"The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage"

1/12/10. Conservative lawyer Theodore Olson makes the case for gay marriage.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957/output/print

Monday Quotations

"Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind."

--- Lewis Thomas (1913 - 1993)


"The three most beautiful words in the English language are "It is benign."

--- Woody Allen (1935 - )


"Politics is the art of preventing people from becoming involved in affairs which concern them."

--- Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)

"Udder Madness"

1/11/10. A weekend at the Pudnik's farm - by Woody Allen. Highfalutin' silliness.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/01/18/100118sh_shouts_allen

"Diary of a High Functioning Person with Schizophrenia"

1/7/10. A remarkable interview --- don't miss this.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=diary-of-a-high-function

"Popular Drugs May Only Help Severe Depression"

1/7/10. This article is not a surprise --- as far as it goes, which is --- not far enough. The antidepressant drugs often help people with panic attacks, chronic mild to moderate depressed mood , and the range of obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

For people with life-long mild to moderate depressed mood, antidepressant medication "puts air in their tires."

Severe depression fits the criteria of a brain disease and often responds to pharmacotherapy.

The data overwhelming suggest that psychological therapy helps some people, medication helps some people and does not help others, and the best combination for treatment of psychiatric disorders is often psychological therapy and medication.

Both psychological therapy and medications are under-used --- the stigma of getting help for problems of the mind still exists --- at a time when psychologists and psychiatrists have many effective treatments to offer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/health/views/06depress.html?em

And more on depression ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/opinion/09warner.html?em

And the benefits of antidepressants ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/health/12mind.html?hpw

Looking at ways to treat depression - Letters to the Editor ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/l12warner.html

Wednesday Quotation

1/6/10.

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm --- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

--- T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

"The Science of Success"

1/5/10. "Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle...With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail---but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

The Good Life: Ends and Means

1/5/10. Now I see the corn beef, coming through the rye. Professor Christopher Peterson, University of Michigan Positive Psychologist extraordinaire, on the good life.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-life/201001/the-good-life-ends-and-means

"The Art of Living Mindfully"

1/10/10. "Nothing is ever certain," says Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer. "We should make the most of that." Jennifer Ruark discusses the work of Professor Ellen Langer, best known for her concept of "mindfulness," --- paying attention: consciously looking for what is new and different, and questioning preconceived ideas.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Art-of-Living-Mindfully/63292/

"My Brain on My Mind"

1/2/10. From "The American Scholar," thinking about the mysteries of thinking and self-consciousness.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/my-brain-on-my-mind/#more-5963

In Remembrance

1/1/10. Vivid personalities of the past decade.

The lesson: When you are alive, live.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/obituaries/31decade.html?hpw

"I Hereby Resolve To Make Fewer New Year's Resolutions"

1/1/10. Theodore Dalrymple on New Year's resolutions.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=5793

"Seeking a Cure for Optimism"

12/31/09. Hope springs eternal in the healthy, but not in many intellectuals who make a living knowing things that aren't true.

This NYT article takes a swipe at Positive Psychology, a movement that Professor Martin E.P. Seligman started in 1998. Positive Psychology has attracted some of the best and brightest psychologists and psychiatrists, among other professionals, and spawned some important, well designed research studies on such topics as character, virtues, and enhancing human experience. This emphasis on looking for what is positive in human experience is a much needed corrective to years of only examining psychopathology.

This article quotes the work of Barbara Ehrenreich, a congenital sourpuss, with a long history of applying her Marxist world view --- and I don't mean Groucho --- to helping the poor and downtrodden, barely disguising her smug attitudes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/fashion/31positive.html?_r=1&em

"Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem"

12/30/09. Shelby Steele on race and American politics.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574614540488450188.html

"Information - For Better or Worse"

12/28/09. Journalist Robert Samuelson reflects on his 40 year career getting to the "truth."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/28/information_is_power_--_for_better_or_worse_99705.html

Monday Quotations

12/28/09.


"I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance."

--- Steven Wright (1955 - )


"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

--- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that it certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth."

--- Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)

"What My Daughter Taught Me About Compassion"

12/27/09. Former 60's radical, editor of Ramparts Magazine, friend of the Black Panthers, author of "Radical Son," and now conservative social critic, David Horowitz tells the story of what he learned from his daughter - a passionate liberal --- who recently died.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574568361975770866.html

"Where Did These Guys Come From?"

12/27/09. Victor Davis Hanson, Professor of Ancient History, looks at Obama and his followers. Not all will agree with Hanson, for sure, but his ideas are provocative and make you think.

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/where-did-these-guys-come-from/

"Trial by Fire"

12/25/09. David Grann investigated the death of Cameron Todd Willingham's three children --- they died in a house fire, and Williamgham escaped.

"The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering pain and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky..."

Willingham was executed for killing his children. --- Did Texas execute an innocent man?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

College Students and Suicide

12/24/09. Psychiatrist Sally Satel reviews the policy of too many colleges to expel students who talk about suicide - rather than getting students the help they need.

http://www.aei.org/article/101450

"The Protocol Society"

12/24/09. NYT's writer David Brooks reviews a new book about the new economy - filled with ideas, knowledge, and the creativity of entrepreneurs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/opinion/22brooks.html

Monday Quotations

12/21/09.

"Music is the best means we have of digesting time."

--- W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)


"Familiar things happen and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious."

--- Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)


"It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane."

--- George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

Ideas of 2009

12/17/09. The NYT Magazine looks back at some wacky, useful, silly, creative and practical ideas of 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/#a

"Last Exit to Utopia"

12/15/09. WSJ writer Brett Stephens reviews a mind-opening book by the French political-philosopher Jean-Francois Revel.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574585881108040134.html

Monday Quotations

12/14/09.

"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."

--- W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)


"The trouble with our times is the future is not what it used to be."

--- Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)


"To teach is to learn."

--- Japanese Proverb

Paul A. Samuelson, R.I.P.

12/13/09. Economist Paul Samuelson dies at age 94 years. Among his many contributions, he wrote one of the most famous and enduring textbooks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/business/economy/14samuelson.html?hp

Book Comes to Life

12/12/09. Only for the curious, eager to be entertained.

http://www.wimp.com/booklife/

TESTING, TESTING

12/9/09. Always worth reading, Atul Gawande, surgeon and writer, discusses health-care.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande?printable=true

Evolution (not Religion) is Source of Morality

12/9/09. Evolutionary psychologist, biologist, and Harvard Professor Marc Hauser makes the case for evolution as the source of morals.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/hauser09/hauser09_index.html

Men, Women, Parenting, and Evolution

12/8/09. Are women hard-wired for parenting?

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_femina-sapiens.html

"Married (Happily) with Issues"

12/5/09. In the NYT, writer Elizabeth Weil muses about the complexity of marriage.

Couple therapy is the toughest kind of therapy ---- psychologist and couple are in a room with the strong winds of unconscious forces, blame, regrets, jealousies, projections, voices from the past, and much more ---- yet when it works, couple therapy is often the most gratifying.

"By all means marry. If you have a good wife, you'll be happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."

--- Socrates (469 B.C. - 399 B.C.)

"Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame."

Song of Songs (8:6)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

Help Me Make It Through the Night and, For The Good Times

12/3/09. Kris Kristofferson, a star in the '70's, reflects on his life at age 73.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539992094222308.html

Climategate: Science and Politics Don't Mix

12/2/09. Daniel Henninger wonders whether we can still trust scientists.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html

Developmental Psychologist Says Teenagers are Different

12/2/09. Interview with Dr. Laurence Steinberg on the adolescent mind. What's the matter with kids today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01conv.html?_r=1&hpw

Monday Quotations

11/30/09.

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

--- G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)


"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind."

--- William James (1842 - 1910)


"In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car."

--- Larry Summers (1954 - )

100 Notable Books of 2009

11/29/09. The New York Times best 100.

http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/100-notable-books-of-2009-gift-guide/list.html?em

"Mental Illness in Academe"

11/25/09. Elyn Saks, a law professor, writes a remarkable article.

http://chronicle.com/article/Mental-Illness-in-Academe/49233/

Lessons Learned

11/24/09. This is an interview with Dr. Wilbert "Bill" McKeachie, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, about the lessons he has learned over 60 years of teaching, research, and learning.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2582

Monday Quotations

11/23/09.

"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."

--La Rochefoucauld (1747 - 1827)

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than
a drunken Christian."

--Herman Meville (1819 - 1891)


"Either he is dead or my watch stopped."

--Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (1895 - 1977)

Satchmo and the Jews

11/18/09. The beloved Louis Armstrong and his connection to a Jewish family.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/satchmo-and-the-jews-15265?page=all

Health 'Reform' Gets a Failing Grade

11/18/09. The dean of Harvard Medical School gives the health-reform debate a failing grade.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539581994054014.html

Monday Quotations

11/16/09.

"A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep."

--- W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)


"Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

--- Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)


"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

--- George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

"Nothing was the Same"

11/16/09. Johns Hopkins psychologist Kay Jamison is a world authority on Manic-Depressive Illness --- and the author of "The Unquiet Mind," a telling of her life with the disease. This is a review of her latest book about the death of her husband, and her struggle to cope and live.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Greenberg-t.html?ref=review

Malcolm Gladwell: "What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures"

11/15/09. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker reviews Malcolm Gladwell's latest book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

A Schtick with a Thousand Lives

11/15/09. Mel Brooks (83) and Carl Reiner (87) have been cracking each other up for nearly 60 years. On Nov. 24, "The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History," will be released. Brooks and Reiner are interviewed for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/arts/television/15karp.html?_r=1&sq=mel brooks&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print

Teaching Math

11/14/09. Should only math teachers teach math? Doing math requires thinking clearly. Are we thinking clearly about math education?

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1113ss.html

Health Reform's Moral Hazard

11/12/09. Steven Malanga discusses some down sides to the governments approach to revamping our health care.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/11/11/health_reforms_moral_hazard_97502.html

On the Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

11/8/09. Psychologist Jonathan Shedler writes an excellent review on the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy. He describes how principles of psychotherapy derived from the developments of psychoanalytic theory and research over many years benefit patients.

https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?portfolio=jshedler

The Doctor is In

11/6/09. On Dr. Aaron Beck, founder of Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-doctor-is-in/#more-5299

In Jazz, as in Life, Choices

11/5/09. Trumpeter Terrence Blanchard talks about his life in jazz.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574485102188478392.html

In Depth: Temple Grandin

11/4/09. This is a 3 hour interview with Temple Grandin, a remarkable autistic woman. She has written ten books, and is a professor of animal science. She has written about growing up with autism, and about her work with animals.

http://www.booktv.org/Featured/10695/In+Depth+Temple+Grandin.aspx

A Master of Pies, Punch Lines, Zany Creatures, and Good Company

10/28/09. I grew up with Soupy Sales, had lunch with him in front of the television set, eating in the living room on those rickety TV tables --- enjoying the good life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/arts/television/24sales.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Helping Teenagers Find Their Dreams

10/27/09. How should parents guide their teenagers to choose a career? Read this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/jobs/25career.html?hpw

Brain Scans Link ADHD to Biological Flaw Tied to Motivation

10/26/09. This study is another big piece in the puzzle of understanding the origins of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. This study finds a striking difference in the brain's motivational machinery in people with ADHD symptoms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103100.html

Roth on Roth

1024.09. Philip Roth talks about his 30th book --- and depression, marriage, acting, reading and more.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574485623270549670.html

The Collision of Creativity and Mental Illness

10/17/09. Creative people often suffer from mental instability. Why?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322004574475654003711242.html

What We Can Learn from Sully's Life

10/15/09. There is much to learn from the life of this hero.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703790404574469160016077646.html

Against the Virtual Life

10/6/09. Joseph Epstein reviews "Digital Barbarism: A Writer's Manifesto," by Mark Helprin.

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1642/article_detail.asp

In Character - Fall 2009

10/6/09. A journal devoted to the many sides of "Wisdom."

http://www.incharacter.org/toc.php

Knowledge, Understanding, Medicine and Wisdom

10/5/09. In his article "The Best Medicine," Dr. Jerome Groopman, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, writes - "While knowledge and understanding are necessary for wisdom, they are not sufficient."

http://www.incharacter.org/article.php?article=164

Do Psychologists Reject Science?

10/2/09. Some say that psychologists are too quick to reject scientific findings about effective treatments for their patients.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/216506/output/print

Understanding the Anxious Mind

10/1/09. A long article - worth the effort - dissecting what makes us anxious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

letters to the editor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/magazine/18letters-t-001.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Why Psychology Is Good

10/1/09. This is a lecture by Professor Martin Seligman on Positive Psychology. Dr. Seligman helped to create this rapidly growing field in 1998. We have learned a lot since then about the psychological components of the good life.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-9FBxfd7DL3E/martin_seligman_why_is_psychology_good/

Best Web Sites in Psychology

10/1/09.

http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/psychsites.htm

Feeling Your Pain

9/29/09. Book review of "The Age of Empathy" by Frans de Waal, a biologist at Emory University who studies altruistic behavior among primates.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574427221837352110.html

Monday Quotations

9/29/09. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the United Nations last week:

"Yesterday, the man who calls the holocaust a lie spoke from this podium... "

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438943327751128.html

Kristol Clear

9/22/09. Irving Kristol died a few days ago at age 89. He was a tireless champion for free markets and open minds, understanding how the remarkable engine of American free enterprise created opportunities for so many people from all over the world to improve their lives.

Below is a lecture Kristol gave in 1991 entitled "The Capitalist Future."

http://www.aei.org/speech/1674

David Brooks writes about Irving Kristol in today's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/opinion/22brooks.html?_r=1&hpw

Charles Krauthammer on Irving Kristol.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/25/a_great_good_man_98456.html

Joseph Epstein remembers Kristol's genius of temperament.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/004plmdz.asp

Monday Quotations

9/21/09.

"You can't find the soul with the scalpel."

--- Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880)


"Heaven defend me from a busy doctor."

--- Welsh proverb


"The diseases of the mind are more destructive than the diseases of the body."

--- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. - 43 B.C. )

Monday Quotations

9/14/09.



"There is no observer outside the experiment."

--- Werner Heisenberg (1901 - 1976)



"The psychopathology of schizophrenia is one of the most intriguing, since it permits a many-sided insight into the workings of the diseased as well as the healthy mind."

--- Eugen Bleuler (1857 - 1939)



"Children sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death."

--- Frances Bacon (1561 - 1626)

Man vs. God

9/14/09. Two prominent thinkers debate God, science, evolution, and religion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html

Sorting Fact from Fiction in Health Care

8/31/09. Two physicians express their worries about evidence based medicine, and the potential harm of the government coming in between you and your doctor. The road to hell is paved...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574378542143891778.html

Monday Quotations

8/24/09.

("Doctor" Hugo A. Hackenbush, played by Groucho Marx, attempting to take Harpo's pulse:)

"Either he's dead, or my watch has stopped."

A Day at the Races (motion picture) (1937). Screenplay by Robert Pirosh, George Seaton, and George Oppenheimer.

---Jules Henry "Groucho" Marx (1895 - 1977)


"Life without this sort of examination is not worth living."

---Plato (429 B.C. - 347 B.C.)


"It is only with the heart that one can see
rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

---Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

Health Care Reform

8/22/09. American businesses compete with each other for the privilege to serve their customers --- at the best price and with the highest quality products. Most customers of health insurance do not directly choose their health care and thus have very little comparative information about the quality, price, and restrictions of their health plans.

We need to open markets and minds.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/22/government_should_get_back_to_the_basics_on_health_care_97986.html

Monday Quotations

8/17/09.

(Cowardly Lion, played by Bert Lahr, speaking) :

"What makes the elephant charge his tusk
in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What
makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!"

The Wizard, played by Frank Morgan, speaking) :

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

"A heart is not judged by how much you love;
but by how much you are loved by others.

--- The Wizard of Oz (1939). Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf.

Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head

8/14/09. Science and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutritional Research and Practice.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2009-03/spector.html

Of Mutts and Men

8/10/09. Do animals or people get better health care in Britian? Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist, muses on the question.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204908604574334282143887974-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html

100 Years of Freud in America

8/7/09. Freud's genius still permeates our culture ---

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574330991380910578.html

New Therapy on Faith and Sexual Identity

8/7/09. The American Psychological Association, religious faith, and sexual identity.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950491516608883.html

Monday Quotations

8/3/09.

"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."

"You can know the name of a bird in the all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird...So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."

--- Richard P. Feynman (1918 - 1988)

From Emmitt Till to Skip Gates

8/1/09. Shelby Steele on race, reality, and rhetoric in 2009 America.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322054186035002.html

Is There a 'Right' to Health Care?

7/31/09. A retired British psychiatrist who spent his career as a physician treating patients in prisons says beware when health care becomes a right.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574306170677645070.html

The Jail Inferno

7/27/09. A descent into the bowels of the modern prison --- chaos, delusions, disorganization, violence...and the discipline required to run such institutions.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_3_jails.html

Monday Quotations

7/27/09.

Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

--- H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)


A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

--- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

BIG GOVERNMENT MEDICINE

7/23/09. Is BIG GOVERNMENT MEDICINE the cure for our health care woes? Don't ask many Canadian and British doctors and patients what they know.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/23/big_government_medicine_97588.html

Health Care and The Michigan Economy

7/13/09. Tough times in Michigan spread to health care.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124743926415729611-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE3MzQxMzM5Wj.html

The Supreme Court and Quotas

7/1/09. Quotas no more?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640586803076705.html

Fixing Health Care: A Reality Rub-In

7/1/09. The first rule of fixing health care should be "Do No Harm." Policy makers know many things about fixing health care that ain't so.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640626749276595.html

Monday Quotations

6/29/09.

He's an animal lover...People he don't like so much.

--- Tom Stoppard (1937 - )


Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

--- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)


Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

--- Leo Rosten (1908 - 1997)

Autism - The Non-Hollywood Version

6/29/09. A memoir of his autistic brother.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0626sk.html

Interview with Robert Wright

6/24/09. Robert Wright's new book "The Evolution of God" traces the many moods of God throughout human history - see post 6/8/09.

http://www.salon.com/env/atoms_eden/2009/06/24/evolution_of_god/

Not Every Child is a Genius

6/24/09. The idea of multiple intelligence is an appealing concept --- but is it true?

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39ferguson.htm

In Character --- On Grit

6/22/09. What is "Grit?" Who has it? How to you get it? and keep it?

http://www.incharacter.org/toc.php

The Myth of Prevention

6/20/09. A doctor explains why it doesn't pay to stay well. Decoding what works, what falls short in Obama's plans to reform health care.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204005504574235751720822322.html

The Capitalist Manifesto

6/18/09. Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek's cover story, describes the system of capitalism --- an economic system - with all its faults - that has created more wealth for more people than any political system in history.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/201935

Health Risks and Stimulant Medication for ADHD

6/16/09. Despite 60 years of research, controversies about using stimulant medication to treat ADHD remain a never-ending story. Here are links to recent balanced responses from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and an editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry to the latest - but not new - controversy about the use of stimulant medication.

FDA:

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/DrugSafetyInformationforHeathcareProfessionals/ucm165858.htm
The American Journal of Psychiatry

http://www.furiousseasons.com/documents/stimulanteditorial.pdf

Borderline Personality Disorder

615/09. Jane Brody, superb science writer in the New York Times, discusses BPD --- a disorder difficult to treat, and harder to live with.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/health/16brod.html?_r=1&ref=science

Book Review: "The Evolution of God"

6/8/08. Robert Wright has also written "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny," and "The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life."

"Can religions in the modern world reconcile themselves to one another, and can they reconcile themselves to science? I think their history points to affirmative answers."

--- Robert Wright

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124443046235593295.html

Stand-Up Philosopher

6/6/09. Richard Pryor.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_urb-richard-pryor.html

Motown Misery

6/2/09. P.J. O'Rourke explains how Americans fell out of love with their automobiles.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574173401767415892.html

Medical Care and the Cost Conundrum

6/2/09. Atul Gawande writes about how a Texas town can teach us about health care.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?yrail