By Jonathan Shipley
A roundup.
I’m Empirically Bankrupt. So Are You . . .
In the December issue of Scientific American, there is a short discussion on a study done by political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University (home of the Mighty Brooks), who has been testing whether voters vote based on the pros and cons of arguments (Environmentalist vs. Hater of All Living Things) or emotions (Love vs. Lust), rationalizing the way they voted afterwards. Guess what? “The enlightenment model of dispassionate reason as the duty of citizenship is empirically bankrupt,” he concludes. I guess that explains the tingly feeling I get from Barack Obama.
Can You Stop Writing for Just One Second?
John Updike has a story in the December issue of Harper’s titled “Kinderscenen.” Holy cow, Updike, you write a lot! I wonder what your day is like. Wake up, write for 20 hours, eat porridge, eye doctor’s appointment, write, masturbate, sleep. How many novels have you written? 430? How many short stories? 128,307? How many essays, critiques, haiku poetry? Dude, stop already! If each sentence you’ve written was a mile and each word a spaceship, there’d be a lot of us flying out in space. And space is a scary place for just regular readers like me. Haven’t you seen, Mr. Updike, Mission to Mars and the horrible toll space played on Tim Robbins?
Got Fertility?
According to the most recent issue of Parents Magazine, there are several natural fertility boosters, including acupuncture, stress management, kicking bad habits like smoking and drinking, eating healthy, and herbal remedies. I think they’ve forgotten one: Having sex.
Grandma’s Brain Tastes Funny
The December issue of Mental Floss explores the fatal disease called kuru, once found Papua New Guinea. Kuru was contracted from eating human brains. Papua New Guineans ate the brains of dismembered loved ones at their funerals. No need to hire caterers, then.
Opium Going Op, Op, Op!
Ever since the pesky Taliban were overthrown, there’s been a huge increase in opium production in Afghanistan; a 49 percent increase since 2005, according to the Economist. Afghanistan supplies 92 percent of the world’s supply of opium (the other 8 percent comes from Larry, who lives down the street from me). Opium GDP is 27 percent of the total Afghan economy and 90 percent of Larry’s (the other 10 percent comes from collecting cans on the side of the road). Roadside can collection is also up slightly in Afghanistan.
What, no Ditka?
The Top 100 Most Influential Americans of All-Time have been announced by The Atlantic. The Top Ten? Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Edison, and Woodrow Wilson. Those picks are understandable, given that they include some of the greatest thinkers the United States has ever known. What is surprising is eleven through twenty: The Marlboro Man, Danielle Steele, Herbert Hoover, Dick Clark, Paula Abdul, Theresa Lepore, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Bartman, Johnnie Cochran, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Posted on December 9, 2006