On God

8/28/08. Can faith be compatible with science?

http://www.science-spirit.org/newdirections.php?article_id=744

A Doctor Transformed into a Patient

8/26/08. Dr. Abigail Zugar reviews "Life in the Balance. A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia," by Dr. Thomas Graboys. Dr. Zugar writes that Dr. Grayboys' book "stands out as a small wonder. Unsentimental and unpretentious, it manages to hit all its marks effortlessly, creating a version of the old fable as touching, educational and inspiring as if it had never been told before."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/health/26books.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Monday Quotations

8/25/08.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.

--- Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)


As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

--- Goethe (1749 - 1832)


We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.

--- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Nose Picking

8/8/08. So who knows about nose picking? ---- scientists do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/aug/19/research.highereducation

Work and Life, Boundaries and Balance

8/18/08. Interview with psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud whose new book is "The One Life Solution."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121907574103349893.html

Thanks for the Memories

8/18/08. A night's sleep gives emotional memories their staying power.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2008/a-nights-sleep-gives-emotional-memories-their-staying-power.shtml

Childhood's End

8/18/08. Psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple describes childhood in Britain - a grim tale.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_3_otbie-british_children.html

Monday Quotations

8/18/08.

"Hatred of the rich is a stronger emotion than sympathy for the poor."

--- Theodore Dalrymple (1949 - )

"Don't be too sweet, lest you be eaten up; don't be too bitter, lest you be spewed out."

--- Yiddish proverb

"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."

--- Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972)

Psychologists Clash on Aiding Military Interrogations

8/16/08. Psychologists have played a role in the military and C.I.A. interrogation of people suspected of being enemy combatants. Psychologists are now aggressively arguing with each other about whether any involvement in military interrogations is a violation of its ethical code.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/washington/16psych.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1218902491-cxoaxFqNt4oN9k0O06e1xA

A Death in the Family

8/16/08. Aided by advocates for the mentally ill, William Bruce left the hospital --- only to kill his mother. There are no easy answers to the agonizing dilemma of how to protect the individual rights of psychiatric patients while protecting society. (n.b. Please see my related post on 6/14/08 "The Insanity Offense.")

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121883750650245525.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

The Heart of Darkness Visible

8/14/08. Alexander Solzhenitsym saw through the illusion of the Soviet Union and Communism into the wicked heart of darkness of a soul killing society.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0813td.html

Is College a Waste of Time?

8/12/08. Charles Murray discusses what's wrong with our current system of college education --- and what to do about it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

An excerpt from Murray's book "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality," 2008.

http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/are-too-many-people-going-to-college

Monday Quotations

8/11/08.

It is an astonishing and hardly noticed psychological fact that one's own words once spoken are differently evaluated than those which we only think in our representations of words.

---Theodore Reik (1888 - 1969)


...One has information about one's experience only to the extent that one has tended to communicate it to another - or thought about it in the manner of communicative speech. Much of that which is ordinarily said to be repressed is merely unformulated.

---Harry Stack Sullivan (1892 - 1949)


You can not exert influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

---Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

What the World Eats

8/8/08. A photo essay ---

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html

Low Deeds and High IQ

8/8/08. Joseph Epstein reviews "For the Thrill of It," by Simon Baatz, a book about the 1924 murder in Chicago of the 14-year-old boy Bobby Franks by two students at the University of Chicago. The killers were 18-year-old Richard Loeb and 19-year-old Nathan Leopold Jr. Their lawyer was Clarence Darrow.

Mr. Epstein writes: "Simon Baratz's 'For the Thrill of It' is likely to be the definitive work on this infamous crime and the dramatic trial of its perpetrators. It is impressive in its research, even-handed in its tone and immensely readable."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121815198274522367.html

The following is an excerpt from Simon Baratz's book:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/criminal-minds.html

Economics is Now a Science. What Does It Teach? See the following 10 Points.

8/5/08. Economics is a science.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_3_economics.html

Monday Quotations

8/4/08.

An indecency decently put is the thing we laugh at hardest.
--- Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)


We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice.
---Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902 - 1991)


The beauty of life is nothing but this, that each should act in conformity with his nature and his business.
---Fray Luis de Leon (1527 - 1591)

Psychology Directory

8/2/08. This is a link to AmoebaWeb --- a wide array of psychological information.

http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/amoebaweb/

Best 100 Novels

8/2/08. Good books.

http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/a-unified-list-of-the-best-100-novels/

Philosophical Jokes

8/1/08. The best philosophical jokes tend to be about the persistent incomprehensibilities, says joke historian Jim Holt*.

The deepest and darkest philosophical question according to philosopher Martin Heidegger is:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

When asked this question a few years back, the Columbia University philosopher Arthur Danto replied, "Who says there's not nothing?"

Sidney Morgenbesser, another Columbia philosopher and noted kibitzer had an even better response when a student asked him, Why is there something rather than nothing? --- Morgenbesser quipped, "Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!"


* From: Holt, Jim. "Stop Me If You've Heard This. A History and Philosophy of Jokes."