Monday, February 29, 2016
I fear so …
… An Ignorant Time by Stefan Kanfer, City Journal February 29, 2016. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Kanfer provides help along the way for those who may not know as much as they should.
Sketching life...update...
A few weeks ago I wrote on Books Inq. here about a project I was engaged in that had the potential of helping thousands. I'm done with the first step, filing a Complaint to attempt to lift the state's misguided ban on necessary medical help for trans people who are Medicaid eligible. These are among the neediest people you could ever meet (if you could stand to look at them) through no fault of their own, but who have been cursed with a brain anatomy that is at odds with their body, a condition that most of society deems shameful and sinful. As philly.com noted in an article last week on the case, the governor agrees with our suit:
"The Pa. Code precludes coverage through Medicaid for gender confirmation medical care and surgical procedures. Governor Wolf believes this is wrong," Wolf spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan said in a prepared statement. "Pennsylvania should not discriminate against any individual based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression."
The best of books …
… Aeneid Book VI: Seamus Heaney’s miraculous return from literary afterlife. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Heaney occasionally let fall his wish to translate the whole of Book VI, but with his death, in 2013, the possibility seemed to have gone. But now, wonderfully, his daughter, Catherine, and Matthew Hollis at Faber and Faber have overseen his full version, a miraculous return from the literary afterlife and a brilliant capstone to the imposing edifice of his writing.
The "Absence of Absences"
Six years ago I submitted a paper for a panel, “On the Absence of Absences” that was to be part of an academic conference later that year—in August 2010. Then, and now, I had no idea what the phrase “absence of absences” meant. The description provided by the panel organizers, printed below, did not help. The summary, or abstract of the proposed paper—was pure gibberish, as you can see below. I tried, as best I could within the limits of my own vocabulary, to write something that had many big words but which made no sense whatsoever. I not only wanted to see if I could fool the panel organizers and get my paper accepted, I also wanted to pull the curtain on the absurd pretentions of some segments of academic life. To my astonishment, the two panel organizers—both American sociologists—accepted my proposal and invited me to join them at the annual international conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science to be held that year in Tokyo.
Mark thy calendar …
THE GREEN LINE CAFE
READING & INTERVIEW SERIES
PRESENTS:
BILL ZAVATSKY
author of Where X Marks The Spot
Reading & Interview
HOSTED BY
LEONARD GONTAREK
45TH & LOCUST STREETS,
Philadelphia, PA
http://greenlinecafe.com/
This Event Is Free
Bill Zavatsky holds B.A. and M.F.A degrees from Columbia University. He has taught at all levels of education. including a long stint at the high school at the Trinity School in Manhattan, and at the Eugene Lang College of the New School. His poetry-writing workshop has been ongoing at the Morningside Heights Library since May of 2013. Last fall he taught a guided reading course in William Carlos Williams for Brooklyn Poets.
Bill has published three books of poems, Where X Marks the Spot, For Steve Royal and Other Poems, and Theories of Rain and Other Poems. His translation (with Zack Rogow) of André Breton’s Earthlight won the PEN/Book-of-the Month Translation Prize. His revised translation (with Ron Padgett) of Valery Larbaud’s The Poems of A.O. Barnabooth is also available. His translations of poems by Robert Desnos appear in The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry and in Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos, edited by Mary Ann Caws. He recently published Rimbaud: 10 Poems, translations of works by the French poet.
Bill has published in many magazines and anthologies and reads his work widely. His poems have served as liner notes for recordings by jazz pianists Bill Evans and Marc Copland.
The New York State Council on the Arts awarded Bill a fellowship in poetry, as did the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 and 2008 Bill received MacDowell Colony fellowships. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry in 2008.
READING & INTERVIEW SERIES
PRESENTS:
BILL ZAVATSKY
author of Where X Marks The Spot
Reading & Interview
HOSTED BY
LEONARD GONTAREK
45TH & LOCUST STREETS,
Philadelphia, PA
http://greenlinecafe.com/
This Event Is Free
Bill Zavatsky holds B.A. and M.F.A degrees from Columbia University. He has taught at all levels of education. including a long stint at the high school at the Trinity School in Manhattan, and at the Eugene Lang College of the New School. His poetry-writing workshop has been ongoing at the Morningside Heights Library since May of 2013. Last fall he taught a guided reading course in William Carlos Williams for Brooklyn Poets.
Bill has published three books of poems, Where X Marks the Spot, For Steve Royal and Other Poems, and Theories of Rain and Other Poems. His translation (with Zack Rogow) of André Breton’s Earthlight won the PEN/Book-of-the Month Translation Prize. His revised translation (with Ron Padgett) of Valery Larbaud’s The Poems of A.O. Barnabooth is also available. His translations of poems by Robert Desnos appear in The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry and in Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos, edited by Mary Ann Caws. He recently published Rimbaud: 10 Poems, translations of works by the French poet.
Bill has published in many magazines and anthologies and reads his work widely. His poems have served as liner notes for recordings by jazz pianists Bill Evans and Marc Copland.
The New York State Council on the Arts awarded Bill a fellowship in poetry, as did the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 and 2008 Bill received MacDowell Colony fellowships. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry in 2008.
Nothing to be proud of here …
… These Racist Collectibles Will Make Your Skin Crawl | Mother Jones. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Valuable archive …
… Rosa Parks' Papers Are Now Online | Smart News | Smithsonian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Here is the link.
Here is the link.
The bonus day …
… Jane Hirshfield's February 29 from The Beauty is the perfect leap day poem. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden. Dave Lull also sent a link.)
Fact-checking Leo …
… Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar Climate Change Grandstand - Hit & Run : Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is good that someone takes the trouble to do this sort of thing, since I suppose there are people who take what a specialist in make-believe has to say about such things. (This is the fellow who mistook the chinook wind for a sign of global warming.)
Well, dumb me …
Regarding this post from last week, Music of the spheres …, it looks as if I got taken in. I was curious as to why I could find nothing else about it, so I wrote to Dave Lull, who pointed out that there is a disclaimer at the bottom of Submediant's website indicating that it is a satirical site. Well, if you can't laugh at yourself, you have no sense of humor. So join me in the fun.
Something to think on …
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
— Dr. Johnson
Art and life …
… Don’t Stop Believing - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… what makes “Don Quixote” the first fiction, according to Mr. Egginton, is not just that the reader “knows it is untrue and yet treats it for a time as if it were true,” but that in addition the reader keeps seeing what is going on from differing perspectives. There is no fixed or stable viewpoint; instead, one moment we see the world as Don Quixote sees it, the next as his bumbling squire Sancho Panza sees it, then as the narrator sees it.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
A change of sensibility …
… Beauty and Ugliness by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Winter 2016. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Unequal outcomes …
… The University Bookman: Reading Sowell in the Badlands. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Much of Sowell’s writing here feels like common sense—and it is. But we are losing touch with common sense given what passes for discourse in our era. Faulty premises are contagious, and Sowell is helpful in identifying many places where we are at risk of infection, such as the “toxic confusion” caused by calling achievements “privileges.” More to the point of today’s “debates” is the critical question of why anyone expects equality now when it has never existed on our planet. Outcomes for any human activity from economics to inventions to sport cannot be random (or “equal”) because people act purposefully in response to varying needs, circumstances, and incentives. Labeling wealthy people “greedy” does not explain why anyone would give them money. In fact, people become wealthy when they produce something that others want or need.The neighborhoods mentioned at the top are quite familiar to me. I lived in Germantown for 20 years, and was born in Germantown Hospital. I spent the first eight years of my life about 10 blocks from that Broad and Erie intersection.
The triumph of gibberish …
… Academic Drivel Report.
See also: Academia Is Losing Its Mind.
This panel addresses absences—the gaps, silences, and remains within the construction of knowledge and ignorance—in order to contribute to an ongoing STS dialogue; one that has roots in Bloor's "sociology of error" to more recent work in agnotology (Proctor and Scheibinger) and in residues (Bowker and Star). From feminist and postcolonial theory, we have learned to be continually vigilant about the dynamics and non-dynamics in knowledge construction and application. This panel addresses these negations, unseen crevices, deletions, and leftovers from multiple perspectives. Its aims to identify and theorize some of those areas that demand our vigilance in order to broaden and provide systematic ways to understand how absences and gaps are a continual part of social interactions and our STS studies.Easy for them to say.
See also: Academia Is Losing Its Mind.
To kill or not …
… Thomas Nagel reviews ‘Objective Troy’ by Scott Shane — LRB 3 March 2016. (Ht tip, Dave Lull.)
The president as killer is a chilling new face of the role of commander-in-chief. I suspect that it is the personal, individualised nature of drone warfare that many people find so repellent. It is easier to be resigned to the slaughter of faceless multitudes by conventional missiles, bombs and artillery, with the inevitable attendant collateral damage, in pursuit of legitimate military objectives. War is hell, as we all know. But when the president puts someone on a kill list to be taken out by a precise drone strike, it creates the illusory sense of a more direct responsibility for that death than for the other kind. It feels like an execution, though it is just retail warfare, and the responsibility, individual and collective, is equally great in both cases.
Something to think on …
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
— Michel de Montaigne, born on this date in 1533
Saturday, February 27, 2016
An only child …
… Writer Clive James on a Boy’s Life in Post-War Australia - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Growing up, I realized quickly that books were a way to get away from the other kids in the neighborhood. I did a lot of playing in the streets and was quite athletic and good at it. But I always preferred to be alone reading and still do.
Lost and found …
… Writing Through Pain | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.
The pale blue sock I found in one of my cleaning frenzies did not belong to my daughter. It belonged to the ghost of my son, whom I had lost in childbirth. I had known him for less than a handful of minutes, when the nurses finally obliged and allowed me to hold him. I had named him Luca—which means Bringer of Light in Italian—when he was still in the womb. He died on his way out. His death brought a darkness so complete you could have pointed out a star in a clear night sky and I wouldn’t have seen a single thing.
When less is little indeed …
… ‘Strange Gods,’ by Susan Jacoby - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am always struck by how writers like Jacoby seem to presume that persons of faith are victims of the pleasure principle. There is more torment than pleasure in the serious practice of faith.
I am always struck by how writers like Jacoby seem to presume that persons of faith are victims of the pleasure principle. There is more torment than pleasure in the serious practice of faith.
Hmm …
… ‘War Music,’ by Christopher Logue - The New York Times. ( Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am enjoying Clive James's translation of Dante's Commedia, but I do not think I would enjoy Logue's version of Homer.
Miss Emily …
… Beyond Walden Pond: Final Harvest: taking time, while I have it, to read, study, and discuss the writing and the world of Emily Dickinson.
I love her poetry, but there is a special place in my heart for "There's a certain Slant of light" because the first I read it was a day in February when just that slant of light was manifest.
The brevity of life …
… may prevent you from reading all of this, but, like it or not, much of what he says is what a lot of people are thinking: Rubio reminds me of a tiny gay dog, yipping and yapping. | Luke Ford. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Somehow, the chatterers have lost sight of the fact that the elite establishment types represent well under 10% of the GOP voter base.You can be sure that most of the people who vote Republican and think of themselves as conservative don't spend their evening reading Hayek or Milton Friedman.
Something to think on …
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born on this date in 1807
Friday, February 26, 2016
Mary Shelley
It's been an interesting experience reading Frankenstein for the first time. For one, the book turned out to be an easier read than I'd expected. And while Shelley's prose can feel dated, there's a certain rhythm that emerges, a feeling of being "locked in." I enjoyed that.
The experience of reading Frankenstein turned out to be unexpected for a second reason, too: I couldn't immediately discern a moral message. This was especially strange because the book has a tendency to be repetitive in both its articulation and evaluation of emotion. Put differently, Frankenstein never amounted to a parable; instead, it read as an extended epistolary novel, charting human tumult within the artificial confines of letters.
That said, I suppose Shelley's book does - on some level, at least - impart a moral message. For me, that message amounted to a reminder: a reminder to embrace what's near.
Victor, for instance, is torn between ideas of creation and discovery, and the safety he associates with human relations. Over time, his creation of the daemon comes to represent an assault on this safety; it serves as a reminder that obsession has the potential to consume us.
That said, there's more here, I think, than the contrast between old and new, between humanity and brutality: there's an equally powerful strain in the novel focused on fear. Victor is tortured by his disdain for the monster (who is, after all, his own creation). At least part of this disdain is a result of the monster's features; but more of it, I think, is a result of the threat he subtly poses to Victor's imagination. There's a temptation here to move beyond the known, and that temptation is rooted in a willingness to shed fear. The daemon, in effect, suggests a universe beyond friends and family, one in which humanity gives birth to something which surmounts itself.
It is in this way that you might read Frankenstein as a book casting a conservative light on exploration and discovery. But I prefer, in the end, to read it as a meditation on obsession and revenge, and on the extent to which we would do well to remind ourselves - as people, as humans - that the best is often in front of us, and that what we seek to create in our image might never be quite as good as the real thing.
Those golden days of yesteryear …
… when Punk had something more to offer than a bunch of college-kid wannabes. For some reason, they have title of this one wrong. Obviously it is "Richard theTurd."
Our very own surveillance state. …
… Silk Road 2.0 Court Docs Show US Government Paid Carnegie Mellon Researchers To Unmask Tor Users | Techdirt.
Someone should remind everybody where the buck stops when it comes to this sort of thing.
Someone should remind everybody where the buck stops when it comes to this sort of thing.
Before and after …
… Pound's Metro by William Logan - The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The shock of modernity in Pound’s couplet has faded, but it’s jarring to compare what he was writing before that fateful encounter in the Métro. In Ripostes (1912): “When I behold how black, immortal ink/ Drips from my deathless pen—ah, well-away!” and “Golden rose the house, in the portal I saw/ thee, a marvel, carven in subtle stuff.” A smattering of modern diction seeps in elsewhere, but Pound’s imagination had been steeped in Victorian vagaries, with a weakness for the long-baked poeticisms of “ ’twould” and “ ’twas,” of “hath” and “ ’neath” and “ye” and “thou,” the language of Nineveh reconstructed from torn-up pages of the King James Version.
Haiku …
Cold, gray, the clouds part
From time to time, so sunlight,
Just as cold, may glare.
The old man can't help
But notice how hard the wind
Pushes against him.
Early warning …
… P G Wodehouse's essay: The Alarming Spread Of Poetry. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
On a sunny afternoon down in Washington Square one's progress is positively impeded by the swarms of young poets brought out by the warm weather. It is a horrible sight to see those unfortunate youths, who ought to be sitting happily at desks writing "Dear Sir, Your favor of the tenth inst. duly received and contents noted. In reply we beg to state...." wandering about with their fingers in their hair and their features distorted with the agony of composition, as they try to find rhymes to "cosmic" and "symbolism."
The Trump phenomenon …
… Clown Genius | Scott Adams Blog.
… Donald Trump is the best at Twitter. Here’s why.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Donald Trump is the best at Twitter. Here’s why.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Turabian, Hacker, Toni Morrison...
...the Top 3 female writers, according to this Top 100 study of female writers assigned in college classes
It's Trump With 97% Certainty...
To win the general election, says this PoliSci Professor...
Norpoth’s primary model works for every presidential election since 1912, with the notable exception of the 1960 election. These results give the model an accuracy of 96.1 percent.
Really? I loved To Build A Fire...
LOST JACK LONDON MS CALLED "THE DOGGY" FOUND
...According to Spellman, this is the most significant discovery in American literature since a copy of Robert Frost’s unpublished poem “Brrrrrr, It’s Cold” turned up in 2003.
(no, not really, it's The Onion)
Something to think on …
It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going.
— Anthony Burgess, born on this date in 1917
Today's music …
I hope this plays all the movements. If not, you can figure out to hear them if you want to.It will be worth your time.
Blogging note …
I have much to do today, most of which will take me all about town. So blogging will not resume until later on.
Vintage Q&A …
… Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 12, William Faulkner. (Hat tip, David Tothero.)
If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us. Proof of that is that there are about three candidates for the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. But what is important is Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, not who wrote them, but that somebody did. The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn’t have needed anyone since.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
You can't make this up …
… Another Group Therapy Session for Students Following Milo's University of Michigan Visit - Breitbart.
It has come to our attention that an event titled, “Does Feminism Have a Free Speech Problem?” is taking place this evening on our campus. We recognize that the rhetoric of the speakers featured in this event is incredibly harmful to many members of our campus community. The Spectrum Center will be providing a supportive alternative space this evening and holding extended staffed hours until 9pm. There will be no program; our intent is to offer a relaxing, positive space for students who want to gather in community.What are these people doing in college? "Incredibly harmful rhetoric"? Grow up, kiddies.
Q&A …
… Paradigms Lost: Interview with Gloria Brame – Dana Gioia. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Whenever a book attracts as much attention as Can Poetry Matter?, there are bound to be distortions. Once the public picks up on a particular set of ideas, it naturally turns them to its own end. I would be naive to complain about the predictable consequences of notoriety. One may dislike being misrepresented, but as Oscar Wilde observed, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” All artists are vain—even poet-critics. I do, however, insist that my views are better represented by what I have published in books and essays than by what a reviewer, columnist, or feature writer claims I believe. I am astonished by some of the things people mistakenly assume I have said—like “Poetry is now a dead art,” “Free verse is a bankrupt technique,” “No one reads contemporary poetry,” or “All Creative Writing Programs should be shut down.” I admit that last dictum is tempting, but I have always suggested reforming these programs, not destroying them. I suspect many critics project their own fears and desires into their image of me. It is easier to declare me a demon than address the points I raise.
Hmm …
… When Critics Become Professors - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
I am myself, of course, just a humble reviewer, aiming to give an honest account of my reading experience.
Snippets of conversation …
… Clive James on Death, Poetry, and His Brand New Bookshelves | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who died on this date in 1799
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Their Honors read poetry …
… The University Bookman: Four Federal Judges Celebrating Poetry at Poets House. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is a nice development. I hope others pick up on it.
This is a nice development. I hope others pick up on it.
Good idea …
… IQ2US Calls to Fix the Presidential Debates – IQ2 Debates. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Oxford-style debate would force the candidates to respond to intense questions, marshal relevant facts, and expose weaknesses in their opponents’ arguments. Memorized talking points could not be disguised as answers. This format would quickly reveal how well the candidates think on their feet, how deeply they know the subject, how well they understand the trade-offs, and how persuasive they are without teleprompters.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes …
… The rise of the Alpha-Homo: European gay men as the Right's new heroes - The Rebel.
The rise in gay men who are concerned about Europe’s future is not just limited to charismatic TV personalities. At the grassroots level too, there is a lot of evidence that Europe’s gay men are leading the way in opposition to Islamification.
Listen in …
… Episode 156 – Ross Benjamin | Virtual Memories.
“As a translator, your initial feeling is, ‘I want to inhabit this text.’ There’s a primary identification, a mirror effect, where you see your own creative possibilities reflected there, and want to realize them through this text.”
In case you wondered …
… Why Musicals Succeed | commentary. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
A Hammerstein-style show need not look or sound like The King and I to be a hit: Hammerstein’s rules pertain to structure, not content. No matter how up-to-date the score and subject matter of a musical are, its chances of success on Broadway will be higher if its dramatic architecture is traditional. By the same token, loosely plotted postmodern rock musicals like Passing Strange (2008) and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (2010), whatever their other virtues, are rarely attractive to those who go to Broadway in search of uncomplicated pleasure.
More in what he says …
… than in much of what they say: The Bad and the Ugly | Liberty Unbound. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
[Trump] showed that he just didn’t care what the managers of public discourse thought about him. He didn’t care that they wanted to shame him and shut him up. He just went on saying things — many of them goofy or tasteless or just plain wrong — and it soon became evident that the other candidates and their managers and the pressure groups who support them and the analysts and the academics and the would-be censors weren’t smart enough to know how to answer him. This general unmasking has to be good for the country, and perhaps for the world.
Something to think on …
A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
— W. E. B. Du Bois, born on this date in 1868
Monday, February 22, 2016
Resilience...
How people learn to be...from the New Yorker.
Perception is key to resilience: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as a chance to learn and grow?CREDITILLUSTRATION BY GIZEM VURAL
Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each day, he would arrive at school with the exact same sandwich: two slices of bread with nothing in between. At home, there was no other food available, and no one to make any. Even so, Garmezy would later recall, the boy wanted to make sure that “no one would feel pity for him and no one would know the ineptitude of his mother.” Each day, without fail, he would walk in with a smile on his face and a “bread sandwich” tucked into his bag.
The boy with the bread sandwich was part of a special group of children. He belonged to a cohort of kids—the first of many—whom Garmezy would go on to identify as succeeding, even excelling, despite incredibly difficult circumstances. These were the children who exhibited a trait Garmezy would later identify as “resilience.” (He is widely credited with being the first to study the concept in an experimental setting.) Over many years, Garmezy would visit schools across the country, focussing on those in economically depressed areas, and follow a standard protocol. He would set up meetings with the principal, along with a school social worker or nurse, and pose the same question: Were there any children whose backgrounds had initially raised red flags—kids who seemed likely to become problem kids—who had instead become, surprisingly, a source of pride? “What I was saying was, ‘Can you identify stressed children who are making it here in your school?’ ” Garmezy said, in a 1999 interview.“There would be a long pause after my inquiry before the answer came. If I had said, ‘Do you have kids in this school who seem to be troubled?,’ there wouldn’t have been a moment’s delay. But to be asked about children who were adaptive and good citizens in the school and making it even though they had come out of very disturbed backgrounds—that was a new sort of inquiry. That’s the way we began.”
Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists. Whether you can be said to have it or not largely depends not on any particular psychological test but on the way your life unfolds. If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?
Environmental threats can come in various guises. Some are the result of low socioeconomic status and challenging home conditions. (Those are the threats studied in Garmezy’s work.) Often, such threats—parents with psychological or other problems; exposure to violence or poor treatment; being a child of problematic divorce—are chronic. Other threats are acute: experiencing or witnessing a traumatic violent encounter, for example, or being in an accident. What matters is the intensity and the duration of the stressor. In the case of acute stressors, the intensity is usually high. The stress resulting from chronic adversity, Garmezy wrote, might be lower—but it “exerts repeated and cumulative impact on resources and adaptation and persists for many months and typically considerably longer.”
Prior to Garmezy’s work on resilience, most research on trauma and negative life events had a reverse focus. Instead of looking at areas of strength, it looked at areas of vulnerability, investigating the experiences that make people susceptible to poor life outcomes (or that lead kids to be “troubled,” as Garmezy put it). Garmezy’s work opened the door to the study of protective factors: the elements of an individual’s background or personality that could enable success despite the challenges they faced.
Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each day, he would arrive at school with the exact same sandwich: two slices of bread with nothing in between. At home, there was no other food available, and no one to make any. Even so, Garmezy would later recall, the boy wanted to make sure that “no one would feel pity for him and no one would know the ineptitude of his mother.” Each day, without fail, he would walk in with a smile on his face and a “bread sandwich” tucked into his bag.
The boy with the bread sandwich was part of a special group of children. He belonged to a cohort of kids—the first of many—whom Garmezy would go on to identify as succeeding, even excelling, despite incredibly difficult circumstances. These were the children who exhibited a trait Garmezy would later identify as “resilience.” (He is widely credited with being the first to study the concept in an experimental setting.) Over many years, Garmezy would visit schools across the country, focussing on those in economically depressed areas, and follow a standard protocol. He would set up meetings with the principal, along with a school social worker or nurse, and pose the same question: Were there any children whose backgrounds had initially raised red flags—kids who seemed likely to become problem kids—who had instead become, surprisingly, a source of pride? “What I was saying was, ‘Can you identify stressed children who are making it here in your school?’ ” Garmezy said, in a 1999 interview.“There would be a long pause after my inquiry before the answer came. If I had said, ‘Do you have kids in this school who seem to be troubled?,’ there wouldn’t have been a moment’s delay. But to be asked about children who were adaptive and good citizens in the school and making it even though they had come out of very disturbed backgrounds—that was a new sort of inquiry. That’s the way we began.”
Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists. Whether you can be said to have it or not largely depends not on any particular psychological test but on the way your life unfolds. If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?
Environmental threats can come in various guises. Some are the result of low socioeconomic status and challenging home conditions. (Those are the threats studied in Garmezy’s work.) Often, such threats—parents with psychological or other problems; exposure to violence or poor treatment; being a child of problematic divorce—are chronic. Other threats are acute: experiencing or witnessing a traumatic violent encounter, for example, or being in an accident. What matters is the intensity and the duration of the stressor. In the case of acute stressors, the intensity is usually high. The stress resulting from chronic adversity, Garmezy wrote, might be lower—but it “exerts repeated and cumulative impact on resources and adaptation and persists for many months and typically considerably longer.”
Prior to Garmezy’s work on resilience, most research on trauma and negative life events had a reverse focus. Instead of looking at areas of strength, it looked at areas of vulnerability, investigating the experiences that make people susceptible to poor life outcomes (or that lead kids to be “troubled,” as Garmezy put it). Garmezy’s work opened the door to the study of protective factors: the elements of an individual’s background or personality that could enable success despite the challenges they faced.
Birthday anniversary …
… Beyond Walden Pond: Edna St. Vincent Millay: remembering her birthday and pondering her place in the history of literature.
Millay entered Vassar in 1913 at the age of 20. She was petite, with flaming red-hair and personality to burn. She had affairs with men and women, and wrote, “People fall in love with me and annoy me and distress me and flatter me and excite me.”
Judicial stylist …
… The Justice as Writer | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Scalia's writing could swing in an instant from steely argument to wild lampoon and then combine the two and never lose its ease and gracefulness. Such a style can only be the product of exertions unseen by the reader. It requires unblinking attention and pitiless self-corrections made on the fly. The rest of us got a hint of what was involved in 2003, when William Safire, the language columnist for the New York Times — yes, my little ones, there once was such a person — asked the justice to explain a turn of phrase from a recent opinion.
For love of reading …
… One Man’s Impossible Quest to Read—and Review—the World - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
“I can’t imagine not doing it,” Orthofer told me. “A day in which I don’t read or write, I have trouble falling asleep.” His goal is to read a book a day, though he confesses that this is “unrealistic.” He works on weekends, too, and has written four novels that are in the drawer. His main interests, according to the site, are inline roller-skating in Central Park and building snow sculptures, some of which are big enough that he carves staircases inside them to get to the top. When he tires of working, he steps out to a library or bookstore, “to see, be around books.” Last year, and this year, he worked through Christmas.
Something to think on …
There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.
— Jules Renard, born on this date in 1864
Hear, hear...
...Why This Radical Leftist is Disillusioned by Leftist Culture
More to the point, the world is not a safe place. It is extremely dangerous, flawed, full of bloodshed and corruption. By sheltering ourselves from its harshness we are doing nothing meaningful to change it. If we are serious about confronting power we must throw ourselves into the danger and hurt that so many people have no choice but to live with. While self-care is necessary to sustain us in the long run, avoiding the darkness entirely is nothing more than a cop out.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Just a thought …
One of the problems — perhaps the principle problem — with scientific, philosophical, and religious discourse is how so often it veers off course. If theists are correct, God is supervising what is going on. That is a vastly different game than one that is programmed.
God is pure act. He experiences no bifurcation of thought and act. So it is what we do and how we do it, not why we do it, that puts us in touch with God. We cannot reason our way to salvation.
That is why simple tasks, like sweeping the patio, can prove so enlightening. One simply does them, the mind settles down, things luminesce, and a presence makes itself felt. I suppose that is what satori is all about.
Alan Watts put it well: "Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes."
Perhaps the best way to regard Pope Francis is as a kind of Catholic Zen Master. No reason that faith would necessarily give you the inside dope on politics or economics. No reason why it should exempt you from ordinary human foibles and failings. Genuine faith would allow you to manifest precisely that. For Francis, it seems, that means just him being Pope.
A great poem …
The Gospel at this morning's Mass was the episode describing Jesus' transfiguration. Which is good reason to link to this.
… The Transfiguration by Edwin Muir - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry
… The Transfiguration by Edwin Muir - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry
You have been warned …
… The Unbearable Asymmetry of Bullshit | Quillette. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
… there is one example I have only recently come across, and of which I have not yet seen any serious discussion. I am referring to a certain sustained, long-term publication strategy, apparently deliberately carried out (although motivations can be hard to pin down), that results in a stupefying, and in my view dangerous, paper-pile of scientific bullshit. It can be hard to detect, at first, with an untrained eye—you have to know your specific area of research extremely well to begin to see it—but once you do catch on, it becomes impossible to un-see.
… there is one example I have only recently come across, and of which I have not yet seen any serious discussion. I am referring to a certain sustained, long-term publication strategy, apparently deliberately carried out (although motivations can be hard to pin down), that results in a stupefying, and in my view dangerous, paper-pile of scientific bullshit. It can be hard to detect, at first, with an untrained eye—you have to know your specific area of research extremely well to begin to see it—but once you do catch on, it becomes impossible to un-see.
Eco on comic strips …
… On ‘Krazy Kat’ and ‘Peanuts’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) And here is John Aldn Carpenter's ballet based on the Herriman strip.
Something to think on …
If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.
— John Henry Newman, born on this date in 1801
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Testimony …
… I’m a liberal lawyer. Clerking for Scalia taught me how to think about the law. - The Washington Post.
If there was a true surprise during my year clerking for Scalia, it was how little reference he made to political outcomes. What he cared about was the law, and where the words on the page took him. More than any one opinion, this will be his lasting contribution to legal thought. Whatever our beliefs, he forced lawyers and scholars to engage on his terms — textual analysis and original meaning. He forced us all to acknowledge that words cannot mean anything we want them to mean; that we have to impose a degree of discipline on our thinking. A discipline I value to this day.
Sounds right to me …
… Why Stig Abell is right for the Times Literary Supplement | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Worth noting …
… The Most Common Misunderstandings About Evolution | RealClearScience.
Of course, among the reasons behind the misunderstandings would be a headline like this: Evolution Can Silence Harmful Mutations.
Evolution can't do anything. The theory explains the processes by which certain things happen.
Of course, among the reasons behind the misunderstandings would be a headline like this: Evolution Can Silence Harmful Mutations.
Evolution can't do anything. The theory explains the processes by which certain things happen.
Something to think on …
Hope is a risk that must be run.
— Georges Bernanos, born on this date in 1888
Friday, February 19, 2016
Sad news …
… Italian writer Umberto Eco dies at 84 - BBC News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I liked his books, and I liked him.
Appreciation …
… Remembering the Great Man | George Hunka. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The time is ripe for a critical reassessment of Fields’ career, which hasn’t been attempted since William K. Everson’s 1967 The Art of W.C. Fields. Just this month, Taylor Trade Publishing reissuedW.C. Fields by Himself, a 1973 collection of essays, ephemera, and letters by Fields and edited by his grandson, Ronald J. Fields (I devoured this book when it was first published), and last October Universal issued a five-DVD set, the W.C. Fields Comedy Essentials Collection, which collects 18 of Fields’ films from Paramount and Universal, most of them classics (among which I would place You’re Telling Me, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, and It’s a Gift, an unintended trilogy of small-town America satires) and all of them necessary to an understanding of his career. In addition, many of Fields’ silent features, unavailable for years and some previously considered lost, have finally been unearthed and are being restored and distributed
Well-curbed enthusiasm …
… Tolkien and Charles Williams – Snakes and Ladders. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Williams's All Hallows Eve has one of the most terrifying scenes of any book I have ever read.
In the comment below, Dave also sends along these:
Was Tolkien jealous of Charles Williams friendship with Lewis? Certainly NOT.
Tolkien and Lewis's annus divertium of 1936: a catalytic role for Charles Williams The Place of the Lion?
Williams's All Hallows Eve has one of the most terrifying scenes of any book I have ever read.
In the comment below, Dave also sends along these:
Was Tolkien jealous of Charles Williams friendship with Lewis? Certainly NOT.
Something to think on …
There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.
— Knut Hamsun, who died on this date in 1952
A history lesson …
… Like Most People, President Obama Gets The Crusades Wrong.
So walls, it turns out, aren't always bad.
It is axiomatic in military science that cavalry cannot succeed against well-armed and well-disciplined infantry formations unless they greatly outnumber them…. When determined infantry hold their ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder to present a wall of shields from which they project a thicket of long spears butted in the ground, cavalry charges are easily turned away; the horses often rear out of control and refuse to meet the spears.
So walls, it turns out, aren't always bad.
Man and machine …
… The Chess Master and the Computer by Garry Kasparov | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… I am much more interested in using the chess laboratory to illuminate the workings of the human mind, not the artificial mind. As I put it in my 2007 book, How Life Imitates Chess, “Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind and are then refined and improved by experience.” Coincidentally the section in which that phrase appears is titled “More than a metaphor.” It makes the case for using the decision-making process of chess as a model for understanding and improving our decision-making everywhere else.
Barely broken darkness...
...Looking at Edvard Munch, Beyond ‘The Scream’
The paintings from the last decades of his life are a funny mix. Some, like the gaunt self-portrait called “The Night Wanderer” (1923-24), are tight, shadowy, theatrically haunted things. They look like visions of an earlier age, illuminated by gaslight. And there are outdoor scenes, set on beaches, with pale nude bodies in beating-down sunlight. The painting style can look loose to a fault, flabby, but it can also point, bracingly, toward de Kooning. The Neue Galerie show points, even more bracingly, in the other direction and situates Munch and his contemporaries in the mid-spring of their lives, in the high-yield hours of noon to dusk.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Anither take on ancestry …
… Sandwalk: Are You a Descendant of Charlemagne? (Hat tip, Cynthia Haven.)
Actually, I'm rethinking this.
Not good …
… Pope: Trump Is 'Not Christian'.
I don't think the Pontiff should take it upon himself to decide who is Christian and who is not. There's nothing in the Gospel about global warming, either, your Holiness. Which hasn't kept you from going on about it. And you don't seem to have noticed anything un-Christian about the Castro brothers or their regime.
In case you wondered …
… Punctuation in novels — Medium.
… I wondered what did my favorite books look like without words. Can you tell them apart or are they all a-mush? In fact, they can be quite distinct. Take my all-time favorite book, Absalom, Absalom!by William Faulkner. It is dense prose stuffed with parentheticals. When placed next to a novel with more simplified prose — Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy — it is a stark difference (see above).
Just so you know …
… Genetic Ancestry Is Basically a Horoscope | RealClearScience.
I've never understood why people are so interested in finding out if an ancestor of theirs was someone of note. Am I supposed to believe that I've done what I have because some ancestor of mine did what he did. Well, I don't.Think about it. As you travel back in time though your family history, the number of ancestors you have roughly doubles with every generation. Using the most conservative estimate of generation time -- 32 years -- in the year 1152, you had as many as 134,217,728 potential ancestors. And since genes are scrambled with every generation, it's very likely you share little to no genetic relation to most of them. They might as well be strangers!
Then and now …
… ‘You Could Look It Up’: The world before and since Wikipedia - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As befits a book about fact-filled books, “You Could Look It Up” regales the reader with odd bits of information. “Legal compendia are among the foundational reference works in every civilization.” According to “The Domesday Book” — William the Conqueror’s survey of his island kingdom — England had 28,235 slaves in 1085. In his famous dictionary Samuel Johnson notoriously, and gloriously, defined the word “network” as “any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.”
Something to think on …
My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, born on this date in 1883
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
And the winners are …
… Announcing the 2016 Axiom Business Book Awards Results.
2016 AXIOM BUSINESS BOOK AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Medalists Explore Generational Trends and Transformation
Medalists Explore Generational Trends and Transformation
(Traverse City, MI, Feb 17, 2016) One of the talking points of this year’s contentious election cycle is the effect the “millennial generation” will have on voting this November. “MILLENNIALS UNSETTLE RACE,” reads The Wall Street Journalheadline, and the article informs us it’s the first time millennials will match baby boomers in number, each representing 31% of the electorate. Polling data suggests millennials are even more liberal than younger generations in recent decades.
How does a savvy business person analyze and digest this information? By reading award-winning business books! In fact, one of this year’s gold medalists, 2 Billion Under 20 (St. Martin’s Press), explores the rising impact of the millennial generation thoroughly. “We are an ambitious melting pot of go-getters; members of a generation who are breaking down barriers in all walks of life and in all corners of the globe, working together to act on our passions and accomplish truly remarkable feats for anyone at any age,” boast the co-authors, aged 19 and 22.
Jenkins Group is proud to congratulate this book and the 75 other medalists chosen from nearly 500 entrants in the ninth annual Axiom Business Book Awards, honoring the best business books published during the past year. The winning books epitomize the Axiom Award motto, "Success through Knowledge," by offering the latest business information to help business people young and old succeed in a fast-changing world. See the complete results listing online at http://www.
Among this year’s 76 Axiom Award-winning titles, a frequent theme istransformation: how changing business practices can help meet the challenges of our digitally-driven world. Words like “rebalancing,” “disrupting” and “revolutionizing” appear on their covers, not to mention “remix,” “elevate” and even “overthrow.” InDisrupting Digital Business (Harvard Business Review Press), R. “Ray” Wang says, “In the digital world, customers require businesses to focus on delivering authentic experiences and outcomes. We’re moving from selling products to keeping brand promises.”
With this shift from selling “widgets” to selling “experiences and outcomes,” it stands to reason a shift in employee management is in order. As head of People Operations at Google, Lazlo Bock writes about how his company keeps their workers “in an environment of freedom, creativity, and play,” in the gold medal-winning WORK RULES! (Twelve/Hachette). “All it takes is a belief that people are fundamentally good—and enough courage to treat your people like owners instead of machines.”
Business success comes in many and varied ways. In the gold medal-winning A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, Brian Grazer explains how he began his Hollywood career at the very bottom, as a legal document courier. Grazer says he owes his steady climb to becoming one of today’s top movie producers to curiosity -- and enthusiasm for talking with “anyone and everyone” until something interesting happens. "What I think is so exciting about curiosity is that it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what your job is, or what your passion is," says Glazer. "There's a bonus: curiosity is free."
This year’s Axiom Award winners came from a blend of established New York publishers, university presses, and independent and self-publishers of various sizes. Medalists represent 17 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Women are also well-represented, with 26 female authors among the 100 total authors and co-authors.
See the complete listing online at http://www.
"Business success demands that business leaders keep learning and growing," said company founder Jerrold Jenkins. “This year’s Axiom Award-winning books offer the freshest ideas from the world’s brightest minds. "
For more about the Axiom Business Book Awards, visit the website at http://axiomawards.com/.
How does a savvy business person analyze and digest this information? By reading award-winning business books! In fact, one of this year’s gold medalists, 2 Billion Under 20 (St. Martin’s Press), explores the rising impact of the millennial generation thoroughly. “We are an ambitious melting pot of go-getters; members of a generation who are breaking down barriers in all walks of life and in all corners of the globe, working together to act on our passions and accomplish truly remarkable feats for anyone at any age,” boast the co-authors, aged 19 and 22.
Jenkins Group is proud to congratulate this book and the 75 other medalists chosen from nearly 500 entrants in the ninth annual Axiom Business Book Awards, honoring the best business books published during the past year. The winning books epitomize the Axiom Award motto, "Success through Knowledge," by offering the latest business information to help business people young and old succeed in a fast-changing world. See the complete results listing online at http://www.
Among this year’s 76 Axiom Award-winning titles, a frequent theme istransformation: how changing business practices can help meet the challenges of our digitally-driven world. Words like “rebalancing,” “disrupting” and “revolutionizing” appear on their covers, not to mention “remix,” “elevate” and even “overthrow.” InDisrupting Digital Business (Harvard Business Review Press), R. “Ray” Wang says, “In the digital world, customers require businesses to focus on delivering authentic experiences and outcomes. We’re moving from selling products to keeping brand promises.”
With this shift from selling “widgets” to selling “experiences and outcomes,” it stands to reason a shift in employee management is in order. As head of People Operations at Google, Lazlo Bock writes about how his company keeps their workers “in an environment of freedom, creativity, and play,” in the gold medal-winning WORK RULES! (Twelve/Hachette). “All it takes is a belief that people are fundamentally good—and enough courage to treat your people like owners instead of machines.”
Business success comes in many and varied ways. In the gold medal-winning A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, Brian Grazer explains how he began his Hollywood career at the very bottom, as a legal document courier. Grazer says he owes his steady climb to becoming one of today’s top movie producers to curiosity -- and enthusiasm for talking with “anyone and everyone” until something interesting happens. "What I think is so exciting about curiosity is that it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what your job is, or what your passion is," says Glazer. "There's a bonus: curiosity is free."
This year’s Axiom Award winners came from a blend of established New York publishers, university presses, and independent and self-publishers of various sizes. Medalists represent 17 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Women are also well-represented, with 26 female authors among the 100 total authors and co-authors.
See the complete listing online at http://www.
"Business success demands that business leaders keep learning and growing," said company founder Jerrold Jenkins. “This year’s Axiom Award-winning books offer the freshest ideas from the world’s brightest minds. "
For more about the Axiom Business Book Awards, visit the website at http://axiomawards.com/.
Haiku …
Not many places
Better to see death up close
Than a fish market.
Ordinary gray
Winter day. Pigeons take flight.
A strange contentment.
Words and silence …
… Enough Music by Dorianne Laux : American Life in Poetry. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Here we go again …
… Stephen Fry is just the latest victim in the authoritarian Left's war on funny - Telegraph.
Enough. Humour is one area of life where normal moral rules shouldn’t apply. Jokes are designed precisely to turn accepted wisdoms on their heads, to allows us to think and say outrageous things. The realm of comedy allows us to be rude, raucous, to experiment, to deal with life’s ridiculousness and wickedness by turning it into a joke.Hear, hear.
Appreciation …
… Phillis Wheatley: America’s First African American Poet. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Jefferson does not come well in this, but Washington does.
Something to think on …
Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, who died on this date in 1986
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
O tempora o mores …
Having the ever-serious George Will deliver this is brilliant. It is a perfectly classical reductio ad absurdum. And Will's deadpan demeanor adds immensely to the comedy.
Problematic …
…there is a major failure of science going on.The failure is the lack of transparency and honesty about how feeble these models are and how much we should stake on their all-too-fallible forecasts. Thus the same problem continues: climate science has once again botched a prediction that its models were underequipped to make.It seems that there can be no moderate and honest discussion of this issue. Skeptics are singled out in creepy enemies lists. Actually, we're now supposed to call them deniers, as though they were disputing the existence of HIV or the holocaust. Numerous scientists, as well as senators, anti-vaccination Kennedys, and clickbait purveyors have even called for the imprisonment and legal prosecution of those who disagree with them.