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

Frequent Moves and Adolescent Suicide Rate

6/1/09. Study finds teens who have moved a lot are more vulnerable to suicide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/health/02teens.html?_r=1&hpw

The Labyrinth of Race

6/1/09. Victor Davis Hanson describes the conundrums of race and diversity in America. You may not agree with all of his ideas, but you will be forced to rethink yours.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/31/lost_in_the_labyrinth_of_race_96763.html

Morality

5/30/09. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks about his research on morality --- looking at morality from a politically liberal and conservative perspective.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/haidt

A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries

5/26/09. http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78

Spent

5/21/09. Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller applies science to tell us why buying more stuff doesn't lead to happiness.

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/loves_labors_and_costs/

Edwin S. Shneidman dies

5/21/09. Dr. Shneidman was a psychologist who established the study of suicide as an interdisciplinary field and was chief of the first national suicide prevention program at the National Institute of Mental Health.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286145192740987.html

The Climate-Industrial Complex

5/21/09. Bjorn Lomborg is a former member of Greenpeace. He is the director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank, and author of "Cool it: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286145192740987.html

The Placebo Effect

5/20/09. This pink pill will relieve your pain...

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20#feature

What Makes Us Happy?

5/14/09. Some of the best information in psychology is gleaned from longitudinal studies --- and the Harvard study of men graduates who are now in their 80's is among the most informative. This article reviews the pioneering, creative work of the director of this study, psychiatrist George Vaillant.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200906/happiness

Don't!The secret of self-control.

5/12/09. Science writer Jonah Lehrer reviews the psychology of self-control.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all

Monday Quotations

5/11/09.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."

--- Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)


"The poem must resist the intelligence, / Almost successfully.

--- Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

Science, Spirituality, and Some Mismatched Socks

5/09/09. Quantum physics is turning up evidence that the world is not only strange, but stranger than we can imagine.

Two particles, for example, seem to communicate with each other instantly, even when they're billions of miles apart. These discoveries are used to improve data encryption, and push philosophers to sit up and take notice of signs of unknown forces perhaps akin to the spiritual dimension.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147752556985009.html

Seven Pleasures

5/7/09. This is a review of Willard Speigelman's delightful book on ordinary happiness.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105279357871239.html

Why is the Phallus Shaped The Way It Is?

5/6/09. An evolutionary psychologist explains.

http://www.sciam.com/subscribe/index.cfm?lsource=friendmail

Creativity and Mental Illness

5/6/09. Is there a link between creativity and mental illness?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/creative-minds-the-links-between-mental-illness-and-creativity-1678929.html

Monday Quotations

5/4/09.

"Two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humor. I am proud that, like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen people's hatred."

--- Richard Pryor (1940 - 2005)

"Humour is by its nature, more truthful than factual."

--- P.J. O'Rourke (1947 - )


"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."

--- George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

Genius - The Modern View

5/2/09. When asked how he became such a productive professional, a famous psychologist replied, "80/20 --- I put in 80 hours a week for 20 years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Between Experience and Reflection

4/27/09. Theodore Dalrymple reviews "The Only Superpower: Reflections on Strength, Weakness, and Anti-Americanism" by Paul Hollander.

http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=4457

Monday Quotations

4/27/09.

"Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?"

"The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success - is our national disease."

"First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it."

William James (1842 - 1910)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

4/26/09. Some experts say the concept of PTSD is itself disordered.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=post-traumatic-stress-trap

Inside the baby mind

4/26/09. A blooming, buzzing, confusion --- it's not.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/26/inside_the_baby_mind?mode=PF

Enlightenment Therapy

4/25/09. After fourth marriage ends, Zen master meets psychoanalyst.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/magazine/26zen-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print

Beth Clark Award

4/25/09. Last night in Lansing, MI at our annual Michigan Psychological Association Spring Conference, I, along with two of my colleagues, received the Beth Clark Service Award.

The late Dr. Beth Clark was a respected leader of MPA and this award was given by her husband, Dr. Charles Clark to an MPA member "who has demonstrated volunteerism, initiative, perseverance, integrity, selflessness and good will" in service to MPA.

I had the privilege of nominating Dr. Beth Clark for the MPA Distinguished Psychologist Award in 2000. Last night, Dr. Josephine Johnson received the MPA Distinguished Psychologist Award.

It feels good to be recognized by your peers.

Just My Confabulations

4/25/09. This article is about Choice-Blindness -- or we often don't know what we want.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227046.400-choice-blindness-you-dont-know-what-you-want.html?full=true&print=true

Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena

4/21/09. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

The Marriage of Reason and Nightmare

4/21/09. Novelist J.G. Ballard exposes the fragility of the affluent society.

http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=2460

To Fight Stigmas, Start With Treatment

4/21/09. Now is the best time in human history to seek treatment for psychiatric disorders. Why? Because treatments work.

Yet, there is still much stigma surrounding the mentally ill.

Psychiatrist Sally Satel says that antistigma campaigns are well-meaning but not enough to change people's attitudes.

What's needed, she says, are psychiatric treatments that work which reinforces encouraging people to seek those treatments --- "nothing destigmatizes likes success."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21mind.html?_r=1&ref=science&pagewanted=print

Please, Pay Attention

4/20/09. Why it is so hard to stay focused, and what to do about it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124018463826033223.html#printMode

Joseph Epstein has a Cold

4/15/09. So what's a writer to do while his body mends?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=16367&R=1612F2BDB

The News of God's Death has been Greatly Exaggerated

4/15/09. The "Economist" magazine writers John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldbridge have written "God's Back: The Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World."

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/april-2009/the-news-of-god2019s-death-has-been-greatly-exaggerated

Is Government Health Insurance Cheap?

4/14/09. There is a false comparison between the costs of public and private medical plans.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123966918025015509.html#printMode

To Have, to Hold, For a While

4/13/09. Amid divorce, remarriage, and co-habitation, children do not do well. This is a review of Andrew J. Cherlin's book "The Marriage-Go-Round."

Over 35 years of practice, I have witnessed many changes in families.

Above all, divorce is significantly more common, and so to is remarriage. Even though divorce affects many more youngsters now, the psychological effects of divorce are no less painful for children, parents, and other family members.

I have sometimes said to families - in an ironic tone - that I am starting a group for children whose parents have stayed together - to help them cope.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958524728412435.html

Hellhole

4/13/09. Atul Gawande asks, "Should long-term solitary confinement for prisoners be considered torture?"

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande

Mind-Changing Books

4/12/09. Economist Thomas Sowell discusses some of the books that deeply influenced him.

Sowell's book "Conflict of Visions" is a mind-changing book, clarifying the assumptions underlying political ideologies.

Sowell observes that experiences changed his mind more than books.

When asked to give a list of books for a psychologist to read, one of my favorite professors, Fritz Redl, advised, "Read people, not only books."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/mindchanging_books.html

Do Parents Matter?

4/10/09. Interview with psychologist Judith Rich Harris.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=parents-peers-children&print=true

Why "Quality' Care is Dangerous

4/9/09. The perverse consequences of 'quality' medical care.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914878625199185.html#printMode

The Science of When to Get Married

4/7/09. Hannah Seligson asks "How do we pick the moment at which we finally decide to settle down?" Do neuroscientists have something to say about this urge to merge? See what you think.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-07/the-science-of-when-to-get-married/

"The End of Philosophy"

4/7/09. David Brooks reviews some recent findings about the evolution of morality. Reason is not the master in the moral house --- emotions appear to come first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?_r=1&em

Monday Quotations

4/6/09.

"It's deja vu all over again."

"A nickel isn't worth a dime anymore."

"You can observe a lot by watchin'."

--- Yogi Berra (1925 - )

Benny Golson's Adventure

4/2/09. Jazz critic Nat Henthoff writes about Benny Golson, an 80 year old jazz saxophone player. I talked with a well respected jazz sax player from Detroit the other day. Here is what he said about Benny Golson:

"This guy's the real deal. I play his tunes all the time, as do all serious musicians that I know. Every recording he's made is great."

Jazz has been defined as "the sound of surprise." Benny has spent his life creating effective surprises, traveling on a life-long adventure translating his life experiences and heart-felt soul into jazz.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123853694067875329.html?mod=article-outset-box

The Frontal Cortex

4/1/09. Jonah Lerher's thoughtful, provocative Web site.

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/

DSM-IV-TR

4.1.09. The American Psychiatric Association diagnostic system...and more.

http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/dsm4TRclassification.htm

Monday Quotations

3/30/09.

How can the combination of fragments of knowledge existing in different minds bring about results which, if they were to be brought about deliberately, would require a knowledge on the part of the directing mind which no single person can possess? To show that in this sense the spontaneous actions of individuals will, under conditions which we can define, bring about a distribution of resources which can be understood as if it were made according to a single plan, although nobody has planned it, seems to me indeed an answer to the problem which has sometimes been metaphorically described as that of the 'social mind.'

--- F. A. Hayek (1899 - 1992)


I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the judicial safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

--- F. A. Hayek


The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeleton of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life.

--- Arthur Koestler (1905 - 1983)

Nature v Nurture. Not How Much but How.

3/30/09. Nature works through nurture and nurture works through nature.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5986239.ece

Tails of Manhattan

3/29/09. "Two weeks ago, Abe Moscowitz dropped dead of a heart attack and was reincarnated as a lobster." --- and so Woody Allen's latest story begins.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/03/30/090330sh_shouts_allen?printable=true

Happiness of the People

3/24/09. Charles Murray, social policy analyst and big ideas thinker, asks, "Do people flourish more in the United States or Europe?"

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/march-2009/the-europe-syndrome-and-the-challenge-to-american-exceptionalism

Monday Quotations

3/23/09.

"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."

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


"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."

--- Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)


"They (mirror neurons) allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct stimulation; by feeling, not by thinking.

--- Giacomo Rizzolatti (1937 - )

The Biology of Imagination

3/22/09. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen on why the capacity for imagination owes more to biology than culture.

http://www.entelechyjournal.com/simonbaroncohen.htm

Rethinking Drinking: Alcohol and Your Health

3/10/09. This is a new government Web site called "Rethinking Drinking" that aims to help people recognize problem drinking patterns earlier and catch themselves before they fall.

http://www.rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/

Two Crooks for the Road

3/9/09. Book review of the untold story of Bonnie and Clyde.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123664301193877793.html#printMode

Monday Quotations

3/9/09.
The struggle of man against power is the
struggle of memory against forgetting.

--- Milan Kundera (1929 - )


There are one hundred and ninety-three living
species of monkeys and apes. One hundred
and ninety-two of them are covered with hair.
The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo
sapiens.

--- Desmond Morris (1928 - )


Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

--- Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)

Past Their Prime (Rate)

3/9/09. Sovietologists did not predict the fall of the Soviet Union, and economists were asleep at the wheel when the economy crashed. So much for experts.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/188143/output/print

Favorite Five Composers

3/5/09. Denis Dutton, professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and editor of the popular Web site Arts and Letters Daily, discusses his five favorite composers.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/10/denis-dutton-composers-opinions-high-five_0210_denis_dutton_slide.html

From Attitude to Gratitude

3/4/09. Wall Street Journal writer Jeff Zaslow discusses why the attitude of gratitude --- not complaining, fits the tough times we live in.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612215614023427.html

Mysteries of Science

3/3/09. 13 Unsolved scientific puzzles.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/

Monday Quotations

3/2/09.

You can persuade a man to believe almost anything
provided he is clever enough, but it is much more
difficult to persuade someone less clever.

--- Tom Stoppard (1937 - )


Festina lente.
Make haste slowly.

--- Latin proverb


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

--- Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992)