“There is a cure for poverty. It is a rudimentary one, it does work, though. It works everywhere, and for the same reason. It’s colloquially called ‘the empowerment of women.’ It’s the only thing that does work. If you allow women control over their cycle of reproduction, so that they are not chained by their [...]
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Since the cold of the winter months have come upon us once again (Every year?), I have been inundated with the second-hand marijuana smoke of my neighbor. Let me try to explain. The house where I live has a forced-air central heating system through which all of the apartments are connected. I have returned to [...]
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“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if [...]
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Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. It turns out that the NFL Players Association and the owners have reached an agreement and the 2011 NFL football season will go on. And, college football began last week. Stop crying, America! We will still have something to do over the weekends this fall. It has all worked [...]
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In the last few days, the temperature in Ann Arbor plummeted 35 degrees. On Friday, September 2, 2011, the high temperature was a balmy and humid 95oF. On Monday, September 5, 2011, the high was a (seemingly) chilly 60oF. After this change, I started to feel a slight scratchiness in the back of my throat, [...]
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It is back-to-school time again. As the University of Michigan students begin their re-immigration to Ann Arbor, some will be presented with a surprise: the U of M has become a smoke-free campus. The University of Michigan – as of July 1, 2011 – has initiated its Smoke-Free University Initiative. Robert Winfield, M.D., the Chief [...]
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Don’t feel bad. The entire point of “Word of the Day” activities is to expand your vocabulary. So, really, truly, don’t feel bad if you don’t know the word “misandry.” In point of fact, the spell check on the computer I am currently using doesn’t recognize it. There is that highly annoying, squiggly red line [...]
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My mother had a bit of a health scare last week. My younger brother was able to take the day off of work when it happened (a Thursday), and I was able to visit her over the weekend. It turned out to be nothing, thankfully, but she was still feeling a little weak and dizzy [...]
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This posting was originally published on the Scientific American Guest Blog. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But, they are more or [...]
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It is in the nature of humans, I think, for us to look back and attempt to rewrite history. We try to answer questions such as “What lessons can be learned?” and “What mistakes were made?” In this vein, with the release of the last Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part [...]
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Since the 1940s, the well-known magazine, Highlights for Children, has had a popular column that attempts to socialize children into behaving in ways that follow Western mores. The two children in the cartoons, Goofus and Gallant, are proxies for the archetypes of bad and good behavior, respectively. Goofus will take more apples than he is [...]
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been in the news recently after their blog post recommendations for emergency preparedness, described as a means of surviving a zombie apocalypse. This started me thinking. What if Night of the Living Dead or I Am Legend actually occurred? I am hoping that you have spent [...]
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Perhaps, It Gets Better (Maybe): The Legacy of Social Media?
by Mark Stewart on October 7, 2011
One year ago, if you will recall, our country began to seem to be a locale where teen suicides were of epidemic proportions. Furthermore, it seemed that there was a strong link between these teen suicides and bullying based on hatred of particular sexual orientations. Raymond Chase, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Tyler Clementi, Ryan Halligan, [...]
Tagged as: Communication, it gets better, Social Media
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