February 2010
67 posts
“Wisdom isn’t cheap, and we pay for it with pain.”
—
Jonah Lehrer, in his first story for the NYTimes, writes about the “net mental benefit” of depression.
Unsurprisingly, depression with external causes sharpens your analytical skills. The idea is that painful “rumination” happens for a good cause. This is the conclusion of two researchers in evolutionary psychology, because an ill that afflicts so many people has to have an advantage.
The notion has found many detractors, of course. But the two researchers say that in particular cases of depression, to try and avoid sadness can be counterproductive. If you are in pain for a specific reason, this pain could be useful, and should probably not be drowned in prozac.
Case in point, here’s what happened to the patient of one of the two psychiatrists, who asked for the dosage of her meds to be reduced:
“I asked her if the antidepressants were working, and she said something I’ll never forget. ‘Yes, they’re working great,’ she told me. ‘I feel so much better. But I’m still married to the same alcoholic son of a bitch. It’s just now he’s tolerable.’ ”
In other words, when something bad happens to you, it could be that it’s not just okay to be sad. It could be that it’s essential.
— From London.
Gold-medal winning ladies celebrate with, shock and horror, beers. →
timesonline.typepad.com
My South African colleague, who sent me this Times story, asked: “So what do you think? Would they be making such a fuss if this were the male hockey team?”
I’m thinking he may have hit the nail on the head, especially in the light of Theresa’s post. For those who missed it: women were banned from ski-jumping this year because ”they were not good enough” (as of 2006) and anway, ”it’s bad for their ovaries” (“delicate flowers,” all). Not bad enough that they couldn’t test the track for their male counterparts, but I guess that’s another story.
As reported by Jezebel (the article to which Theresa linked her post), female hockey is in the same line of Olympic fire as female ski-jumping, because the U.S. and Canadian teams are kicking ass and they’re pretty much the only ones, seen as women in other countries can’t find the funding to train and compete in appropriate conditions.
My colleague attempted to follow their logic. “Okay, that’s insane,” he said. ”A few years ago, Australia’s cricket team was crushing everyone. That’d be like saying ‘hey, let’s ban cricket, Australia’s too good for the rest of them.’ Or when Steffi Graf was destroying everyone, ’let’s abolish female tennis!’ Unthinkable.”
But apparently, for Belgian Count Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, “improvement” needs to be seen. So guess what, anything goes. Even complaining about the fact that the ladies, after giving it their all, decided to relax together with a drink or two.
— From London.
Google in Italy - Episode #359834 →
googleblog.blogspot.com
Yesterday an Italian court convicted three Google executives of failure to comply with the Italian privacy code over a video that was uploaded by a kid in Turin after she filmed a few of her mates beating up a child with Down syndrome.
To be sure, Google took down the video as soon as it was notified by the police, and then helped identify the perpetrators by tracking the profile of the person who uploaded it.
That wasn’t enough. They were sentenced to 6 months in prison, which they will now appeal.
This isn’t the first time Google runs into trouble in Italy. Twisted legal logic has flourished under that deranged leadership.
All we can hope for now is that it goes to a supranational court, that will, no doubt, put an end to this nonsense.
— From London, with thanks to the Italian citizens who are plotting, or at least hoping for, Berlusca’s demise (and I know quite a few of them).
Play
- You should try hypnotherapy for your fear of needles.
- Hypnotherapy doesn’t work on me, I’m too much in control.
- Let’s not talk about needles right now.
- I’m the best. Frightened patients are always sent to me.
- Your birthday’s next week. You’re pisces, like me. We’re nice people.
- You’re turning 30. No big deal. I’m turning 34.
- Do exactly as I say.
- My ex-husband was England’s champion of kung-fu. He was also a bastard who beat me up. I took him to court.
- It’s very important that you do exactly as I say.
- Is your boyfriend your first?
- I’m asking because you said he was lovely. Men can be bastards.
- D’you know about Palestine? I’m so sick of politics.
- You must do as I say.
- I never prick before I find a good vein.
- Let’s not talk about needles.
Things the doctor said to me today.
— From London.
“… And he is the sweetest man I’ve ever known.”
—
Me, an hour ago, scrupulously following the nurse’s instructions to focus on the conversation while she gave me a tetanos shot and an MMR shot, because I’m so stupidly trypanophobic. The thought of Jason helped me get through it like a champ.
Until my blood pressure dropped, 5 minutes later, and I dropped with it.
— From London.
A few days ago, I posted a photo taken by my friend PY during a 2000 trip around the U.S. with friends Gurval and Laurent. It was a picture of them with their host in Phoenix, Gerry, and Gerry’s neighbor, a middle-aged lady who’d clearly drunk one vodka-orange too many.
The photo was striking, really funny and, with PY’s permission, I swiped it from his Facebook account and published it.
Today, PY asked me to take it down, after taking it down himself from Facebook at Laurent’s request. The reason for this, he explained, is that since their trip, Gerry died from obesity-linked complications.
The photo is now gone. It was done with a smile, and no malice.
— From London.
Mother. Fucking. MONSTERS.
kryz: Today in ‘Reasonable Arguments on Hot Button Issues’
“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said [Bob] Marshall, a Republican.
“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”Legislator: Disabled kids are God’s punishment | The News Leader
(via)
— From London, in shock.
On Robert Bresson
Parisians: He’s slow and boring.
English speaking cineastes: He’s minimalist and rivetting.
- From Melbourne, in Paris.
“We are after all groomed, from an early age, to view consistency not as the hobgoblin of little minds, but as the ideal to which we aspire, and against which we measure the success of our efforts.”
—
Jessica Helfand, a graphic designer in Connecticut, in an essay called Prisoners of Logic, published in the Design Observer.
To count the ways in which this rings a bell would take too long. All of it can be summed up in a single sentence: the notion of consistency frightens me. It may be my own hangup, but all I can associate it with is Dogma.
I was once friends with someone whose mind I took great pleasure in short-circuiting. ”But you said the exact opposite thing last week,” he would exclaim. “Yes. And?” I would reply. “But… But you can’t!” he cried. Yes, I can. And I do. And I like it.
“Inconsistencies” make you human. They’re the things that surprise you in other people. And if you think about it, they’re only inconsistent if that’s how you choose to look at them.
— From London.
Using cognitive dissonance to turn enemies into friends.
Says Wikipedia:
Benjamin Franklin won over a political opponent by asking him a favor.
(Long story short, Ben Franklin asks the guy to lend him a book, the guy sends it to him, Franklin returns it with a note that expresses how very obliged he is and the guy goes from deliberately ignoring him to saying hello at every encounter.)
After lending Franklin the book, the opponent had to resolve the dissonance of his attitude towards Franklin, whom he also has just done a favor. He justified doing the favor by telling himself that he actually liked Franklin, and, as a result, he treated him with respect instead of rudeness from then on. This well-known technique has been used by many people to win over their enemies.
— From London.
"Colorblind" parents make for racist children.
GeekDad writes about a study that showed parents’ “colorblindness” makes kids racist.
Not talking about race, pretending to ignore the fact that a white person is white, a black person is black and an Asian person looks Asian suppresses dialogue in families and allows for greater prejudice as children grow up.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, the authors of the book NurtureShock, have demonstrated that most parents don’t talk about race with their kids. The thing is, children never fail to notice the differences in colors and physical traits. And why should they?
Even more interestingly, kids who go to diverse schools are less likely to make friends that don’t look like them.
So what to do? Talk about it. Don’t pretend it’s not there. Don’t be afraid to use the words. Don’t freak out if your kid says something prejudiced (probably heard elsewhere) and just debunk it gently, using examples of people from races other than yours amoung people you know, and letting them ask questions openly. Do this before your kid reaches third grade, because it becomes more difficult later on.
This is interesting to me. In France, race is never ever discussed officially. You know how in the U.S. they always ask you what your race is? Unthinkable in baguette-land. Everyone’s either French or non-French. No such thing, in census documents, as a ”North African-Frenchman” or a “Sub Saharan-Frenchwoman,” for example.
Does this mean racism doesn’t exist in France? Of course not. This collective obsession with ”colorblindness” in the name of democratic ideals only makes for a conspicuous absence of dialogue at government level. This created (as of a few years ago) a complete vacuum in the public arena that allowed for the most bigotted comments to be made in total impunity.
So on a practical level, it means that authorities keep their eyes shut, hoping for the issue to go away whilst hundreds of CVs get rejected daily because, well… The names just “don’t sound French.”
— From London.
'Sanctimonious' kids? No thank you.
And another thing Brooker points out:
(…) The whole role-model-to-kids argument was a bogus mantra in the first instance. For one thing, kids don’t care about or even comprehend their idols’ sex lives (…).
A child who idolised the tabloids would grow up to be a sanctimonious, flip-flopping, phone-tapping Peeping Tom who thinks puns are hilarious and spends half its life desperately rooting through bins for a living.
Yep. Screw that.
— From London.
