The Boston Globe reports: The journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior has published a remarkable series of articles on the effectiveness of suicide hot lines, opening a window into the world of desperate people and the volunteers who try to help them get through the night. Two of the unprecedented studies involved eavesdropping on suicide hot-line [...]
Archive for November, 2011
Historian Ian Buruma has written an interesting essay on the aged neoconservative Norman Podhoretz and his crazy new book, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, for the new New York Review of Books. I have never been one to believe that the way to discredit an idea is by psychologizing its proponents and [...]
So for anyone who didn’t see Britney Spears’ horrendous “come back” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, behold it in all its infamy. But even better than that was Sarah Silverman’s performance immediately following it (found here). It’s absolutely hysterical, but not many people are laughing–probably because it hurts to be that accurately insulted. [...]
The Indian state of Kerala has often been held up by leftists like Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen and MIT’s Noam Chomsky as example of how governments can keep income distribution equitable and make people better off. Unfortunately for that view, Kerala’s successes are largely dependent on global capitalism. From the New York Times: [...]
China has become far too easily offended. This hysterical James Brown interview has been around for a while, but I just became aware of it, so I present it to you. While we’re on the subject of James Brown, here’s a video of him performing “It’s a Man’s World” with the recently deceased Luciano Pavarotti. [...]
This Esquire article about “radical honesty” is amazing. The basic premise of radical honesty is that by always saying exactly what’s on your mind you can improve your life. The author attempts it for a few weeks (with some pretty hilarious results) and ultimately finds it too extreme but also concludes that being honest more [...]
Is it just me, or has Amy Winehouse cycled through the stages of stardom (unknown, pop sensation, hopeless drug addict) faster than anyone ever? Apparently, her in laws are now urging people to stop buying her music so she and their son will have less money to blow on drugs. Writing in The Guardian, English [...]
MLB.com is running a good story about the possibility that this year could go down for the greatest season of baseball ever. I’ve already mentioned the absurd number of stat milestones reached this year, but it never hurts to recap: The all-time home run record fell to Barry Bonds’ picture-perfect swing. Tom Glavine notched his [...]
