December 2009
84 posts
“Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they’re also what tear...”
– Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers...”
– Noam Chomsky
Psychiatry's Civil War →
Few would claim that the DSM’s current version is perfect. With each revision, the number of conditions it defines has swelled, many surrounded by bewildering lists of symptoms that must be checked to assign a diagnosis.
[…]
In the past few months, however, open conflict has broken out among the upper echelons of US psychiatry. The focus of discord is a volume called the...
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
– C. S. Lewis
Dirt Like Wine →
Crazy hobby proudly sponsored by the American Dental Association, I bet.
Her “A Taste of Place” events (the next is on December 10, in Santa Rosa, California) are designed to connect the smell of the earth to the flavour of foods grown in it. Participants can expect to sample two or three wine glasses, each filled with soil from a different organic farm.
[…]
By way of example,...
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep...”
– Ernest Hemingway
2 tags
Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector →
Painted in large characters on the factory walls was a slogan: “If you don’t work hard today, look hard for work tomorrow.” Inspirational, in a way.
[…]
In the meantime, as governments contemplate such matters on a theoretical level, what’s happening on the ground is mostly in the hands of the private sector. Companies police themselves, often using hired...
1 tag
Solving the Enigma →
History of the Cryptanalytic Bombe
Fascinating article on the WWII efforts by the British and Americans to crack the enigma encryption tool used by the Germans. What I find most interesting is that it was human error, again and again, that made some of the biggest breakthroughs possible. There’s a lesson there somewhere.
Now I’ll go log in to my gmail account on a public computer...
“Cleese: You see, you could never do a sketch like that these days. The audience...”
– From PBS series Monty Python’s Personal Best : John Cleese’s Personal Best (2006), playing role of senile old man.
Daniel Wallace: My Night Among the Naked Women →
I suppose there comes a point in a man’s life when he feels as though he isn’t seeing enough naked women.
[…]
To realize that going to strip clubs could be a part of my everyday life both thrilled and frightened me.
[…]
It’s not hard to find naked women in America: Topless bars are everywhere. Not just bars, either, but topless maid services and topless car washes,...
Dudeism →
The dude abides…
Founded in 2005 by Oliver Benjamin, a journalist based in Los Angeles, California and Chiang Mai, Thailand, Dudeism’s official organizational name is The Church of the Latter-Day Dude. As of September 2009 over 60,000 “Dudeist Priests” had been ordained via the church.
The Gay Animal Kingdom →
An article on research done by Joan Roughgarden, a Stanford biologist who strongly disagrees with the traditional Darwinian view on sexuality. A Christian and transsexual, her views are obviously controversial. That isn’t to say she’s a kooky fringe scientist (no, not that fringe, although that’d be cool); she earned her stripes as a respected scientist. Her ideas are...
“I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to...”
– “The Human Face”, BBC Television (2001)
“We are all familiar with Edmund Burke’s insight that, “All that is...”
– Letter to the pastors of Uganda, Rick Warren
(‘bout time the dude spoke up.)
(there’s a video too!)
Noam Chomsky: Why the Right shouldn't be ridiculed →
“So take right now, for example, there is a right-wing populist uprising. It’s very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that’s not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances. I listen to talk radio a lot and it’s kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of...
“There is a fear of letting people loose, a fear that the worst will happen once...”
– Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
“The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular”
– Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Karamazov Brothers
Correlation implies Causation →
An often repeated mantra is this: correlation does not imply causation. This is wrong.
“If faith cannot make it into a holy deed to murder one’s own son, then let...”
– Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
3 tags
Letter from Saddleback - Malcolm Gladwell →
Fascinating and surprisingly glowing article by Malcolm Gladwell on the success of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, the success of “Purpose Driven Life”, and his vision on the church.
Churches, like any large voluntary organization, have at their core a contradiction. In order to attract newcomers, they must have low barriers to entry. They must be unintimidating, friendly,...
2 tags
“I once tried to sidestep around a pole, and actually walked right into it. My...”
– (via: reddit.com)