We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The New Cabela's Limited Edition Spring Catalog. Email them, and get your own. Hard-cover, for your bedside table, next to your Bible and your current history book.
Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside. He looked up and said weakly: "I have something I must confess." "There's no need to, " his wife replied."No," he insisted, "I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!" "I know," she replied, " now just rest and let the poison work."
A mortician was working late one night. He examined the body of Mr. Schwartz, about to be cremated, and made a startling discovery. Schwartz had the largest private part he had ever seen! "I'm sorry Mr. Schwartz," the mortician commented, "I can't allow you to be cremated with such an impressive private part. It must be saved for posterity." So, he removed it, stuffed it into his briefcase, and took it home "I have something to show you won't believe," he said to his wife, opening his briefcase. "My God!" the wife exclaimed, "Schwartz is dead!"
A married man was having an affair with his secretary. One day they went to her place and made love all afternoon. Exhausted, they fell asleep and woke up at 8 PM. The man hurriedly dressed and told his lover to take his shoes outside and rub them in the grass and dirt. He put on his shoes and drove home. "Where have you been?" his wife demanded. "I can't lie to you," he replied, "I'm having an affair with my secretary. We had sex all afternoon." She looked down at his shoes and said: "You lying bastard! You've been playing golf!"
Few like to admit that hate and anger are enjoyable for human beings. From a psychiatric standpoint, hate and anger are "pleasurable" emotions, and righteous anger and hate are among the most satisfying of human emotions.
I had planned to write Part 2 on Depression this week, but this is more pressing. Our News Junkie put his finger on it yesterday when he referred to the "Hate Party" going on in the Middle East. Indeed it is a party. What we are not permitted to report, in this modern-day New Puritanism world, is how much fun they are having.
Those Moslem haters of the Western World are having a great time. Adrenaline flowing. Peer-sanctioned excuses for disinhibition of emotion, leading to destruction. Mobs led by instigators getting everyone high on regressive group-think. Riots, fights, and mayhem run deep in human nature. Don't we enjoy watching it on the news, and in movies?
This is not unique to extremist Moslems, by any means. The NJ referred to the KKK's fire-lit Parties of Hate, but I can simply point to yesterday's Coretta King funeral for the most recent American Hate Fest, or the Kos website. People, sad to say, do enjoy opportunities for free expression of hate and anger. It is common, in Psychiatry, to find patients who refuse to let go of it, it is so satisfying and enjoyable. (I know, this truth is not supposed to be stated. People are just so nice at heart, aren't they, Jimmy Carter?)
It is not necessary to be a paranoid to be looking for a fight. All humans are energized by a battle, but generally the guard-rails of culture and civilization contain the expression of these impulses. But humans welcome socially-sanctioned opportunities for it. Paranoid individuals, and those from paranoid-tinged cultures, have an easier time finding those opportunities, especially when led by clever manipulators. Europe, and the Middle East, now are filled with such folks who are like the half-in-the-bag guy at the bar saying "What you lookin' at?"
Spoiling for an exciting fight. And dangerous, because they haven't signed the Social Contract. It's one of the reasons we need civilization: not to repress such emotions, but to contain our base human nature so we can pursue more worthy goals and more benign relationships.
In this New Age of psychology run amuck, we all give too much validity and credibility to emotion. Since when are we expected to "understand people's feelings"? That is pop psychobabble, for the most part. It's very odd that a revolution of Reason, The Enlightenment, has led to this idealization of emotion. Can we blame it all on Rousseau? As irrational biological instincts which really cannot be controlled (although behavior in response to them can be, by normal sober adults), emotions deserve no particular respect, and they are meaningful data only in a shrink's office (or, if the emotion is passionate love, to your beloved). How come on this blog we constantly feel the need to repeat the AA Mantra: "Feelings aren't Facts."?
How to deal with out of control anger, tantrum, and mayhem? In my profession, with firm limits. In the big world, with the firm limits of force. Such things wake people up to an anti-regressive reality. Nothing else will. Reason does not work with the regressed, with the paranoid, or with those intoxicated with the barbarian, yet human, joys of rage and destruction. Fight for free speech? With great pleasure!
Jackson and Perkins is an old stand-by for roses of all sorts, but there are many growers of antique roses these days - Google antique roses. Vintage roses are tougher than modern ones, and they smell like roses. Here's one source.
This should keep my study cozy after work, for the next couple of months. Love the splitting, but hate the stacking.
This what you might call a Connecticut logpile, not a Vermont pile (which would be 100 times larger). I am only on my second cord for this mild winter.
That's my spring-loaded splitting maul. A cool tool.
It has been twenty years since Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death was published. Postman's son Andrew has written the introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition of the still-fresh book, which might be more applicable in 2006 than it was in 1985. Some quotes from the Intro:
Substantive as this book is, it was predicated on a “hook”: that one British writer (George Orwell) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision that many feared would come true, was mostly off-base, while another British writer (Aldous Huxley) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision less well-known and feared, was scarily on target. My father argued his point, persuasively, but it was a point for another time – the Age of Television. New technologies and media are in the ascendancy.
Fortunately – and this, more than anything, is what I think makes Amusing Ourselves to Death so emphatically relevant – my father asked such good questions that they can be asked of non-television things, of all sorts of transforming developments and events that have happened since 1985, and since his death, and of things still unformed, for generations to come (though “generations to come” may someday mean a span of three years). His questions can be asked about all technologies and media.
What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them? Do they free us or imprison us? Do they improve or degrade democracy? Do they make our leaders more accountable or less so? Our system more transparent or less so? Do they make us better citizens or better consumers? Are the trade-offs worth it? If they’re not worth it, yet we still can’t stop ourselves from embracing the next new thing because that’s just how we’re wired, then what strategies can we devise to maintain control? Dignity? Meaning?
How would this work on those large flocks of Bluebills? Naw, that's an evil thought. How about on a safe-house full of Jihadist head-cutters? A good idea to be on the right end of this little toy.
Heard Peter Noone (Herman of Herman's Hermits) interviewed on Mark Simone on WABC, Sat. nite. What a charming, unpretentious, and smart fellow. Among other things, he said that "Henry the Eighth" was a pub song that his grandfather was known for singing. He is a third-generation musician. And Peter is still on tour.
I have never thought that it made much sense to talk about "happiness."
For one, I do not know how to define it. For another, I suspect that joie de vivre is probably more of an inborn talent than something which can be sought. For another, I think people were made for work and responsibility and to find God - not for happiness. Self-respect is a tall enough order, in itself. And "self-esteem" is psychobabble: I have yet to meet the person who deserved it.
I still blame Jefferson for being a weeny and giving in by replacing the words "pursuit of property" with the vague and new-agey "pursuit of happiness." (Yes, that did happen.) I think that set a crazy standard for a life which is in many ways a vale of tears, confusing, mysterious, and an endless challenge.
It is much easier to talk about what doesn't make us happy, or makes us unhappy, or upset, angry, disappointed, fearful, or pained.
As our readers know, I rarely refer to pop, or especially "lite pop" psychology pieces, but this one on "Happiness Traps" by Baker in Prevention Magazine has been brought up by a couple of my patients in Boston. It is simple, clear, and practical.
That was the "intellectual impresario" Brockman's highly-stimulating Question of the Year for 2005. Answers from a number of scientists and thinkers via The Edge website were compiled as a book. The Edge 2006 Annual Question is "What is your dangerous idea?"
My dangerous idea, or one of them, is "What if life is real?" Another is "What's for dinner?"
Have I mentioned lately how much we like The Teaching Company? Check it out, if you aren't familiar with them. Great stuff, and a good alternative to Books on Tape if you spend time in the car. Sign up just to get their catalog - it's an interesting read in itself. This month, a piece on Michael Haydn. Michael? Yes, Joseph's brother, who frequently collaborated with Mozart. The Robert Greenberg music courses are spectacularly enjoyable, entertaining, and educational. But so is most of their stuff.
This turn-of-the-century Austrian artist has millions of admirers of his emotionally intense work. There is now a major show of his work at the Neue Galerie, which specializes in Austrian and German art (86th St. and 5th Ave., NYC).
This is his "The Artist's Wife."
Both Schiele and his wife died young in the flu pandemic of 1918. His bio here.
We did a piece here many months ago on Cowboys and Cowgirls, and another piece on What do Men Want? Now Newsweek has a major piece on "the trouble with boys." One quote:
In elementary-school classrooms—where teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turn—the mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls."
Well, duh. More from the piece:
Boys have always been boys, but the expectations for how they're supposed to act and learn in school have changed. In the last 10 years, thanks in part to activist parents concerned about their children's success, school performance has been measured in two simple ways: how many students are enrolled in accelerated courses and whether test scores stay high. Standardized assessments have become commonplace for kids as young as 6. Curricula have become more rigid. Instead of allowing teachers to instruct kids in the manner and pace that suit each class, some states now tell teachers what, when and how to teach. At the same time, student-teacher ratios have risen, physical education and sports programs have been cut and recess is a distant memory. These new pressures are undermining the strengths and underscoring the limitations of what psychologists call the "boy brain"—the kinetic, disorganized, maddening and sometimes brilliant behaviors that scientists now believe are not learned but hard-wired.
Exactly right. Hard-wired. Read the whole thing. Once upon a time, every grandmother in the world knew all of this.
Bernard-Henri Levy's new book. He is an interesting and colorful French intellectual and psychoanalyst who considers himself to be "anti-anti-American." The book, his 30th, aspires to follow in de Toqueville's footsteps.
Quoted from the New York Magazine review:
American Vertigo, while somewhat adhering to the “footsteps of Tocqueville,” careers around, allowing him to drag the ironies out of Cooperstown (which he describes as a church), a suburban Chicago megachurch (“neo-paganist”), an anti-Semitic Indian leader, the Mall of America (“a church,” again), John Kerry (“a European at heart”), and a big retirement community (it reminds him of apartheid). He visits with clueless Hollywood liberal Sharon Stone (whom he manages to observe crossing her legs) and finds Las Vegas strippers mechanically standoffish (“the wretchedness of Eros in the land of the Puritans”). In Michigan, he marvels at the solidity of the American identity among Arab immigrants. (The book was finished before the riots broke out in Paris: “We have our crisis there, sure,” he says. “You had your riots in the nineties.”) In Dallas, at the assassination site of JFK, he wonders, “What is a myth that you no longer believe in that still functions?”
And amid all that is what seems to be his conclusion: that America is a curious sort of empire—not at all like Rome at its zenith or decline—with a particular character of individualism that he hopes will cause the country to do the good it could do in the world. He’s disappointed that we aren’t living up to our noblesse oblige responsibilities. “The reason I am so angry against neoconservatives is that they spoiled the very idea of intervention,” says the self-described Wilsonian. And he’s flabbergasted that the American left can be so accommodating to the puritanism of the right. There is, in fact, for a secular blue-stater, little in this book to disagree with: It has, at times, the reinforcement-of-a-worldview pleasures of a well-argued Frank Rich column, or, for that matter, The Daily Show.
Like many French writers, he may have a tendency to imagine that he is smarter than he is - but I would not put de Toqueville in that category. It's worth a minute to read entire review here.
Forgot to post this during Christmas Season; Dylan Thomas reading his splendidly poignant, nostalgic and warmly funny very short story. Sorry to be late with it. Next year, I won't forget. Listen anyway, and make it part of your life as it is part of mine, here.
Dead of a heart attack at 64. Damn. You expect people that matter to you, and add something to your life, to live forever. Loved the guy's music. This was my favorite album: The Exciting Wilson Pickett
Was the American Civil War the first modern war? And what role did slavery play? New book by Stout: Upon the Altar of the Nation. NY Sun review.
The definitive new Beatles biography, by Bob Spitz. The author of the iconoclastic Dylan: A Biography spent years working on this Beatles bio, a magnum opus which has had excellent reviews.
The Bird Dog family did a comparison - the new Producers movie compared with the original with Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom. As you know, the Broadway show was based on the 1968 movie, and then the new movie was based on the Broadway show (!?!).
The 1968 version wins, hands down. If only on Mostel's amazing FACE. This is Marx Brothers-quality farce from the spottily-brilliant Mel Brooks.
From Ten poor word usages which will expose our lack of education and could damage a career. Including "hopefully":
"Everyone uses "hopefully" as a shortcut for "I hope." It is not. Yes, the dictionary allows it, but that's just bending to popular usage. In my book, there is only one correct use for "hopefully." It's a synonym for "prayerfully"—as in, "She looked up hopefully and said, 'Dear Lord, please make it rain soon, or we'll have no harvest.'" Do you want to say "I hope"? Then say "I hope.""
Read all ten, including since and because, and .everyone and they.
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie. Aldous Huxley
A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it. Mark Twain
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie. Bob Dylan
One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways. Dr. Karl Menninger
What is Truth? Pontius Pilate
We posted briefly on this new word "truthiness" a couple of months ago, but it deserves more attention. The word stands more or less in contrast to the non-word "factiness," as I understand it. It brings to mind the comment of a friend who once described the processed cheese we were putting on burgers as "a remarkably food-like substance." "Truthiness" is a truth-like substance.
"Truthy, not facty" strikes me as a pretty good way of describing the way we usually think about things. Most of the time, when we're thinking about the world, we're not trying to determine whether the information we're receiving from it is factual, but instead working to integrate it with the representations we've already got. The information that we're likely to notice, and keep, is just the information that fits with those representations, regardless of whether that information happens to fit with the facts. If something is truthy because it fits with our beliefs, but not with facts, then a lot of what we'll end up believing with be truthy, not facty. It's because of this that you get things like cognitive dissonance or the confirmation bias. Those involve searching for and emphasizing truthiness over factiness.
Thus a cognitive psychologist, or maybe any psychologist, might find the new word handy because it has to do with the way our minds deal with things - in a rule-of-thumb, experience-based way which expects or wants things to fit our existing ideas and images. (A "representation" is what psychologists and psychoanalysts call a package of memory, image, idea and emotion. It's called a "re-presentation" because it's constructed on the inside, and thus necessarily colored and distorted to varying degrees for all sorts of psychological reasons.)
I suspect that, for a long time, the idea of a round earth contained fact but lacked truthiness for many people who walked around all day on flat surfaces. Indeed, it lacks truthiness to me that my flight from New York to Paris flies over Newfoundland. How many things are apparently facts - the existence of quarks, a curved universe, the flight of the bumblebee, the movement of electrons in a copper wire - yet all lack truthiness.
For another example, I think Dan Rather, this fall, was trying to tell us that the CBS forged records "lacked factiness but contained "truthiness". Similar to the Al Sharpton-Tawana Brawley business, if you recall that story.
So it seems to me that Mixing Memory has the correct idea: What feels "truthy" is something that fits our preconceptions. And our preconceptions aren't bad things - we could not function without them, but how many of them can we prove to be True? (We live in a world of ambiguities, but crave certainty and solid ground so as not to go nuts. As in Huxley's quote: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad.") On the other hand, things that feel "truthy" can just as easily be lies, as happened this month with the Oprah Book Club's Million Little Pieces.
If we plan to use this word (which I do not, unless I use it with irony), let's use it with the connotation of an untruth or a lie - a "truth-like substance," and not as a watered-down version of truth. And let's view the professional purveyors of truthiness to be what they are - con-men, manipulators, and propagandists - whether they be advertisers, politicians, trial lawyers or journalists.
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 dollars and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?" "It was Bob, the next door neighbor," she replies. "Great!" the husband says, "Did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"
Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure. --------------------------------------------------- Corporate Lesson 2 -
A priest offered a lift to a Nun. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest apologized. "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."
Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity. ---------------------------------------------------- Corporate Lesson 3 -
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish." "Me first! Me first!" says the admin. clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Poof! She's gone. "Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be inHawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Poof! He's gone. "OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."
Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say. -------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate Lesson 4 -
A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A rabbit asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. A fox jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate Lesson 5 -
A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy." "Well, why don't you nibble on my droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.
Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.
The catalogs are springing up like crocuses. 
Watch this 
Heard Peter Noone (Herman of Herman's Hermits) interviewed on Mark Simone on WABC, Sat. nite. What a charming, unpretentious, and smart fellow. Among other things, he said that "Henry the Eighth" was a pub song that his grandfather was known for singing. He is a third-generation musician. And 
This turn-of-the-century Austrian artist has millions of admirers of his emotionally intense work. There is now a major show of his work at the 
And now it's...
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.