The Trouble with Kids Today. A Review of "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" by Robert D. Putnam

9/19/15. Charles Murray weighs in.

http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/17/the-trouble-with-kids-today/

How to Think about Wearing Fur

9/16/15. Human's attitudes about wearing fur are a bundle of contradictions.


http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/fashion/trends/article1574895.ece?shareToken=e4c4c71cc6544a3c5fe94ab33c627dc5

Oliver Sacks: Sabbath

9/13/15. On the seventh day he rested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html?_r=0

Improvisation and Psychology

9/12/15. There is a link between someone skilled at improvisation and psychotherapy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/comedy-improv-anxiety/403933/

All Scientists Should be Militant Atheists

9/12/15.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists

My friend Tom replies, a chemist and a Christian:

This article is a pitiful display of ignorance.  It is most often the physicists who are the vocal atheistic minority among the scientific community, for physics is perhaps the branch of the physical sciences with the most amount of assumptions behind it and the one with the least opportunity for hard experimentation, because of its great expense.  It is also these few scientists who are the most difficult to give up on an idea, they have built their careers upon; even though, they are often dead wrong.  Of course, there is no way to do the experiment because of the high cost or impossible circumstance.   The high-energy physics experiment of late is the best example in the search for the “God” particle.  I do not remember the details, but the outcome was very clear.  There were two opposing camps of high-energy physicists with each theory predicting the energy of the “God” particle.  After much hailed experimentation, cost, and public attention, the energy of the particle was determined, and low-and-behold, its energy did not support either of two major theories (or any other theory for that matter).  It was an energy altogether different than predicted.  I remember a Nobel prize-winning scientist speaking to commentators saying his entire life’s work was for nothing, and that he did not know what to do but retire and go fishing.  No physicists had any idea why they were all wrong.    The point is that atheism is a religion in-and-of-itself, and those who believe in it try to hide behind a science that cannot be tested easily with tenacious ignorance, and not accept any other idea but their own.

 

There are false assumptions throughout the article; the most obvious is that we live in a secular society.  Well, if that is true, then why do 90% of people in surveys in the U.S. say the believe in a God?  The fact is one does not live in a secular society; unless the culture has been made that way by atheistic socialist doctrine.  Religion is historically an integral part of all cultures.   Only by socialist governments in modern times has religion been removed, degraded, or presumed to not exist.  

 

Another false assumption is that the universe is in chaos.  All evidence today is that the universe is remarkably “fine tuned” in a manner that could not have possible by random occurrences.   This is indisputable!  The author, in his ignorance, holds onto the random-chaos theory, which has been demonstrated otherwise.  Why does he do this?  Because he has no other answer, and it trashes all his theories.  Every atheist has a God; it is himself.  He will defend that God at all costs.

 

The only problem that is “self-evident”, is that the framers of the Constitution failed to define religion.  Since the only thing that existed in their domain at the time was Judeo-Christian, they thought it was “self-evident” that any religion to be concerned about in their domain was simply a difference of interpretation within the framework of the Judeo-Christian ethic.  They had no idea of how the world was going to change in the two hundred years.  The concept of an acceptable “religion” needs to be defined.  It goes without saying, that any theocratic governance that might  “…deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (Amendment XIV, Section 1.) is not a “religion” under the Constitution; so it is absurd to suggest that such would be protected by the Constitution as a “religion”.     

 

The other problem is that Amendment XIV precedes the statement above with “…nor shall any State…”, meaning that States have the right under the Constitution to enact laws that are not covered by Congress enacting others, and that the Supreme Court does not have any right under the Constitution to create new law by review or judgment.  It is only by repeating this false assumption over and over again and manipulating the court system to act as if the Supreme Court had the authority to make law by redefining the scope of a statement in the Constitution that liberals say the Supreme Court has this power, when in fact it does not.     

 

I normally express my opinion in letters to my congressman in the form of hypothetical Constitutional Amendments, and limiting the power to the Supreme Court was one of them.

Joseph Epstein: A Biography As Great as Its Subject

9/12/15. James Boswell's "Life of Johnson."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-biography-as-great-as-its-subject-1442008662

What Is Consciousness?

9/11/15. The hard problem.


http://www.economist.com/news/science-brief/21664060-final-brief-our-series-looks-most-profound-scientific-mystery-all-one

The Terrible Teens

9/10/15. What's the matter with teens today?

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-terrible-teens

Jason Riley: Black Lives Matter but ---Reality Not So Much

9/9/15. WSJ writer calls it as it is.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/black-lives-matterbut-reality-not-so-much-1441755075

Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reflects on mistakes, mystery and the mind

9/8/15. Human we all are:  Learning from our mistakes.


https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/june-2015/better-not-look-down

You're Cheatin' Heart: How to Cope with Infidelity

9/8/16. After Ashley Madison - When in Doubt, Tell the Truth?


http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-ashley-madison-how-to-cope-with-infidelity-1441652059

The Narcissist in Chief

9/7/15. By psychologists Scott Lilienfeld  and Ashley L. Watts

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/the-narcissist-in-chief.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

Oliver Sacks: A Neurologist Who Could Be Mistook for a Psychiatrist

9/7/15. Another tribute to this remarkable man.


http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/oliver-sacks-neurologist-who-could-be-mistook-psychiatrist?GUID=28D5FE94-3ACE-4CCF-9530-F3B18A75B0CA&rememberme=1&ts=05092015

Frenzied Trump Supporters Admit They'd Be Just as Happy Tearing Him to Pieces

9/5/15.  Human nature.

http://www.theonion.com/article/frenzied-trump-supporters-admit-theyd-be-just-happ-51240

I can't get no sexual respect at Columbia

9/5/15. By Heather MacDonald. This is not science fiction.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-fainting-couch-at-columbia/

Tom Sowell: The March of Foolish Things

9/5/15. Interview with 85 year old economist Thomas Sowell.

Start with his book, "A Conflict of Visions," a brilliant look at the underlying differences in how political conservatives and liberals view human nature.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-march-of-foolish-things-1441407396

Who Is Happy?

9/2/2015. Dennis Prager, author of a book on happiness, and world-wide lecturer on the topic, does the unusual --- makes sense.


http://www.dennisprager.com/who-is-happy/

Why Your Child Fears Inanimate Objects

9/2/15. From my colleague psychologist Eric Herman --- he educates and reassures parents.


http://www.metroparent.com/metro-parent-magazine/m-parenting/m-parenting-issues-tips/why-your-child-fears-inanimate-objects/

What the Left and Right Don't Get about Campus Rape

9/1/15. Mona Charen's trenchant comments.


Reminds me about what the left and right don't get about mental illness. The left's passion is to protect the civil rights of the mentally disturbed --- so they can die with their rights intact. The right's passion is to get the mentally disturbed and their families to take responsibility for their actions, question whether mental disturbance is a myth, and put the psychiatrically disturbed in prison, not hospitals. Both the left and right have contributed to the closing of psychiatric hospitals leading to the tragedy of homelessness.




http://eppc.org/author/mona_charen/

Wayne W. Dyer RIP

9/1/15. He started with "The Erroneous Zone," and never stopped.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/arts/wayne-w-dyer-prolific-author-of-self-help-books-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0