« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
January 20, 2008
Dogblogging
Gratuitous Yorkie pics
Ollie
Baxter - embarrassed by a recent trim; it will grow back
Useful Yorkie stuff
Posted at 09:27 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Dogs
January 19, 2008
"Humanity, thou art sick"
"In my mother’s generation, shy people were seen as introverted and perhaps a bit awkward, but never mentally ill."
So writes the Chicago-based research professor, Christopher Lane, in his fascinating new book Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness. ‘Adults admired their bashfulness, associated it with bookishness, reserve, and a yen for solitude. But shyness isn’t just shyness any more. It is a disease. It has a variety of over-wrought names, including “social anxiety” and “avoidant personality disorder”, afflictions said to trouble millions’, Lane continues.
Lane has taken shyness as a test case to show how society is being overdiagnosed and overmedicated. He has charted - in intricate detail - the route by which the psychiatric profession came to give credence to the labelling of everyday emotions as ‘disorders’, a situation that has resulted in more and more people being deemed to be mentally ill.
"Humanity, thou art sick: Shyness is now ‘social phobia’, and dissent is ‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’. How did everyday emotions come to be seen as illnesses?" a review by Helene Guldberg of "Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness," by Christopher Lane, in spiked, December 2007
Posted at 09:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Caught Our Eye
January 13, 2008
Yorkies
Two happy little campers...
Baxter, aka Mr. B
Ollie
Baxter and Ollie
Ollie and Baxter
Posted at 11:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Dogs
Looking "at economics from the standpoint of Christmas"
[I]f we can look at Christmas from the standpoint of economics, why not look at economics from the standpoint of Christmas?
. . .
To justify Christmas giving we need to look past the hasty confusion of the "consumer," so described by economics, to the soul of the giver and see how it is improved by the virtue of generosity. The benefit of giving is more to the giver than to the receiver--a paradox better known to common sense and the Bible than to economics. For having a generous soul saves one from living in the relentless anxiety of never knowing whether one has enough for oneself. Of course, to be generous one must calculate what one can afford, and one must observe the chosen recipient carefully to see, not merely what he wants, but what good thing he can be induced to enjoy. Thus economics has an honorable role in the service of generosity, a role more useful, hence more economical, than attacking generosity.
And let us not forget the advantage of generosity to liberty. The commonest form of slavery is slavery to money, and generosity is a kind of liberation as well as utility for yourself. A country gentleman generous with his rustic hospitality had a better inkling of that liberation than Adam Smith with all his studied devotion to natural liberty. With the aid of a little feudalism lingering in our democratic, materialist age you can have the two great goods economics wants you to have but does not know how to achieve on its own. You can then crown these goods by taking a reasonable measure of pride for having spent your money well. Instead of damning a commercial society for being materialistic, instead of despising Christmas giving for not being properly materialistic, you can do your part to soften our materialism and make it more intelligent.
"When the Giving Is Good: Saving Christmas from the economists," by Harvey Mansfield, The Weekly Standard, January 14, 2008
Posted at 07:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Good Advice
January 05, 2008
Counsels of St. Francis de Sales
Live + Jesus!
"'Learn of me,' He said, 'that I am humble and gentle of heart.' That says it all; to have a heart gentle toward one's neighbor and humble toward God. At every moment give this heart, the very heart of your heart, to our Savior."
"The iris is said to draw its petals together at the sight of the sun. Similarly in recollection our powers and faculties assemble and gather together within us out of respect for God's presence."
Posted at 07:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Salesian Tonics
January 01, 2008
Ring bell for psychic?
Doesn't the "psychic" know you're there?
Unclear on the concept.....
Posted at 09:37 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun