisting the cookie jar while the sweet treats silently whisper “eat me”.In each case, you would have relied on your willpower, which psychologists define as the ability to avoid short-term temptations and override unwanted thoughts, feelings or impulses. And some people seem to have much greater reserves of it than others: they find it easier to control their emotions, avoid procrastination and stick to their goals, without ever seeming to lose their iron grip on their behaviour. Indeed, you may know some lucky people who, after a hard day at work, have the resolve to do something productive like a workout – while you give up on your fitness goals and fall for the temptations of junk food and trash TV. Continued here

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Dear Pepper: Answers to a Prompt on Promptness   As always, please send your advice-column questions (tiny issues preferred; all issues accepted) to dearpepperquestions@gmail.com.Last time, I flipped the script on you and asked you to answer my questions: What do you think it’s important to be on time to, what should one be early to (and how early should one be), and when should one be late (and how late)? And I was so touched by your wise, thoughtful, funny responses. I’ve included some of your opinions, insights, and theories here, edited for brevity, and illustrated. Continued here

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An Eyewitness to Jordan Neely's Death   Last year, after Mayor Eric Adams stepped up sweeps of homeless encampments in New York, Johnny Grima became one of the most visible homeless activists in the city. Grima was a resident of Anarchy Row, a holdout encampment on Ninth Street, off Tompkins Square Park, and he was a voluble and eloquent presence at many of the street demonstrations and protests that broke out in response to the sweeps. Grima, who is in his late thirties, describes himself as "second-generation" homeless. He spent much of the pandemic on the streets of New York. "I want apartments for all my homeless people!" he chanted over and over again during a sweep of Anarchy Row last April. He refused to leave his tent even as police officers collapsed it on top of him. A few months later, Grima succeeded in navigating the city's notoriously labyrinthine and dysfunctional shelter system, and secured an apartment in a supportive-housing facility, where he has lived since.On Monday, Grima and a friend, James Kings, happened to be riding on the same subway train in which Jordan Neely, a homeless man and street performer, was killed by an ex-marine named Daniel Penny. (Penny has not been charged with any crime and could not be reached for comment. His lawyers released a statement saying that Penny acted in self-defense and "never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.") In a partial video of the incident that has been posted online, Grima can be heard and seen moments after Neely, pinned down by Penny and two other men, stopped moving. "Don't put him on his back though, man. He might choke on his own spit," Grima said. "Put him on his side." Grima, who has described his own life at times as a "nightmare," is distraught by what he witnessed on Monday. On Wednesday, he helped organize a vigil for Neely in the same subway station where he died. When I called Grima on Friday, he was getting in and out of subways, travelling around the city. His voice broke several times as he recounted what he'd seen. His account has been condensed and edited. Continued here

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Cryptocasinos are evolving worryingly fast -   New gambling rules are being proposed by the UK government for the first time since the invention of the smartphone. But these “reforms for the digital age” are silent on cryptocasinos, where you can bet online using cryptocurrencies. These platforms have seen remarkable and potentially dangerous developments since the government’s consultation for its reforms began in late 2020. The first peer-reviewed paper on cryptocasinos was only published in October 2020. The gambling games discussed were laughably simple, such as bets on virtual coin flips or dice rolls. Such activities that might appeal to bored friends on a long journey must have seemed benign compared to the world of in-play sports betting and online slots available using conventional currencies. Continued here

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The empire sings back: the deep history behind South African soprano Pretty Yende's triumph   University of Fort Hare provides support as an endorsing partner of The Conversation AFRICA.Among the invited artists at the coronation of Britain’s King Charles III was the South African soprano, Pretty Yende. Coronations are not events that take place often. What made the moment special is not just singing for a new king, but the rareness of the occasion. After millions of global television viewers experienced her soaring high notes, stage presence, musicality and star quality, audiences were no doubt asking, “Who is she, where does she come from?” Continued here

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A Long-Overlooked Brain Phenomenon May Make You More Open-Minded   Being flexible and learning to adapt when the world changes is something you practice every day. Whether you run into a new construction site and have to reroute your commute or download a new streaming app and have to relearn how to find your favorite show, changing familiar behaviors in response to new situations is an essential skill.To make these adaptations, your brain changes its activity patterns within a structure called the prefrontal cortex — an area critical for cognitive functions such as attention, planning, and decision-making. But which specific circuits “tell” the prefrontal cortex to update its activity patterns to change behavior have been unknown. Continued here

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How to Overcome Your Fear of Making Mistakes   No one can reduce mistakes to zero, but you can learn to harness your drive to prevent them and channel it into better decision making. Here is how to become a more effective worrier: don’t be afraid or ashamed of your fear, use emotional agility to label your feelings and act on your values, focus on perfecting your processes not outcomes, broaden your thinking, recognize the value of leisure time, and avoid judgment-clouding noise. Continued here

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The companies that churn through young workers   Sarah had always dreamed of working in the fashion industry. Aged 21, she decided to follow her dream, move to London and find a career she loved. “Like many young people, my passion was fashion,” she says. “But the reality wasn’t quite so glamorous.”After working for less than a year in fashion retail, Sarah secured an e-commerce assistant role in the head office of a global luxury brand. In both jobs, she was surrounded by like-minded twenty-somethings, all of whom wanted to succeed in the fashion world. “It’s like any creative industry: young people always see it as cool to work in,” she says. “And the perks are great, even in sales: we’d get heavily discounted items all the time.” Continued here

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Ask an Expert: How Do I Deal with Upward Bullying as a New Manager?   Becoming a peer’s manager is rarely easy, and often times, it does cause friction. The power dynamic between you two has changed. This can be hard for anyone. The addition of upward bullying and a lack of systemic support as a person of color in a leadership role puts you in an even more difficult situation. How do you navigate it? Continued here

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'Guardians of the Galaxy 3' Villain Explains Her Ambiguous Ending   Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 might have one of the most despicable villains in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) is a cosmic being and geneticist who aspires to create the perfect race, carelessly discarding his failed experiments along the way in shocking acts of genocide. Anyone who follows him must be a monster, but far be it for Guardians of the Galaxy star Miriam Shor to question her creator.Shor plays Recorder Vim, the righthand woman of the High Evolutionary, whose job is to record each of his failed experiments and help him improve the next batch. As a creation of the High Revolutionary herself, Vim sports icy white eyes, a shaved head, and an apparatus in her skull that records everything she sees. But throughout the course of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which delves into the gruesome creation of Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), what she sees isn’t pleasant. And it starts to make Shor’s villain question her own existence. Continued here

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COVID is officially no longer a global health emergency - here's what that means (and what we've learned along the way)   World Health Organisation (WHO) experts have officially declared that COVID no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (Pheic). This coincides with the WHO’s new strategy to transition from an emergency response to longer-term sustained COVID disease management. This may not change too much practically. COVID will still have pandemic status, and countries will continue to have their own authority as to whether to treat COVID as an emergency within their territories (some countries, including the US, have already declared an end to the national emergency). Continued here

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Pillars of Resilient Digital Transformation - SPONSORED CONTENT FROM Red Hat   The acceleration of digital transformation because of the pandemic recast the position of the chief information officer (CIO) to that of a big-picture strategist. From ensuring ongoing alignment of IT and business demands to leading the transition to full digital enablement, the CIO role requires expert proficiency in a broad range of both technology and management skills. Continued here

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The Heart of Matter: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Bridging the Scientific and the Sacred   Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.“Matter delights in music, and became Bach,” Ronald Johnson wrote in a stunning prose poem. How it did — how we became, in the poetic words of the physicist Richard Feynman, “atoms with consciousness… matter with curiosity” — may be the supreme mystery of existence. And yet here we are, each of us having triumphed over staggering odds in order to exist at all, all of us moving through the sliver of spacetime we have been allotted as material creatures animated by rich spiritual lives, governed by entropy, yearning for eternity. Few people have given voice to this existential tension between our materiality and our spirituality more beautifully than the French paleontologist, Jesuit priest, and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (May 1, 1881–April 10, 1955) — an uncommon bridge figure between the scientific and the sacred, who felt deeply at home in the world of gravity and gluons, and took part in the discovery of the Peking Man fossil that helped illuminate the evolutionary history of our species, but who also thought deeply and wrote beautifully about the most immaterial and transcendent regions of our experience. Continued here

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Why three-day weekends are great for wellbeing - and the economy   The coronation of King Charles III has upped the UK’s public holiday count this year. The special public holiday on the Monday after the May 6 ceremony, combined with the early May bank holiday and the spring bank holiday at the end, has certainly made for a month of celebrations for many workers.Normally public holidays in the UK – and in England and Wales in particular – are much more rare occasions. The coronation celebration brings the total to nine in 2023, which is still fewer than any EU country. Given that hours worked in the UK over the whole year are 11% higher than in Germany, for example, it is not clear that working more and having fewer holidays is a sign of economic success. Continued here