Therapists for years have listened to patients blame parents for their problems. Now there is growing interest in the other side of the story: What about the suffering of parents who are estranged from their adult children? While there are no official tallies of parents whose adult children have cut them off, there is no [...]
Archive for May, 2010
When It Comes to Sex, Chimps Need Help, Too
Posted in Natural sciences on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
The human ego has never been quite the same since the day in 1960 that Jane Goodall observed a chimpanzee feasting on termites near Lake Tanganyika. After carefully trimming a blade of grass, the chimpanzee poked it into a passage in the termite mound to extract his meal. No longer could humans claim to be [...]
Of Compost, Molecules and Insects, Art Is Born
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
Keith W. Bentley’s “Cauda Equina” (1995-2007). The word organic means different things to different people. To the gardener it means compost heaps. To the chemist it means carbon compounds. To the artist Fabian Peña, it means American cockroaches, those chunky nocturnal charmers often seen skittering around drainpipes or on the street. “I have collected cockroaches [...]
A New Openness to Discussing Allied War Crimes in WWII
Posted in Conflicts and wars, History on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
D-Day may have been the beginning of the end of Germany’s campaign of horror during World War II. But a new book by British historian Antony Beevor makes it clear that the “greatest generation” wasn’t above committing a few war crimes of its own. It was the first crime William E. Jones had ever committed, [...]
The rise of content farms Can technology help make online content pay? Our ceramic-mugs correspondent writes THIS week the Wall Street Journal, the pride of News Corporation’s stable of newspapers, launched a 12-page daily section of local news in New York, in a direct challenge to the New York Times. The premise behind the launch [...]
Court Puts Pressure on Germany to Open Adolf Eichmann Files
Posted in Conflicts and wars, History, Law on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
Guilty — Adolf Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Germany’s secret service has lost a court battle to keep secret thousands of potentially embarrassing files on Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. Even though it remains unclear when and how many of the files will be opened, the ruling sets a precedent that could force [...]
The joy of six
Posted in Politics on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
The Netherlands Antilles Curaçao savours the prospect of autonomy AS independence struggles go, the process of dismantling the federation of the Netherlands Antilles is about as orderly and peaceful as it gets. On 10-10-10 (October 10th 2010) Curaçao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius will go their separate ways—but only up to a point. [...]
The hormone of laddishness
Posted in Health on May 5, 2010 | Comments Off
Oestrogen, not testosterone, is what makes a male act like a male IN ALL species that practise sexual reproduction, males and females show gender-specific behaviours. These range from the way they mate to the way they defend—or fail to defend—their territory. Both males and females start out with the same template at birth, but then [...]
Attack of the Hipsters
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
How the serious art world got rocked by Pop—and has yet to recover No conversation about Pop Art can go five minutes without the obligatory bow to French Impressionism. The comparison is irresistible: Each art movement defied a furiously hostile aesthetic establishment and triumphed, effectively destroying that establishment in the process. And each did so [...]
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Posted in Living on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
A longing for the perfect life in the perfect environment can make real-estate listings as evocative as novels. For all the esoteric talk of tranches and credit-default swaps, the recent financial meltdown began with something far more primal: house lust and its accompanying dreams and delusions. “There is no object of desire quite like a [...]
When Apple Calls the Cops
Posted in Computers, Editorials and opinion on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
The First Amendment doesn’t only belong to journalists. Jason Chen is a newsman. Or is he? That’s just one question raised by the raid on Mr. Chen’s home by the San Mateo County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office, which carted off some computers and other electronic equipment. The search warrant appears to be the result of an [...]
Honest Ahmadinejad
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should get out more. We mean that without irony. The Iranian President spoke yesterday in New York at the start of the U.N. conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and nothing could have done more to expose the folly of relying on arms control to maintain global security. The Iranian couldn’t have been [...]
Drilling in Deep Water
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
A ban on offshore production won’t mean fewer oil spills. It could be months before we know what caused the explosion and oil spill below the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. But as we add up the economic costs and environmental damage (and mourn the 11 oil workers who died), we should also put the disaster [...]
The NPT Illusion
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Iran on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
Disarmament fantasies help the Iranian regime. These are strange days for New York City’s finest. Over the weekend, they deployed in force to find the terrorist who tried to bomb Times Square. Yesterday, they deployed in force to protect the terrorist who is president of Iran. One of these guys works in propane, fireworks and [...]
Democrats at Ramming Speed
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
The White House wants to pass as much legislation as possible before losing its big majorities, no matter how unpopular its proposals are. President Reagan had a sign on his desk that said, “It’s amazing how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” If President Obama had a sign, it [...]
The Return of Rusty Sabich
Posted in Literature on May 4, 2010 | Comments Off
The Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of high-profile authors who convene yearly to perform covers of pop hits from the ’50s and ’60s, were here at the Nokia Theatre in late April as part of their “Wordstock” tour to benefit the children of Haiti. “They’ve sold more books than the Doors, the Beatles and the [...]
Group Think
Posted in Mathematics on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
My wife and I have different sleeping styles — and our mattress shows it. She hoards the pillows, thrashes around all night long, and barely dents the mattress, while I lie on my back, mummy-like, molding a cavernous depression into my side of the bed. Bed manufacturers recommend flipping your mattress periodically, probably with people [...]
Chávez Decaffeinates Venezuela
Posted in Editorials and opinion, tagged Venezuela on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Coffee shortages predictably follow his price controls. The late Milton Friedman once quipped that “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Friedman was using hyperbole to make a point about central planning. Or so I thought until Hugo Chávez put himself [...]
Mrs. Clinton, Tear Down this Cyberwall
Posted in Computers, Editorials and opinion on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
The State Department is sitting on funds to free the flow of information in closed societies. When a government department refuses to spend money that Congress has allocated, there’s usually a telling backstory. This is doubly so when the funds are for a purpose as uncontroversial as making the Internet freer. So why has the [...]
Miles To Go
Posted in Living on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Sometimes I can’t tell why I’m exhausted. Is it from the 100-plus miles per week I run to prepare my body for the grueling demands of a 26.2 mile race? Or is it from the insomnia that pulls me out of bed at 3 a.m. to pound out a 20 miler on the treadmill at [...]
Tintin in the Land of the Lawyers
Posted in Strange but true on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Why hide a piece of Belgium’s colonial history? “Baboons! Baby-snatchers! Bagpipers! Bald-headed budgerigar! Bandits! Bashi-bazouks! Bath-tub Admiral! Beast! Belemnite! Big-head!” -Captain Haddock, The Adventures of Tintin. Georges Remi’s tales of Belgium’s best-loved Boy Reporter come with no shortage of insults for just about everyone. Their deft caricatures, and the vituperations regularly hurled by Tintin’s sidekicks, [...]
EU Agrees to Prop Up Greece
Posted in Economy and business, Politics, tagged Greece on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
110 Billion Euro Package A man sitting outside the Bank of Greece next to graffiti reading “IMF Out.” On Sunday, European finance ministers agreed to a bail-out package for the country. European promises of solidarity with Greece were not enough. Over the weekend, euro zone finance ministers agreed on a €110 billion package for Athens [...]
The show goes on
Posted in Politics, tagged Nicaragua on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua More blows against democracy THE smashed windows and broken doors have been replaced, but daylight still shines through holes punched into the porch of the Holiday Inn in Managua by home-made mortars. On April 20th the hotel became the latest battleground in Daniel Ortega’s struggle to remain president of Nicaragua after his [...]
Founding Amateurs?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, History, Politics on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
THE American public is not pleased with Congress — one recent poll shows that less than a third of all voters are eager to support their representative in November. “I am not really happy right now with anybody,” a woman from Decatur, Ill., recently told a Washington Post reporter. As she considered the prospect of [...]
Obesity is spreading—and eating away at America’s economy and health. Theodore Dalrymple on how society can bite back. These days, it seems, almost everyone has a habit that he can’t control. For millions of people, this habit is overeating. Never have so many human mastodons bestridden the earth as now. At one time, not so [...]
Intimations of Mortality
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
In his introspective ‘Mrs. Edith Mahon,’ Thomas Eakins penetrates the inner self She sits in a barely visible chair and looks directly at us with an expression that reveals as much as it conceals. The painter was Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), one of America’s greatest artists of the 19th century. From the 1870s to the turn [...]
The week ahead
Posted in The Week ahead, tagged May 2 2010 on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
A general election in Britain that’s too close to call • BRITAIN goes to the polls on Thursday May 6th for what should be the closest election in many years. Most opinion polls suggest that an unexpected surge by the country’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, is likely to mean that neither Labour nor the [...]
The Borders We Deserve
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Immigration on May 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Critics of Arizona’s new immigration law have not been shy about impugning the motives of its supporters. The measure, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they question or detain, has been denounced as a “Nazi” or “near-fascist” law, a “police state” intervention, an imitation of “apartheid,” a “Juan Crow” regime that [...]
Altered states
Posted in History on May 2, 2010 | Comments Off
The strange history of efforts to redraw the New England map For most Americans, the notion of adding a 51st state to the Union seems about as likely as adding a new president to Mount Rushmore. But it wasn’t always so. Previous generations saw the US map as a work in progress, a collaborative effort [...]
Islam’s beginnings
Posted in Religion on May 2, 2010 | Comments Off
Mohammed’s early movement was a surprisingly big tent, says historian Fred M. Donner The first followers of Christ didn’t consider themselves ’’Christians’’; they were Jews who believed that a fellow Jew named Jesus Christ was the long-awaited messiah. It took centuries for Christianity to evolve and solidify as a distinct faith with its own doctrine [...]
