Last Thursday, a panel of state appellate court judges ruled that proclamations of a Colorado Day of Prayer by successive governors violated the ‘Preference Clause’, the state constitution’s equivalent of the Establishment Clause of the federal constitution. The judges state in their opinion what should be obvious, that not having the government endorse their praying is not tantamount to not allowing them to pray at all. [Read more…]
An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal says that people nowadays whine too much and that some therapists are adopting new ‘tough love’ strategies that tells them to cut it out.
Moms, and bosses, are good at this. Some therapists are refusing to let clients complain endlessly, as well—offering up Tough Love in place of the nurturing gaze and the question “How does that make you feel?”
They’re setting time limits on how long a client can stay on certain topics and declaring some topics off-limits altogether.
…
Douglas Maxwell, a licensed psychoanalyst in Manhattan and president of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, says constant complaining is often a “resistance,” and the person whining is often unaware of it.With a client who gripes incessantly about a problem without making progress, he will say: “Stop. No more complaints. I don’t want to hear about this one more day. You must talk about something else.”
Actually, Bob Newhart recommended this same kind of therapy many years ago.
In a previous post, I mused about the incessant swearing in the premier episode in the new HBO comedy Veep and wondered how normal it was. The comments from people familiar with that world suggested that it was quite common for people in high levels of government to swear all the time. [Read more…]
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have organized a big rally in New York city this coming Sunday, featuring leading rabbis as speakers, to warn about the dangers of the internet and as part of their ongoing war “Against the Scourge of Technology”. Publicity for the event says: [Read more…]
(Note: I accidentally posted a draft of this yesterday before it was ready for publishing. I deleted the draft and am reposting it today with some additional editing and new material. I apologize for any confusion.)
I myself do not routinely swear. But when I accidentally do something stupid and hurt myself, I will find myself involuntarily swearing. I am sure that many people have had that same experience or at least being strongly tempted to swear when experiencing pain. But why do we do that? [Read more…]
One of the most pernicious developments in modern journalism is the number of newspaper reports that feature anonymous sources. Anonymity is allowable and understandable for whistleblowers who risk retaliation for exposing wrongdoing or for victims of crimes or are otherwise in danger but now it is routinely given to high officials who are merely seeking to advance an agenda or are fighting internal turf wars and do not want their fingerprints over it. [Read more…]
The piling up of anger at the TSA continues and more people with access to media are being hit. The Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg describes a crotch issue involving his elderly mother-in-law and Henry Kissinger got the ‘full Monty’ pat down, even though he was in a wheelchair. [Read more…]
I saw the Ben Stiller film Greenberg (2010) recently. It is not your typical Stiller comedy. In fact, it is not a comedy at all, more a drama as he plays a neurotic and self-centered person recovering from a nervous breakdown returning from New York to his roots in California and trying to connect with his old friends and society and having a rough time doing so. [Read more…]