Category Archives: Current Affairs

Interesting post and link to a NYT article on happiness, depression, and introspection.

Link: Marginal Revolution: Don’t Think Too Much About Your Year to Come.

Timothy Wilson writes:

    In one study, mildly depressed college students were asked to spend eight minutes thinking about themselves or to spend the same amount of time thinking about mundane topics like "clouds forming in the sky."

    People in the first group focused on the negative things in their lives and sunk into a worse mood. People in the other group actually felt better afterward, possibly because their negative self-focus was "turned off" by the distraction task…

    What can we do to improve ourselves and feel happier? Numerous social psychological studies have confirmed Aristotle’s observation that "We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage." If we are dissatisfied with some aspect of our lives, one of the best approaches is to act more like the person we want to be, rather than sitting around analyzing ourselves.

    Social psychologist Daniel Batson and colleagues at the University of Kansas found that participants who were given an opportunity to do a favor for another person ended up viewing themselves as kind, considerate people – unless, that is, they were asked to reflect on why they had done the favor. People in that group tended in the end to not view themselves as being especially kind.

A joyous time for all Americans!

Link: White House Celebrates Fifth Straight Year Without Oral Sex | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

WASHINGTON, DC—With 2005 drawing to a close, the White House held a special ceremony in the East Room Saturday to commemorate its fifth year without any sort of oral-genital contact within its historic confines. "This administration has upheld its promise to restore dignity to the White House," President Bush said. "I can assure that no one—including myself, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, ‘Scooter’ Libby, or Condi Rice—has been the recipient, or provider, of the kind of unnatural, depraved, and frankly gross sexual act that, not too long ago, disgraced this office in the eyes of the world." Bush was then joined on stage by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Tom DeLay to cut a perfectly square, frostingless vanilla cake made especially for the occasion.

Bob Herbert’s column yesterday (TimesSelect only) is not new. Black intellectuals from time to time issue their regular condemnation of the state of ghetto culture. The rap music! The basketball shoes! The drugs and sex!

They’re right, though. In my experience, my black high school friends who are fans of the ghetto culture truly dig it, and my white high school friends also dig it, but for different reasons. My white friends think it’s cool and hip now, but know deep down that they’ll soon outgrow it and start listening to rock n roll. This dynamic sows the seeds of racism, as the whites think they’ll soon graduate to something more sophisticated, while blacks continue to revel in such "a dirty culture." This – along with affirmative action, which surrounds white kids in my private school with minority students who struggle way more academically, therefore affirming unborn stereotypes of innate academic inferiority – is why we still have racist adults.

It starts when you’re in school.

Pretty much all of yesterday’s NYT Magazine section is a must-read, but all of you must read the fantastic listing and bite size commentaries on the Best Ideas of 2005. Tons of wacky, intriguing, and provocative ideas that shaped 2005. Thoroughly entertaining. Better read in print, but if you want online, you can check out this Introduction to the list. Great stuff.

While you’re perusing the magazine, check out the Freakonomics column on whether fear of AIDS can prevent it and the Deborah Solomon interview w/ the guy who recently wrote a book compiling every major idea ever invented over the past 2 million years.

Anytime Will Ferrell impersonates George W. Bush, it’s a must-see. The Gore v. Bush debate on SNL is a classic. This time, watch President Bush’s take on global warming. I laughed uncontrollably. Great stuff.

hat tip: Feld Thoughts.