National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior

10/4/10. A comprehensive survey completed by the Center For Sexual Health Promotion, Sexual Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Indiana University - Bloomington.

http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/

Diane Ravitch: "Stop Trashing Teachers"

10/1/10.

As a child psychologist, I always depend on good teachers --- their observations of students, their commitment to teaching difficult kids, their insight into ways parents may guide their child ---- A good teacher is a gift to a student ---- and I try to enhance this gift to help the student make the most of what good teachers, chums and the educational climate have to offer.

"Diane Silvers Ravitch (b. July 1, 1938) is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and former United States Assistant Secretary of Education who is now a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Obama’s misguided policies and the over- hyped doc Waiting For "Superman" have turned America against its teachers. Education expert Diane Ravitch on why the vitriol is so dangerous.

For the past week, the national media has launched an attack on American public education that is unprecedented in our history. NBC devoted countless hours to panels stacked with "experts" who believe that public education is horrible because it has so many "bad" teachers and "bad" principals. The same "experts" appeared again and again to call for privatization, breaking teachers' unions, and mass firings of "bad" educators. Oprah devoted two shows to the same voices. The movie Waiting for "Superman", possibly the most ballyhooed documentary of all time, explains patiently that poor test scores are caused by bad teachers, that bad teachers are protected for life by their unions, and that the answer to our terrible test scores is privatization..."

My experience teaches the following. Good teachers are everywhere, private and public schools. Bad teachers are everywhere, private and public schools. The Principal is a key leader that sets the tone for the staff and students. Teachers' unions sometimes help education and sometimes hurt education. Without sound rules and effective compromises, no school works well for students.

Educational vouchers work well in some communities, allowing minority youngsters to attend schools of their choice. Do vouchers always work? Of course not. But when they do work we should not stop youngsters from finally getting the education they deserve. Are unions always a bad thing for students. Of course not. Unions protect  teachers, but it is a process sometimes easily distorted into a protection racket for some incompetent teachers, leaving many children behind.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-29/education-crisis-why-testing-and-firing-teachers-doesnt-work/full/































.

"Democracy's Laboratory"

10/1/10. Editor of Skeptic Magazine and a psychologist, Michael Shermer introduces his article in this month's Scientific American:

"DO YOU BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION? I do. But when I say 'I believe in evolution,' I mean something rather different than when I say 'I believe in liberal democracy.' Evolutionary theory is a science. Liberal democracy is a political philosophy that most of us think has little to do with science..."


http://www.michaelshermer.com/2010/09/democracys-laboratory/

The Amazing Power of Semen"

9/30/10.  Scientific research suggests that semen has psychological benefits to women. No kidding.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=an-ode-to-the-many-evolved-virtues-2010-09-22

"How to be happy (but not too much)"

9/28/10. Review of psychological research aimed at enhancing happiness --- and why being happy makes evolutionary sense.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727791.000-how-to-be-happy-but-not-too-much.html?full=true

Meredith Maran - "My Lie"

9/28/10. Remarkable interview on National Public Radio --- a true story about false memories.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-28/my-lie-meredith-maran

TED - Ideas worth Spreading

9/28/10. "TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize."

Don't miss TED's community of creative people passionately talking about what they know, about art, about science, about spirituality, and many many more topics aimed to broaden our perspectives, make us laugh, and help us appreciate being alive.

http://www.ted.com/

Lionel Tiger, Professor of Anthropology on the Brain and Religion and more...

9/27/10. This is a interview with Professor Tiger.

"Lionel Tiger is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University and a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on the future of biotechnology. An expert on the biological roots of human social behavior, he is the author of numerous books, including The Decline of Males, The Pursuit of Pleasure and The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System. He originated the term "male bonding" and is an advocate for "male studies" departments in universities."



http://bigthink.com/lioneltiger

"It Is Easier to be Brilliant than Right"

9/27/10. Many people are clever, quick, witty ---- and wrong.

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/september/it2019s-easier-to-be-brilliant-than-right

Monday Quotations

9/27/10.

"For what links us are elementary experiences -
emotions - forces that have no instrinsic language
and must be imagined as art if they are
to be contemplated at all."

--- Joyce Carol Oates (1938 -  )

"Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction...For fiction is
the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it."

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

"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."

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

"The rules of morality are not the conclusions of our reason."

--- David Hume (1711 - 1776)

The Amazing James Randi

9/26/10. The Amazing Randi, a magician with tricks up both sleeves, spends his life fighting pseudo-science. He will never be unemployed.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/20392

Is Socrates a Man for the Present?

9/25/10

Angus Kennedy reviews two books on the life of Socrates:

"In his endless, often exasperating pursuit of Truth, Socrates made many enemies. Yet his ideas and his questioning outlook remain invaluable to understanding the present."


http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_printable/9632/

"What Really Scares Microsoft?"

9/25/10. Virginia Postrel, libertarian journalist, and author of the brilliant "The Future and Its Enemies," talks about her November 1999 NYT Op-Ed about the antitrust case against Microsoft.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/24/opinion/1248069085428/what-really-scares-microsoft.html

TOP 10: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books

9/23/10 "... we turned to the experts, asking 125 top American and British authors to list their 10 favorite works of fiction of all time. The results were published in "The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books." Edited by J. Peder Zane and published by W.W. Norton, "The Top Ten" is the ultimate guide to the world's greatest books. As Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Margaret Drabble, Michael Chabon, Peter Carey and others name the 10 books that have meant the most to them, you'll be reminded of books you have always loved and introduced to works awaiting your discovery."

http://www.toptenbooks.net/home.cgi

Dr. Antonio Damasio - Neuroscientist

9/23/10 "Dr. Antonio Damasio is a renowned neuroscientist who direct's the USC Brain and Creativity Institute. Before that he was the Head of Neurology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. His research focuses on the neurobiology of mind and behavior, with an emphasis on emotion, decision-making, memory, communication, and creativity. His research has helped describe the neurological origins of emotions and has shown how emotions affect cognition and decision-making.  He is the author of a number of books, including "Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain," which will be published in November, 2010. Dr. Damasio is also the 2010 winner of the Honda Prize, one of the most important international awards for scientific achievement."

On this video interview, Dr. Damasio discusses memory, consciousness, free will, and the conscious underpinnings of social behavior.

http://bigthink.com/antoniodamasio

"You're Reading That Book Too? Marry Me"

9/21/10.
Wall Street Journal writer Hannah Seligson turns a new page  on-line dating services.

She introduces her article referring to one of my favorite Woody Allen short stories (1974), "The Whore of Mensa,"  (where)Word Babcock hires an intellectual prostitute named Flossie, a Vassar student, who, for a price, will discuss Proust, Yates, Melville, or anything really." Flossie is especially talented about discussing the symbolism in Melville's "Moby Dick."

There are a growing number of sites that match people based on the books they read Ms. Seligson tells us.

Perhaps being on the same page or book gives some couples the hope of a match made in the library or  bookstore.

Yet relationships are full of mystery. We all know many couples who have so much in common that they can't stand each other and are aching  to split apart. This illusion of common interests sparking romance is fine until you recognize that marriage is made in our unconscious. And if you are lucky, reasons to make a life together will seep into consciousness. And if you are very lucky, you each will be able to stand each other over a life-time of for better or worse and in sickness or health.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703466704575490210959002350.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTThirdBucket

"Benjamin Franklin on American Happiness"

9/21/10. Jerry Weinberger in the "City Journal,"  asks are Americans happy? He turns to Ben Franklin, a wise advisor for troubled times.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0921jw.html

"When Kids Refuse to Go to School"

9/21/10. Every year, too many kids get up for school with fears, stomach-aches, head pains, and anxieties --- and refuse to go to school. Sometimes kids gets side-tracked to weeks of medical work-ups, and only rarely come out with a medical diagnosis.  Unless the child is physically sick, it is the kiss of death for the child's and family's mental health for the parent to allow the child to stay home --- especially for days on end. This problem used to be called school phobia --- but there is rarely something at school that is the problem, and now the disorder is called school refusal. At root here, most often, is the child's anxiety about separating from his or her parent(s). Many times the child worries about real or imagined sick parents, or a parent getting into an auto accident, or hurt at work, and so on. And the treatment is:  get the child to school.

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/09/21/when-kids-refuse-to-go-to-school/?KEYWORDS=school+refusal

"My Lie": Why I falsely accused my father"

9/21/10. "More than 20 years ago, Meredith Maran falsely accused her father of molestation. That she came to believe such a thing was possible reveals what can happen when personal turmoil meets a powerful social movement." Lives were wrecked, families were torn apart and stunned, and some falsely accused father's lingered in prison for years. I have witnessed the horror and aftermath of family members hear their sisters accuse their fathers of sexual abuse. (see post by Paul McHugh, MD regarding his book "Try to Remember," which documents the horror of these psychiatric misadventures.)

Of course, sexual abuse does occur ---- in 1976, during my doctoral dissertation on child abuse at Children's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan., I saw close-up what some parents did to their children.  

http://www.salon.com/books/memoirs/index.html?story=/books/int/2010/09/20/meredith_maran_my_lie_interview

Genes that Make Kids Smart

9/20/10. Scientists begin to discover the many, many genes that contribute to intelligence.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/found-genes-that-make-kids-smart/story-e6frg6nf-1225926421510

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Allen, Woody. Without Feathers. New York: Random House, 1972.

Anderson, Walter. The Confidence Course. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Andreasen, Nancy C. Brave New Brain. Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Andreasen, Nancy C. The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius. New York: Dana Press, 2005.

Barkley, Russell. Taking Charge of ADHD. The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents. New York: The Guilford Press, Revised Edition, 2000.

Brown, Thomas E. Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
This is a welcome addition to the ADHD literature. I especially like Dr. Brown's discussion of the executive functions that are impaired in what he calls the ADD Syndrome: (1) Activation: organizing, prioritizing, and activating to work; (2) Focus: focusing, sustaining, and shifting attention to tasks; (3) Effort: regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing speed; (4) Emotion: managing frustration and modulating emotions; (5) Memory: utilizing working memory and accessing recall; (6) Action: monitoring and self-regulating action. The book is filled with many real-life examples.

Christenson, Andrew, and Jacobson, Neil S. Reconcilable Differences. New York: The Guilford Press, 2000.
Two experienced psychologists offer sound advice on healing marital ruptures and disharmony and improving marital communication and joy.

Dalrymple, Theodore. Life at the Bottom. The Worldview that Makes the Underclass. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.
British prison psychiatrist describes the destructive worldviews of his patients.

Dalrymple, Theodore. Our Culture, What's Left of It. The Mandarins and the Masses. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005.
Theodore Dalrymple is a psychiatrist working in a British prison and hospital. His collection of essays are profoundly honest, penetrating your mind like conversations with a wise friend who pulls no punches.

Faraone, Stephen V. Straight Talk about Your Child's Mental Health. New York: The Guilford Press, 2003.
Dr. Faraone is a psychologist and researcher at Harvard University. He has published many articles in scientific journals on ADHD and associated topics. This book is addressed to parents and is filled with the latest scientific findings on child mental health. One of the best books in the field on the topic of getting psychological help for your child.

Frank, Jerome D., and Frank, Julia. Persuasion & Healing. A Comparative Study of Psychotherapy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Third Edition.

Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. New York: International Universities Press, 1966.

Ghaemi, S. Nassir. The Concepts of Psychiatry. A Pluralistic Approach to the Mind and Mental Illness. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2003.

Hallowell, Edward J., and Ratey, John J. Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most Out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005.
Drs. Hallowell and Ratey are both psychiatrists with Attention Deficit Disorder. This book is filled with practical information for adults with A.D.D. about diagnosis, the pros and cons of treatment approaches, information about medication therapies, and guidelines about coping with A.D.D. Their previous book published in 1994 - Driven to Distraction - is a classic in the field.

Havens, Leston. Approaches to the Mind. Movement of the Psychiatric Schools from Sects toward Science.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1987.

Havens, Leston. A Safe Place. Laying the Groundwork for Psychotherapy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Harris, Judith Rich. The Nurture Assumption. Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. New York: The Free Press, 1999.

Holt, Jim. Stop Me If You've Heard This. A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York:  Harper & Row, 1951.

Jamison, Kay Redfield. The Unquiet Mind. A Memoir of Moods and Madness. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995.
A classic autobiography on coping with Bipolar Disorder by a Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and a world authority on mood disorders. .
Konner, Melvin. The Tangled Wing. New York: Henry Holt and Company, L.L.C., 2002. Second Edition.

Koplewicz, Harold. More Than Moody: Recognizing and Treating Adolescent Depression. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2002.

Kramer, Peter D. Against Depression. New York: Viking, 2005.

Maughm, W. Somerset. The Summing Up. New York: Penguin Books, 1938.

McHugh, Paul R. The Mind Has Mountains. Reflections on Society and Psychiatry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

"Paul McHugh is one of the best and most original writers in psychiatry or psychology. He is iconoclastic, idealistic, deeply informed, and is one of the most important influences on generations of psychiatric researchers and clinicians. The Mind Has Mountains is the essence of McHugh's ideas. No one will agree with everything he writes - I don't - but no one who reads this book will remain unaffected by the clarity and importance of his thinking. He is a teacher of the first rank." ---Kay Redfield Jamsison, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, The John Hoplkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

McHugh, Paul R., Slavney, P. The Perspectives of Psychiatry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Second Edition. This book teaches you how to think about psychiatric disorder.

Peterson, Christopher. A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Peterson writes:

"Positive psychology is the scientific study of what goes right in life, from birth to death and at all stops in between...(an) approach within psychology that takes seriously as a subject matter those things that make life most worth living...What is good about life is a genuine as what is bad and therefore deserves equal attention from psychologists...It is a study of what we are doing when we are not frittering life away."
Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate. The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking Press, 2002.

Ridley, Matt. Nature Via Nurture. Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2003.

Silver, Larry B. The Misunderstood Child. Understanding and Coping with Your Child's Learning Disabilities. New York: McGraw-Hill, Third Edition, 1998.

Storr, Anthony. The Art of Psychotherapy. New York: Capman and Hall Inc., 1990. Second Edition.

Seligman, Martin E.P. Authentic Happiness. New York: Free Press, 2002.
Martin Seligman blends a scientific understanding of the roots of happiness with solid recommendations to improve your moral, mental, and spiritual well-being. I had the good fortune of meeting Marty in 1997, when I invited him to speak to the Michigan Psychological Association where he announced his decision to run for President of the American Psychological Association - he was elected by the biggest margin ever. When Marty was APA President, I was the Michigan Psychological Association President, and with his help I brought in the Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick to speak on "Consciousness" at the APA Convention held in San Francisco.

Seligman, Martin E.P. What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement and Learning to Accept Who You Are. New York: Ballantine Books, 1995.

Wilens, Timothy E. Straight Talk about Psychiatric Medications for Kids. New York: The Guilford Press, Revised Edition, 2004.

"Physician, Humanize Thyself"

9/17/10. Psychiatrist Sally Satel recently attended the White Coat Ceremony at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Getting doctors to be a mensch is not a new idea. But with all the technical gizmos and time-pressures surrounding medical practice, it is easier to get smart people to dress up like doctors than to act like doctors.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703466704575490063047006010.html?KEYWORDS=sally+satel

Faith, Fortune Tellers, and New York"

9/16/10. Woody Allen (b. 12/1/35) seems as funny and perplexed as ever --- or is that farklempt --- a persona he has nurtured while directing, writing, acting, performing brilliant comedy, and playing the jazz clarinet. His philosophical approach to comedy, infused with his Jewish identity and years spent on the psychoanalytic couch, touch nerves of insight in some chosen few.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/movies/15woody.html?_r=1

"To Kill a Fly"

9/14/10. Kill a fly, kill a man.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0910td.html

Music

9/13/10. Some quotes about music.

http://www.quotegarden.com/music.html

On Writing

9/10/10. Duke University Professor of political science gives good advice about how to write less badly.

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/

"Forget What You Know about Good Study Habits"

9/7/10. NYT science writer Benedict Carey sheds light on the new findings from cognitive science on what makes good study habits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all

"A Way Out of Depression"

9/7/10. Wall Street Journal writer Elizabeth Bernstein describes ways to coax a loved who is  in denial about depression into treatment without ruining your relationship.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703946504575470040863778372.html?KEYWORDS=bernstein+depression

Why God Did Not Create the Universe

9/6/10. Excerpt from "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704206804575467921609024244.html?KEYWORDS=stephen+hawking

A review of "The Grand Design":

http://www.economist.com/node/16990802

Ten Psychology Myths

9/6/10. Lots of people believe things that ain't so.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-09-01/#feature

Hippocrates' Oath

9/1/10. Another translation of wise counsel.

http://www.bu.edu/arion/contact/hippocrates-oath/

"Peace of mind: The Battle"

8/28/10. Paul Beston writes a review of Ms. Sissela Bok's book "Exploring Happiness." Ms. Bok brings to bear her formidable talents in moral philosophy to contribute wide knowledge in this area.

"In the end, Ms. Bok believes science, philosophy..., and personality experience all have worthwhile things to tell use about happiness. She reminds use than human beings have sought happiness in all times and circumstances, even when faced with poverty , disease and war. There is thus a great deal of wisdom to draw on."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703649004575437652525950856.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_5#printMode

"When Fad Science is Bad Science"

8/27/10. Disaster in the land of evolutionary psychology.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703846604575447843736639542.html#printMode

"Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?"

8/26/10. Yes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29preschool-t.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

James M. Tanner, RIP

8/24/10. Dr. Tanner was a renowned pediatrician and an expert in how children grow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/science/24tanner.html?hpw

O. Ivar Lovaas, RIP

8/23/10. Dr. Lovaas was a pioneer in the behavioral treatment of autism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/health/23lovaas.html?_r=1

"Why Psychopaths Kill and Libertarians Don't...or is that Librarians?"

8/20/10. Neuroscientist James Fallon discusses his research on the brains of psychopaths.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/19/reasontv-three-ingredients-for

"Still Surprised. A Memoir of a Life in Leadership"

8/17/10, Adrian Woolridge, management editor for "The Economist," reviews eighty-five year old Warren Bennis' book "Still Surprised." I have followed Bennis' writings on leadership for many years, and was surprised by this review.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960004575427401431015016.html?KEYWORDS=warren+bennis

"The Power Trip"

8/15/10. Jonah Lehrer, author of "How We Decide," and "Proust Was a Neuroscientist," writes:

"Contrary to the Machiavellian cliche, nice people are more likely to rise to power. Then something strange happens:  Authority undermines the very talents that got them there."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704407804575425561952689390.html?KEYWORDS=jonah+lehrer

"Can Money Buy Happiness?"

8/11/10. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky answers this often-asked question.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-money-buy-happiness&print=true

The New Science of Morality

8/10/10. There is a growing body of thoughtful research that clarifies and expands the developing field of the science of morality. This is an Edge conference.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/morality10/morality10_index.html

Evolutionary Psychology

8/7/10. A conversation with evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. What makes the invisible hand such a frightening idea? Watch this remarkable video.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/05/leda-cosmides-john-tooby

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby: "A Primer on Evolutionary Psychology"

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html

"What Social Science Does --- and Doesn't --- Know"

8/1/19. Jim Manzi writes that our ignorance of the human condition is profound.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_social-science.html

"An indecency decently put is the thing we laugh at hardest" - Cicero

Some jokes Benny would like:

I was so ugly when I was born the doctor slapped my mother.

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar. Bartender says, "What is this, a joke?"

What do a hurricane and a divorce in West Virginia have in common? Somebody's gonna lose a trailer.

What does the snail say when riding on the back of a turtle? "Whee!!"

I went to the doctor and told him, "My penis is burning." He said, "That means somebody is talking about it."

Angry guy walks into a bar, orders a drink, and says to the bartender, "All agents are assholes." Guy sitting at the end of the bar says, "Just a minute, I resent that." "Why - you an agent?", says the angry guy. "No, the guy says, "I'm an asshole."

A Jewish grandmother is watching her grandchild play on the beach when a huge wave comes and takes him out to sea. She pleads, "Please, God, save my grandson! Bring him back." And a big wave comes and washes the boy back onto the beach, good as new. She looks up to heaven and says, "He had a hat!"

A skeleton walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Please give me a beer and a mop."

Ben Gurvitz, RIP

7/29/10. The world's humor quotient took a sharp decline today.

Benny died last night. He was 99 years old, born on 10/10/10.

Benny was in rehab and he thought he was going home today --- I guess he was right.

My article about Benny in the Michigan Psychological Association Newsletter, 4th quarter, 1997:


                                                            My Friend Benny

Psychiatrist George E. Vaillant, who recently spoke at our Fall Convention on aging well, has said that mature humor allows us to look directly at what is painful. Humor, he says, permits the expression of emotion without individual discomfort and without unpleasant effects upon others and he adds that miraculously humor transforms pain into the ridiculous. (1)

I think Vaillant would approve of my friend Benny.

Benny is the funniest human being I have ever met. He lives alone, drives a car, plays golf, travels, has lots of friends, and loves to watch sports. There is nothing funny about this list, although Benny says he’s bringing a fire extinguisher to his next birthday when he lights the candles. Benny’s birthday is 10/10/10 --- yeah, he’s 97 years old. As Benny reminds me, at his age, God is a local call.

I met Benny about 10 years ago when our lockers were next to each other at the Jewish Center Health Club. When I found out Benny’s age, I asked him whether he attributes his longevity to regular exercise. He thought for a moment and said, “My attitude towards exercise has always been when I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down and wait until the urge passes.” Benny is a strict vegetarian, although he reminds me that he could walk across the street tomorrow and get run over by a meat truck.

Benny is a retired pharmacist who maintains his license. We have attended our share of Continuing Education Seminars together. I drive, listen and learn, and Benny picks the meetings with the best food.

He reminds me that he is so old that “When I was a kid, the Dead Sea wasn’t even sick.” His family was so poor that “The rainbows in my neighborhood were in black and white.”

Benny brings to mind the emerging field of positive psychology with the focus on the study of positive subjective experiences and the study of positive individual traits.

In their 800 page book on positive psychology classifying strengths and virtues, Peterson and Seligman (2) offer a “Manual of The Sanities,” that includes chapters on the following strengths:

• Wisdom and Knowledge
• Courage
• Humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Transcendence

In this book, Willibald Ruch (3) writes the serious and informative chapter on humor – under Transcendence – which makes me think of Benny. Ruch writes that individuals with the humor strength strongly endorse such statements as the following:
• Whenever my friends are in a gloomy mood, I try to tease them out of it.
• I welcome the opportunity to brighten someone else’s day with laughter.
• Most people would say I am fun to be with.
• I try to add humor to whatever I do.
• I never allow a gloomy situation to take away my sense of humor.
• I can usually find something to laugh or joke about even in trying situations.

No doubt psychologists use humor often in their work. Humor does much to buffer life stress and hassles, reminds us that “we are more simply human than otherwise,” (4) and helps us re-interpret life-story events for our patients to promote hope and optimism.

Benny sets the bar high as an example of hope and optimism. He once quipped that he knew he was going to live to be 100 “Because when I turned 50, I felt half dead.”

As you can imagine, Benny has weathered his share of tragedies and losses. Benny claims that the only exercise he gets these days is being a pallbearer. He mentioned he went to a party last weekend and he was the only one there with his original hips.

I wish I had enough space here to tell you more about Benny. But Benny is one resilient human being who treasures each day, never complains, and helps everyone who knows him stay optimistic about the species. Researchers and clinicians at the ground level of the new Positive Psychology movement are working to discover how to nourish and develop our character strengths and virtues. It is time we had a Manual of The Sanities.

References:

(1) Vaillant, George E. Aging Well. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002, pages 62 – 63.

(2) Peterson, Christopher, & Seligman, Martin E. P. Character Strengths and Virtues. A Handbook and Classification. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004.

(3) Ruch, Willibaud. Humor. In Christopher Peterson & Martin E.P. Seligman. Character Strengths and Virtues. A Handbook of Classification. Washington D. C.: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004. Pages 583 – 598.

(4) Harry Stack Sullivan.

"Letting Go"

7/27/10. Surgeon Atul Gawande asks: What should medicine do when it can't save your life?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

"Fighting Happily Ever After"

7/27/10. Elizabeth Bernstein, Wall Street Journal writer on relationships, describes the right way for couples to argue --- a way that can be good for relationships.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703700904575391013484475040.html?KEYWORDS=fighting+happily+ever+after

"How Smart Are We?"

7/27/10. Economist Thomas Sowell examines how smart people often believe dumb ideas.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/how_smart_are_we_106479.html

"A Journey Through the Jungle"

7/26/10. Jane Goodall reflects on her 50 years of primate research.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383043749291302.html

"The Struggle for the (Possible) Soul of David Eagleman"

7/24/10. A neuroscientist imagines life beyond the brain.

http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/witness/the-struggle-for-the-possible-soul-of-david-eagleman/

"Attention Disorders Can Take a Toll on Marriage"

7/20/10.

"Adults with attention disorders often learn coping skills to help them stay organized and focused at work, but experts say many of them struggle at home, where their tendency to become distracted is a constant source of conflict. Some research suggests that these adults are twice as likely to be divorced; another study found high levels of distress in 60 percent of marriages where one spouse had the disorder."
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/attention-disorders-can-take-a-toll-on-marriage/?hpw

"The Battle Over Battle Fatigue"

7/17/10. Dr. Sally Satel's article achieves the delicate balance of expressing compassion, support, and respect for our soldiers, while charting and challenging the history of the political contamination that broadened the definition of PTSD and seeped into our present use of the DSM.

Dr. Satel writes,

"Soldiers can now claim trauma from events they didn't actually experience. Is the diagnosis losing meaning?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575371130876271708.html?KEYWORDS=satel

"An Unacceptable Health Care Vision"

7/15/10. Obama, health care, and government as decider.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703792704575367020548324914.html

"Accepting That Good Parents May Plant Bad Seeds"

7/15/10. When I was in graduate school, psychologists were taught that how kids turned out depended almost entirely on how their parents treated them --- nurture mattered more than nature. Mother-blaming was in fashion and reached destructive heights --- such as the belief that "cold" parents produced autistic kids.

Research at the University of Minnesota on identical twins reared apart along with many strands of well-designed studies shows that nature and nurture are both strong contributors to how people turn out.  Children are born with biological predispositions --- parents, of course, influence the personality of their children --- but parents do not "create" their children's personality. So much happens as a result of the genetic roll of the dice, and what happens to children outside of their family's influence is important. The more we learn about the genetics of development, the more we learn about the complexity of nurture on the course of development.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/health/13mind.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

"Are There More Girl Geniuses?"

7/12/10. Christina Hoff Sommers writes about the endangered species --- males.

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-more-girl-geniuses

Onion: "Recently Married Man Ready to Start Dating Again"

7/10/10. Has millions of years of evolution brought us this thoroughly modern male?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/recently-married-man-ready-to-start-dating-again,1736/

"Reduce Stress by Changing How You Think"

7/10/10. Some say thinking makes it so.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/07/stress-brain-relaxation-forbes-woman-well-being-health.html

Robert Butler. R.I.P.

7/8/10. Dr. Butler made many contributions to the field of aging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/health/research/07butler.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Why the Economy is Not Recovering

7/5/10. Economist Allan Meltzer makes a good case about why Obama's economic policies are not working.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325233508651458.html

"What Does It Do?"

7/5/10. Asking the question, "What Does It Do?," says William Zinsser "has saved me a lot of grief, not only at the (piano) keyboard but in negotiating the sharps and flats of life."

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/what-does-it-do/#more-7432

"Worried About a Moody Teen?"

6/29/10. Wall Street Journal writer Elizabeth Bernstein offers sound advice about treating mental illness in adolescence in her column "On Relationships."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703964104575334740269660342.html?KEYWORDS=moody+teen

Violence Expert Visits Her Dark Past

6/25/10. A review of Jessica's Stern's "DENIAL. A Memoir of Terror." Stern is one of the world's experts on violence and evil. Her book attempts to explain why she is driven to study terrorism and put herself in danger travelling around the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/books/25book.html?hpw

The Openness Elixir

6/25/10. A review of two books that urge us to open markets and minds.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.html?KEYWORDS=rational+optimist

"The Temperamental Thread. How genes, culture, time and luck make us who we are"

6/21/10.

Anybody who could tell us how genes, culture, time and luck make us who we are gets my attention ---- especially when the author is one of the world’s most distinguished psychologists with a resilient nature and more than fifty years of experience.

Jerome Kagan outlines in clear, concise prose the causes and consequences of the varieties of temperaments across the life-span, drawing on many disciplines. He takes us on an intellectual ride exploring contributions from neuroscience and what we know about brain circuits and temperament, how experience alters the genetic expressions of temperament across the life-span, and the importance of neuroplasticity.

Kagan describes his book:

"This book summarizes what many scientists have learned about a small number of human temperaments, especially the forms they assume during infancy, their derivatives in later childhood, their possible biological origins, the experiences that shape each set of biases into various personality types or symptoms of mental illness, and their contribution to the psychological differences between males and females and ethnic groups."

The book has the following seven chapters:

1. What Are Human Temperaments?

2. Reacting to the Unexpected

3. Experience and Inference

4. Temperament and Gender

5. Temperament and Ethnicity

6. Temperament and Mental Illness

7. What Have We Learned?

Kagan compares personality to “a gray tapestry woven from very thin black and white threads --- the former representing temperaments and the latter life experiences.” He weaves this tapestry together with subtle, often surprising research findings about the joint shaping of biology and experience to shed light on human nature, culture and experience.

As an example of how temperamental threads shape our understanding of mental illness (see Chapter 6), Kagan draws from the seminal work of psychiatrist Paul McHugh. In his influential “Perspectives of Psychiatry” (1), McHugh states that mental disorders are life under altered circumstances. These circumstances are grouped in families of disorders, stemming from breakdowns in the mind’s design that indicate brain disease, or expressions of the mind’s design that lead to behavioral misdirections (e.g. alcoholism) or emotional responses to distressful life encounters (e.g. adjustment disorders) (2).
Kagan infuses his knowledge of temperament to elaborate on McHugh’s four families of psychological disorders which have their origins in (1) brain disease (e.g. autism, dementia, schizophrenia, delirium); (2) temperamental biases for anxiety and depression (e.g. phobias, PTSD, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression); (3) temperamental biases that make it difficult to regulate impulsive behavior (e.g. ADHD, conduct disorder); or (4) distressful life encounters (e.g. grief, adjustment disorders, trauma).

These four families of disorders are a modest suggestion to improve psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. This approach to classification takes small steps to classify psychiatric disorders by what underlies them --- families of disorders that share a causal, generative nature which may lead to research developing etiological principals.

Whenever I think about temperament and human nature, I am reminded of W. Somerset Maugham’s, “The Summing Up,” a thoroughly satisfying memoir of a lived life. Maugham spent five years in medical school steeped in the human condition before becoming a successful author. In “The Summing Up,” written at age sixty-four years, Maugham sets down his ideas about art, literature, living the famous life, and what he learned from years of reading philosophers. He concludes “The Summing Up”:

"The beauty of life…is nothing but this, that each should act in conformity with his nature and his business."

Whatever your nature, I urge you to make it your business to read Professor Kagan’s, "The Temperamental Thread."

References:

(1) McHugh, Paul R., and Slavney, Phillip R. The Perspectives of Psychiatry.Second Edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

(2) McHugh, Paul R. “Psychiatry at Stalemate.” In Dan Gordon (Editor). Cerebrum 2010. New York: Dana Press, 2010.

(3) Maugham. W. Somerset. The Summing Up. New York: Penguin Books, 1938. This quote is from Fray Luis de Leon.

Where Are American's Moving?

6/18/10. Take a look, county by county.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html

Man is the Only Animal that Likes Tobasco Sauce

6/18/10. Psychiatrist Peter Kramer ("Listening to Prozac) reviews psychologist Paul Bloom's book, "How Pleasure Works. The New Science of Why We Like what We Like."

Who says you can't get no satisfaction?

http://www.slate.com/id/2256711/entry/2256710/

"Father's Softer Side"

6/16/10. On the relationship between father and daughter.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575306540192107682.html?KEYWORDS=father+daughter+relationships

The Rational Optimist

6/15/10. Matt Ridley, author of "The Rational Optimist," answers questions about his book.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/matt-ridley-the-rational-optimist-answers-your-questions/?pagemode=print

"Exile in Dogpatch"

6/13/10. The curious neglect of the cartoonist Al Capp.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_urb-al-capp.html

Sleep Smarter

6/9/10. Advice on sleeping well.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/dont-sleep-longer-ndash-sleep-smarter-1994018.html

"The Memory Doctor"

6/8/10. The work of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256089/pagenum/all/

Creativity and Mental Illness

6/5/10. British psychologists find links between creativity and mental illness.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10154775.stm

"Storming the School Barricades"

6/5/10. Twenty-seven year old film maker Madeleine Sackler's  "explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of public education (is) opening nationwide Tuesday."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242123324855474.html

"Permission Givers"

6/5/10. William Zinsser on Richard Feynman.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/permission-givers/#more-7347

"Families with a Missing Piece"

6/2/10. Jeffrey Zaslow, writer for the Wall Street Journal, writes about the new look about how a parent's early death can reverberate decades later.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704875604575280400596257236.html?KEYWORDS=how+losing+a+parent

Sympathy Deformed

6/2/10. Prison psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple examines how some forms of compassion hurt the poor.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_otbie-sympathy.html

Seeking an Objective Test for Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder

6/2/10. Until there is a biological marker for ADHD --- , there will be no convincing some skeptics that ADHD exists and that medication helps many people cope with the chronic and pervasive symptoms of distractibility, restlessness, and self-control. Those with ADHD have significant problems filtering out external distractions and "putting the brakes" on their behaviors.

ADHD is not the only psychiatric disorder without a biological marker. In fact, etiology unknown with no biological marker is true for all psychiatric disorders.

Tests for ADHD often claim to take the subjectivity out of the diagnostic process.

These so-called objective tests are no substitute for clinical experience and sound judgment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/health/01attention.html?hpw

He Keeps Discovering Who He Is

5/27/10. Nat Hentoff on saxophonist Myron Walden.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240643554918862.html?mod=WSJ_Leisure+%26+Arts_LEFTFeatures

The Brothers Grim

5/27/10/ Retired prison psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple reviews two books:

"Hitch-22", by Christopher Hitchens.

"How Atheism Led Me to Faith," by Peter Hitchens.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/the-brothers-grim

"Rescued by Humor"

5/26/10. Writer William Zinsser offer more thoughts on less seriousness...

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/rescued-by-humor/#more-7010

"Humans: Why They Triumphed"

5/26/10. Matt Ridley on "The Rational Optimist."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703691804575254533386933138.html

"The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff. And Other Stories"

5/25/10.  There is no better story writer than Joseph Epstein. In his new collection of stories, "Joseph Epstein delivers all the pleasures his readers have come to expect:  stories of ordinary men confronting the moments that define a life, told with bittersweet humor and loving irony...--- in rich, revealing detail they brim with universal longings: complex love affairs, and unspoken rivalries, family triumphs and private disappointment."

Kirkus Reviews:


Achingly beautiful stories of growing old, searching for meaning and facing death. Epstein (In a Cardboard Belt!, 2007, etc.) creates his characters with deft strokes. The story that gives the collection its title is one of the author's most typical, as well as one of his best. Three years earlier the somewhat Prufrockian Dr. A. Jerome Minkoff had lost his wife to Lou Gehrig's disease, and at a fundraiser for ALS he meets Larissa Friedman, a rich and glamorous widow in similar circumstances. They fall into an energetic affair, and for the first time since his wife's death Minkoff finds himself contemplating marriage. Larissa has much to offer, especially a gorgeous home in Los Angeles and megabucks-"All the happiness that money could buy." But at a deep, intuitive level, Minkoff senses this relationship is not going to work. The good doctor is typical of Epstein's anti-heroes: elderly, lonely, sensitive and looking to make decisions with a modicum of moral integrity. In "The Philosopher and the Checkout Girl," for instance, a retired professor of analytical philosophy finds a connection with a checkout girl (albeit one pushing 50) that he never experienced with his former academic colleagues. In a neo-Jamesian epiphany the professor belatedly discovers that "he had never known the pleasure of guileless behavior, of saying precisely what he felt and acting on those feelings. He had lived his life at a second, perhaps a third, remove."Epstein writes with intelligence, wit and flair-highly recommended.

"War is No Joke"

 5/24/10. Ruth Wisse, professor of Yiddish literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University gives "A West Point Baccalaureate Address."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/war-no-joke

Jerome Groopman, M.D. "The Plastic Panic"

5/24/10. How worried should we be about chemicals in the environment?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_groopman?currentPage=all

Martin Gardner R.I.P.

5/24/10.

"Martin Gardner, who teased brains with math puzzles in Scientific American for a quarter-century and who indulged his own restless curiosity by writing more than 70 books on topics as diverse as magic, philosophy and the nuances of Alice in Wonderland, died Saturday in Norman, Okla. He was 95.


Martin Gardner was a prolific and wide-ranging writer. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24gardner.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Stefan Kanfer on "The Mathemagician," Martin Gardner.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0527sk.html

"It's Not About How Smart You Are"

5/20/10.

"Carol S. Dweck says that her graduate students here at Stanford University are hard-working, creative, and resilient in the face of failure. But she wouldn't call them smart.

Over the last two decades, Dweck has become one of the country's best-known research psychologists by documenting the follies associated with thinking and talking about intelligence as a fixed trait.

Most famously, Dweck and her collaborators have demonstrated that praising children for their intelligence can backfire. When young people's sense of self-worth is bound up in the idea that they are smart—a quality they come to understand as a genetic blessing from the sky—at least three bad things can happen. Some students become lazy, figuring that their smarts will bail them out in a pinch. Others conclude that the people who praise their intelligence are simply wrong, and decide that it isn't worth investing effort in homework. Still others might care intensely about school but withdraw from difficult tasks or tie themselves in knots of perfectionism. (To understand this third group, think of the Puritans: They did not believe they had any control over whether they were among God's elect, but they nonetheless searched endlessly for ways to display that they had been chosen, and they were terrified of any evidence that they were not.)"

http://chronicle.com/article/Carol-Dwecks-Attitude/65405/

"A Joyful Noise"

5/20/10. William Zinsser author of "On Writing Well," and so much more, brings us his world of the well-lived life.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/a-joyful-noise/#more-6960

"The Rational Optimist"

5/18/10. These are times that try optimists' souls. So I had to start reading Matt Ridley's new book. 

Matt Ridley writes:

"Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.”

The following  is an excerpt from NYT writer John Tierney's review of the "The Rational Optimist:"

"It’s an audacious task, but he has the intellectual breadth for it. A trained zoologist and former editor at The Economist, Dr. Ridley has established himself in previous books, like “The Origins of Virtue” and “Genome,” as the supreme synthesist of lessons from anthropology, psychology, molecular genetics, economics and game theory. This time he takes on all of human history, starting with our mysteriously successful debut. What made Homo sapiens so special? Dr. Ridley argues that it wasn’t our big brain, because Neanderthals had a big brain, too. Nor was it our willingness to help one another, because apes and other social animals also had an instinct for reciprocity.

“At some point,” Dr. Ridley writes, “after millions of years of indulging in reciprocal back-scratching of gradually increasing intensity, one species, and one alone, stumbled upon an entirely different trick. Adam gave Oz an object in exchange for a different object.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18tier.html

Psychologist Michael Shermer, editor of "Skeptics Magazine," reviews "The Rational Optimist:"

http://incharacter.org/character-sketches/when-ideas-have-sex/

"The New War Between Science and Religion"

5/18/10.

Mano Singham:


"There is a new war between science and religion, rising from the ashes of the old one, which ended with the defeat of the anti-evolution forces in the 2005 "intelligent design" trial. The new war concerns questions that are more profound than whether or not to teach evolution. Unlike the old science-religion war, this battle is going to be fought not in the courts but in the arena of public opinion. The new war pits those who argue that science and "moderate" forms of religion are compatible worldviews against those who think they are not."
http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-War-Between-Science/65400

"A Hidden History of Evil"

5/18/10. A look inside the archives of the Soviet Union.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_soviet-archives.html

"When Everything Was Jumpin'"

5/14/10. Daniel Akst reviews "Three Chords for Beauty's Sake," by Tom Nolan, tracing the many-sided life of the great clarinet player Abraham Ben-Yitzhak Arshawsky (a.k.a. Artie Shaw).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242251200954636.html?mod=WSJ_Leisure+%26+Arts_RIGHTTopBelowCarousel

"How Childhood Has Evolved"

5/14/10. Professor Melvin Konner, an anthropologist and a physician, urges an open mind about what we are learning about evolution, childhood, relationships, emotions, and minds.

http://chronicle.com/article/How-Childhood-Has-Evolved/65401/

"The Hoard Mentality"

5/13/10. WSJ writer Philip Terzian reviews "Stuff," by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, "scholars who have studied hoarding closely and pondered its curious causes and disturbing effects."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212162222813280.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_5

"Believe It or Not"

5/12/10. How credible is the new atheism expressed in recent books by philosophers, scientists, historians, and others? Perhaps God only knows.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not

"Short"

5/12/10. When I meet with kids who feel bad about being short, I tell them my definition of short:

"You are short if when you walk your feet do not touch the ground."

 Jane Brody, a short, talented NYT science writer reports on short facts.

Short comments welcome.

An excerpt from this excellent book:

"I didn’t find any studies that really supported the idea that being short was a disadvantage—even those much-publicized studies that seem to say small people earn less than taller folks. Beyond that, I knew that science can be manipulated and misused, but even I was surprised to see how far people stretched it. I spoke with David Sandberg, a researcher whose groundbreaking work showed that the overwhelming majority of short kids actually cope pretty well with being small. His studies showed that their height doesn’t cause them deep psychological stress, and in fact he found that other kids did not see them in a demeaning way. … Sandberg was startled to find that his work was being cited to the FDA to support the notion that small kids do have big problems!"

So much for the short excuse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/health/11brod.html?src=me&ref=homepage

"For Crime, Is Anatomy Destiny?"

5/12/10. There is a developing science on the relationships between physical traits --- such as height, weight, or attractiveness --- and income, and crime, and more. Is it all in the genes?..or is evolution playing tricks on us?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/books/11crime.html?ref=books&src=me&pagewanted=all

"Is Courage a Masculine Virtue?"

5/12/10. Professor Harvey Mansfield says, "sort of..." I say "no." What do you say? Please comment.

http://incharacter.org/pro-con/is-courage-a-masculine-virtue/

"Silence, PLEASE"

5/5/10. A former prison psychiatrist muses about silence.

Dr. Darlrymple notes, for example:

"...Many young people behave as if silence disturbs them in a way in which noise disturbs me. They tell me, for example, that they cannot concentrate unless there is electronic stimulus of one kind or another in their background. The bright, idle, mindless vulgar chatter of pop radio stations, or equivalent, not only does not destroy their concentration (they say), but is essential to its exercise. They do not mind, or notice, that there is more than one kind of such stimulus: cacophony is not a category to them..."



http://incharacter.org/features/silence-please/

How Do Birds Fly South?

5/4/10. Scientists in Austria say birds may use quantum mechanics to guide the flight south.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/quantum-mechanics-may-help-birds-migrate-south

"Honey, Do You Have To?"

5/2/10. Elizabeth Bernstein offers some ideas about what makes a marriage work.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703757504575194040423167792.html?mod=WSJ_hps_RIGHTTopCarousel#