Depression: Not So Depressing Anymore?

Nice long piece in the NYT about the long history of diagnosis, theory and treatment. I missed some key elements going from pg. 1 to pg. 7 and rushing this to you, because I don't have time to read it all right now. Something about cell death in the hippocampus.
You're welcome.

My Confirmation Bias

is to find as much evidence as I can that Freud was a fraud.
I never expect to learn otherwise. It's hard, baby, life is struggle.
Oh, wait...

...although Freud’s work is still a big part of pop culture and everyday language – Freudian slips, repression, anal retentiveness, etc. – it’s mostly bunk, and you know this because psychology became a proper science over the last century with rigorous lab work published in peer reviewed journals. Today, scientists are still slicing away at the problem of consciousness and the ego, or what we now call the self, and that brings us back to Roy F. Baumeister and his bowl of cookies.

I love this stuff, I really do. Especially when it tells me that my cigarette craving is not only normal, but mostly because I am ego depleted.

OMG, A Black Man In The White House!

I went to some trouble to get this recent picture of Obama sitting on the Rosa Parks bus while visiting the Henry Ford Museum, so I hope you appreciate it. Also.

Comment O' Teh Day

publishermike

If the GOP had its way, it would declare anyone who could not mark their ballot with their penis ineligible to vote.

Comment on a story about the Dems bringing up the Violence Against Women Act and the Republican objection to added protection for same-sex couples and illegal immigrants. Those victims will just have to relax and enjoy it apparently. 

It's Slacker Week

at Contrarienne's, not that I've been slacking, but I did blow off two regular and sometimes major activities just so I could, uh, slack off from being in constant mental and physical motion.
And as the enclosed analysis of a new entertainment trend toward young female losers indicates, Virginia Woolf says it's okay.

 "It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top."

So put down that pen, that frying pan, that basket of laundry, that phone, that book. Hide your car keys.
Let your mind wander.
Turn off the internet. Well, on second thought, leave the internet on. It's life itself.
If I start making a movie about a 68-year-old retired woman who spends her days online and at the beck and call of three slacker dogs,  could I sell it to HBO?
 Uh, no.
Well, never mind, dear. Is there any more ice cream?

Smitten With Swinton

Tilda Swinton's great-grandmother. That is all.