Word: habit
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...heart activism is not mere well-intentioned, innocuous idealism, but potentially a cause of harm—not, thankfully, to the benighted peoples the campaigners ostensibly seek to help—but to their own society.This self-congratulatory student activism, typified by such officious petition-writing, fosters a pernicious habit of moral sloth and validated pride. These bad habits, easily formed and even more easily justified, make our own politics more bitter, more boastful, and less humane. Unsurprisingly, these self-styled moral paragons select an investment bank to impugn—a target fit for the coward or the sycophant...
Experts blame the emergence of these souped-up bugs in part on our habit of treating so many infections with powerful antibiotics; the microbes battle back by mutating to become resistant to the drugs. It's a process that can't be reversed overnight, but there are ways to keep the bugs at bay. Schools and other fertile breeding grounds like health clubs should be kept clean. Adults and kids should stay alert to news of outbreaks. And everyone should take care to keep hands washed and cuts covered. Bacteria can't thrive where they aren't welcome...
...comeback campaign came undone. Finally, of course, there are Americans as a whole, a stubbornly homesteading people who never seem to tire of building in the paths of fires, hurricanes and coastal floods. There is little to suggest that the California blazes have broken us of that obstinate habit. But there is much to suggest that when the crises do hit, we'll at least be ready to help one another...
...those who succumbed was Hong Kong resident Chor-pat Wong, whose betting habit took him to Hong Kong's horse-racing tracks three times a week. By the time his wife left him in 2004, Wong had drained the couple's $25,000 savings and racked up $90,000 in credit-card debt. Homeless, the 55-year-old bus driver made plans to jump from his sister's ninth-floor apartment. She talked him out of it, and, after she stepped in to help him start over financially by declaring bankruptcy, he hasn't made a single wager...
...Wong was able to control his habit with the help of family. But one reason the region may be ill-prepared for a wave of new addicts is Asians' reticence and shame when it comes to getting mental-health treatment. "In the Chinese community, we don't have a help-seeking culture," says Ong. "Professional counseling and psychotherapy still bear a negative image." And even those who recognize they need help may have difficulty finding it; there are few gambling-treatment programs like Gamblers Anonymous in the region and little public funding is available to form new ones. In Macau...