Exercise Stops Depression As Well As Meds

Good news depression sufferers! You just need to get moving-if you’re a depressed person inclined to exercise. Although, that’s usually just the problem. If you’re depressed you don’t want to do anything, including exercise. But maybe, if doctors start prescribing personal trainers or the gym, people will kick depression that way.

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Marxism Is Fun In Theory & Why Blowing Up Yourself Can Sound Like A Good Idea

I haven’t been blogging as much since teaching the little ones. (Today, we learned about Egypt, Turkey, The Kurds, and Syria. Yes, we did.) Because of being otherwise detained with a business deal, too, reading has become secondary, especially web reading.

Shrinkwrapped knocked this out of the park, though, explaining why Marxism is dangerous. He tells this story:

In college, I dabbled in radical politics. I went to many anti-war demonstrations as a teenager. I enjoyed the frisson of rebellion that the Psychedelic 60s was shrouded within, yet a single incident awoke me to the reality that I would never be a good Marxist. I had been intrigued by Trotsky, the idea of constant revolution was fascinating to someone who wished to resist falling into the predicted and predictable path I feared I was on. On campus was a well established group of young Trotskyites, the Young Socialist Alliance. They were involved in various protests, which were always enjoyable, not least for the presence of many nubile, young radical women who approved of radical young men. One fateful day I stopped by the YSA table to find out more about them. I made a joking reference to the previous weekend’s demonstration and discovered that the leader of the group was a young man who was incredibly humorless. He proceeded to lecture me (hectored me, perhaps) with a diatribe on how much commitment was necessary for the revolution to succeed and how there was no room for humor in the revolution; this was deadly serious business fighting the oppressors and jokes had no place in it.

I thought he was a complete jerk; I also thought he was a very dangerous jerk. This was the kind of person who would have no trouble condemning someone for thought crimes. If that was the kind of person who was attracted to Marxism, perhaps I wasn’t as much of a radical as I fancied.

Years later I can still recall him, with a Che Guevara beard, intense eyes, and a complete lack of humor or humanity. Any revolution that condemned humor was not a revolution for me.

Rage at a cruel and withholding universe (often a derivative of infantile frustration) is difficult to tolerate. Most of us, with good-enough parenting, come to temper our infantile frustrations (which have roots in our infantile grandiosity which is so painful to give up) by using our loving ties to our parents to metabolize the rage which would otherwise be so destructive. Those unfortunates who cannot do so via love are left enraged and searching for ways to offload the rage to an external victim. Ideologies that enable such offloading attract the angry and the failed and it is through this pathway that Marx (the angry, anti-Semitic hater of religion) and the Islamists (descended from Qutb, the angry, anti-Semitic hater of secularism) find their true identity.

That all-consuming anger, that root of bitterness, gives a place to the devil. It reminds me of a scripture in Ephesians, chapter 4 verse 27:

“Be angry, and do not sin”:^[f] do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil.

There are many people in the world giving the devil ample room to do his work.

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Why Columbia Invited A Terrorist (Ahmadinejad) To Speak

Jeff Goldstein explains the emotionalizing by Columbia and academic elites. It’s certainly not reasoning. There is nothing reasonable about giving this thug a platform of legitimacy. Of course, calling him a terrorist and exterminator wannabe would be judgmental:

Or, to put it another way, Summers’ arguments amount to hate speech within the enlightened paradigm of post-Enlightenment thinking. Whereas Ahmanidinajihadi’s arguments must be viewed through the prism of Islamic fundamentalism, which we cannot presume to understand, and so are in no position to judge.

Well, until we’re willing to strap on a vest and shred some Jews for Allah, that is.

Make you a deal, though: the minute an Islamic fundamentalist criticizes his Islamic fundamentalism, we will construe that as a valid criticism. Before we dismiss it as the criticism of one who, by virtue of that criticism, is no longer an authentic Islamic fundamentalist, and so is no longer granted the kind of authenticity necessary to level a legitimate critique of Islamic fundamentalism.

— Which, if that seems a bit counterintuitive, we can chalk up to a fidelity to western modes of “logic” that require the kind of intellectual consistency that is no longer obligatory under post-Enlightenment paradigms. Because western “logic,” grounded as it is in western assumptions, may not jibe with Islamic fundamentalist logic, which is grounded in competing assumptions that, like our own, are but a function of a particular consensus — no more “right” or “wrong” than our own.

If this seem convoluted, that’s kinda the point.

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Viewing France Askance No More

LEFT: Mmmm, Blanc de Blanc. Evil sister who never gave up French product pictured.

A nice and neat little New York Times editorial by Roger Cohen sums up many Americans new view of France. Sarkozy might preside over a divided France, much as President Bush does here, but his talk and actions have done more to make Paris relevant on the world stage again than all the bloviating and equivocating of Jacques Chirac. Chirac dreamed of such importance. It could have been his, too. All it would have taken is some moral courage and well, morals. Instead Franco-American relationships languished and Europe seemed destined for the scrap heap of history. Well, we’ll all end up there, eventually. France just seemed determined to get there sooner.

I don’t know why, exactly, but a more solid relationship with our Gallic brothers is encouraging. The conflicts troubling the world seem overwhelming on a good day. To be at such odds with France, when France and America ostensibly hold many of the same beliefs dear was distressing.

No more French wine boycott for me (I wasn’t alone). The cheese? Well, that wasn’t such a loss. My sister kept France in their cheese and wine, though. I’m not sure my boycott mattered much. According to this, though, maybe it did matter. I take longer to make a decision and to unmake it than most, so I’m probably a boycott straggler. Actually, a trip to France sounds good about now. Who knows?

Isn’t it just loverly to consider it?

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Glynn Washington, NPR Superstar!

I have a childhood friend who now lives in Oakland, California. He is one of the smartest guys I know, kind, funny as heck and fun to be around. Well, he’s in this NPR competition to get a radio show. He’s a finalist and doing fantastic. He is as far to the West of me politically as I am to the East, but I have many friends like that. It keeps things interesting and spicy. What we have in common is more important: we want to keep America the greatest place in the world.

Would you please help me by helping him win a show on NPR? Here’s the link. You need to register to vote.

Go, Glynn, go!

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Parenting At 20 Or 40 Makes A Difference

I have a daughter who arranges her Webkins at bedtime. So does James Lileks and his post mentioning Gnat put a lump in my throat:

Gnat lost a tooth today. It was the second upper front tooth. Gives her a nice cheerful ogre look. It went right under the pillow, of course. Later I checked my wallet to see if I had a dollar to slide in the place of the tooth; only a fiver. That seemed excessive. I asked her what she expected from the Dental Familiar, and she said “well, a dime? Maybe even a quarter.” There’s something about the quarter. It has inherent heft. It’s one corner of a dollar, the cornerstone currency. Unfortunately for her, I hoard quarters for the parking meter. I let no quarter go uncorralled. Once upon a time I saved quarters for pinball; now they serve the slakeless mouth of the armless sentinel who lines the streets of the city, he said, overwriting as fast as possible. I had a JFK half-dollar on hand, though, so that’ll do. It should surprise her, since I’m not sure she’s seen one. It’s BIG, and that counts.

She arranged her Pokemons and Webkins to greet the Tooth Fairy. You reach for your Fixative Spray to ensure that they’ll always be this age, but of course if you had such a thing you would have used it long ago. And aren’t you glad you didn’t.

My daughter arranges her Webkins before bed. She lines up the doll babies. She’s putting the full-court-press on for a puppy–that’s been going on for a year now, two years really, since our dog died. My daughter now sports a pair of big, front, Gary Bussey teeth that are way out of proportion to her remaining baby teeth. I want that Fixative Spray because it seems like every parent of teenagers wishes they had used it at just this age.

Did our parents have this awareness of time marching on, ebbing away (to mix my metaphors and similes and parts of speech) like we seem to? One result of elderly parenthood is that a good chunk of life has been lived; the elderly parent has a sense of time. Time awareness is lost on a 22 year old and my mom was 20 when she had me.

I try to imagine what being 20 and a mother must have felt like. Less thought would go into every developmental stage, that much I know. It had to be more action-oriented and functional. It was more action-oriented and functional. At 20, the world still seems safe and no wrong can happen. That optimism is good. Maybe that’s why kids ran amok in neighborhoods. A young parent could be out rolling in the mud at Woodstock or playing the best tennis of her life as easily as having babies so maybe youth contributed to kid freedom. Well, youth and the fact that most moms were actually in the neighborhood–not supervising necessarily, but being there.

It’s not that elderly parenting is a bad thing. Wisdom comes with age, temperance, the full knowledge that children are far more important than that business meeting, even if the meeting can’t be missed. Perhaps that elevation, too, has contributed to the narcissism that has been written about so much. Little kids today are placed on fluffy pillows in the center of a hermetically sealed universe surrounded by Webkins. Kinda. Certainly, children today don’t have the freedom the Gen Xers or Boomers had when they were kids.

I worry about these things. And then, I worry that I worry too much. That’s just the point! It never seemed like parents of a generation or two ago worried much, though I’m sure they did. But you know what I mean. “Eh, see you at dinner!” It was noon. “Be back before dark!” It was breakfast. No worries. How could anyone send their kids on ten hour adventures such as those and have worries?

The only solution I’ve found is to have a bunch of kids. The younger ones get progressively wilder, braver, calmer and more confident. Mom is tired, relaxed, distracted, and more confident. There is no micromanaging a slew of kids. Once they out-number you, you’re in trouble, but they’re in luck. What a forty-year-old parent can’t give a kid, maybe a big sister or brother can.

There were many benefits to have kids young. Maybe the Western world will come back around to that parenting model again, but I doubt it.

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Bush Twins Vs. Chelsea Clinton

Score one for the Republican girls who have dedicated themselves to public service.

One thought comes to mind, though. Chelsea’s parents were in public service but have no record of accomplishment in the private sector. That has been a big criticism, and one that is important to keep in mind with the Presidential ambitions of both Clinton and Obama. Chelsea’s decision to make her mark in the private sector could be viewed as a response to that criticism.

Likewise, a criticism of the Bush family is that they are no-talent ass clowns entitled by name and wealth. In essence, they are the rich, white guy’s version of affirmative action. G.W. would be a nobody if it weren’t for his daddy, blah, blah, blah. In addition, it is common knowledge that Rethuglicans are all about the almighty dollar and hate the little people. By serving the world’s poor, sick and needy, the Bush twins blunt that criticism. They could have joined a hedge fund, instead they’re reaching out to the less fortunate.

In some ways, all the girls are rebelling (or conforming to political expedience, depending on your viewpoint) against expectations. Chelsea is still the daughter of a guy from Hope, Arkansas. She has something to prove against the very elite the Clintons alternately despise and aspire to belong to. Chelsea ain’t no hillbilly. And the Bush girls aren’t empty-headed, hard-hearted privileged debutantes. Maybe if they feed enough AIDs patients, people will cut them some slack.

The major difference is political stripe. The Bush girls are doomed to bad press–they’re children of Republicans. Chelsea is destined for lavish praise–she’s a Democrat.

H/T Conservative Grapevine

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Iran’s Crazy Men

On the same day Ahmadinejad asks to visit Ground Zero, Iran is said to be putting together plans to attack Israel.

There might be a time to have U.S. troops out of that viper pit just so they don’t end up in the fallout–literally.

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Robert Jordan Dead

Many of you might not care, but Robert Jordan author of the Wheel of Time series died Sunday. A friend of mine started me on the series while I was in Chiropractic college. I vacuumed them all up and continued on with them. They fill up a shelf by my Tolkien books.

Jordan created a fantastic world filled by male and female energies. He captures gender perspectives, political realities and cultural differences and folds them into a believable world. If you haven’t read his stuff and you enjoy fantasy, get started. It will take a while to get through them all, but it’s a break from reality.

Some people read romance novels. I read fantasy. Told you I was a nerd.

H/T Glenn Reynolds

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Home Schooling: Week 3, Is the Honeymoon Over?

First of all is it Home Schooling or Homeschooling? I see it both ways and I don’t know the proper usage and it bugs me.

Both kids were in a puddle of tears today. I’d say that’s a resounding success. Why were they crying? I actually pushed them to comprehend what they were reading. They had to write a one paragraph summary of the story thus far. The faucets turned on when they had to re-write the sentences into something coherent. That’s called editing. Not that I do it, but do as I say and all that. The paragraph summary will be happening every day from now on, they’ve been informed. They’re not happy.

“…..Elementary School was so much easier!” Wahhh!

Yes it was. Welcome to Dr. Melissa’s den of home school horrors. You can enter any time you like, but you can never leave.

After reading through the curriculum, I realized that I hadn’t been mindful of any goals for this education other than get through the pre-made syllabus every day. But after training my mind with the book The Well Trained Mind, I decided that I needed to be more focused.

My goal is simple: Comprehension. I want my children to actually understand what they’re learning. Memorization is the foundation, of course, but if they don’t “get it”, especially the Autistic one, the kids might as well be a computer. So I renewed my math and writing teaching efforts. And the vocabulary test is long and challenging. And they hate it.

But then we jumped in the pool, while the other kids were still in school and all was right with the world.

When does the honeymoon end? Because this one hasn’t lasted long at all.

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