In terms of psychological health, there are healthy and unhealthy ways of drinkinh alcohol, eating, gaming, and even smoking. I’m not talking about physical health, mind you, only psychological.

Here is the way to decide if your drinking, smoking, eating, etc are psychologically healthy or not. If you do these things for the purposes of emotional healing, they are unhealthy. Say, you are stressed out, exhausted, anxious, nervous, overwhelmed, and your response to that is, “I need a drink /  a cigarette / an ice-cream”, this is not psychologically healthy.
If, however, you enjoy a good piece of cake, a cigar, or a glass of wine simply because you like their taste every once in a while, that’s completely healthy. In other words, all of these things are psychologically healthy when enjoyed for their own sake. The moment when they begin to serve secondary purposes, however, we have entered the area of mental issues.

On the subject of Switzerland’s recent cap on immigration, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung says:

The non-member state Switzerland merely articulated what was already on the minds of many EU member states. The Swiss have opened a Pandora’s Box which other opponents of the free movement of peoples will now reach into as well. It will no longer suffice for Brussels to pout and point to the principle of freedom of movement to brush off criticisms. There are real problems, and citizens everywhere want to see them solved.

Nothing is more annoying than to see people dance around an issue, never saying what is really on their mind. No problem can be solved until its causes are named. There was never a “free movement of peoples” in the EU. For as long as I can remember, Western Europe was guarded better than Fort Knox. But, of course, when you start talking about a non-existent “free movement of peoples,” it sounds so noble and lofty. Who can possibly be against the freedom of peoples?

Let’s just state the painfully obvious: for a very long time, the rich countries of Europe were making every possible effort to ensure that the immigrants who come into their countries will never be able to assimilate. This was the only quality that was sought. “Free movement of peoples” was never of the slightest interest to anybody.

These two-layered Kleenex napkins that rustle in your hands when you try to use them. They make my skin crawl. Brrr.

And I bought a whole box without knowing what they would be like.

And when you gaze at a computer screen for two seconds, the screen will definitely gaze into you. So as long as I have my laptop, I’m not scared of your abyss.

Never ever dial back unless you recognize the number. Here is a scam  that is popular right now:

Someone receives a call, typically on a cell phone, from an international phone number that hangs up and leaves a “missed call” but no voicemail. If the receiver calls the number back, there will be an international connection fee plus a per minute rate. Some of these fees are $20 per call, plus $9 per minute. If you receive a call from a number that you do not recognize, do not call it back. The cellular carriers have advised us they are not waiving these fees as they view them as calls made by the customer.

Today, we are starting the second week of our SELF-CARE AND HAPPINESS challenge, and this is our new task for the week.

MEET THE SKY

Every day this week, we will be going outside twice a day and staring at the sky for ten minutes at a time. If your neck hurts, do 10 1-minute stretches and recline against the door of the house or a wall.

The necessary conditions:

1. You have to be outside for this.

2. Look at the sky with the utmost attention. Concentrate on what you are seeing. Banish all thoughts of your problems and everything you need to do.

3. Most of the sessions have to occur in daytime. It’s OK to do one or two at night, but most have to be done when there is sunlight.

4. Breathe in the fresh air very deep and enjoy its taste, smell, and texture.

5. Ten minutes, twice a day, OK? You can set the alarm in your phone to alert you when 10 minutes are past.

It’s really weird to see people discuss the reasons for why academics don’t retire the moment they turn 65 in purely financial terms. It seems to escape them that many people happen to love their jobs and possess the energy for important contributions to scholarship and teaching long past 65.

“WHEN I TOLD FRIENDS back East about the craze for fancy toast that was sweeping across the Bay Area, they laughed and laughed. (How silly; how twee; how San Francisco.)” I have no idea what’s so funny about this. I probably didn’t live on the East Coast long enough. And I really want to try this artisanal toast.

Students in Kosovo are to be admired for the courage they exhibit in ousting corrupt profs.

So do you think this short clip about Russia is offensive? Let’s discuss.

Google is using nasty underhanded tricks to force people to download Chrome. This makes me want to resist Chrome. It’s stupid and limiting anyways. But the search box is fast and useful, so it’s a constant temptation.

This idea for full-time lecturers who assume teaching / administrative duties but do no research and are not on the tenure-track seems promising. What do you think? (Just know that if you follow this link and offend the blogger who wrote the post, I will unleash my fury upon you.)

Yet another form of horrible female mutilation. And now it’s coming to Spain. (The link is in Spanish).

This chart is so great, I could stare at it forever. If you don’t want to click, the chart shows that younger generations are abandoning organized religion in huge strides. The future is bright.

The idea of giving iPads to all students in LA was absolutely ridiculous. There is no educational value to this. The kids will learn how to be passive consumers of apps. How is that a good idea?

“Research. . .  found that the share of employment in occupations in the middle of the skill distribution has declined rapidly in the US and Europe. At the same time the share of employment at the upper and lower ends of the occupational skill distribution has increased substantially. . . The position of the middle-skill occupations deteriorates substantially: the wage rates paid in the high-skill occupations increased by 20% compared to the middle while the wage rate in the low-skill occupations rose by 30%.”

“Occupy Wall Street leader now works for Google, wants to crowdfund a private militia.” Who is feeling surprised by this development?

“College enrollment may be plateauing, but that hasn’t stopped the growth in university administrative positions. They increased 28 percent between 2000 and 2012, according to a report released by the Delta Cost Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts research on college finances. And they have been increasing for the past two decades.” Absolutely, completely and totally shameful.

Policemen in Russia beat gay activists and threaten them with rape. The case of an arrested man who was raped with a champagne bottle by Russian police officers and who died of the injuries is still fresh on everybody’s mind, so these are not empty threats.

“While there may be places in the world where kids get a better hard-core math and science background, a US public school in a good district seems, at least for the moment, like it will do a pretty good job. I don’t know of other countries where the public school system offers so many choices.”

“Insane designers have apparently taken over the entire internet. There’s about 10 sites left now that I can read without having an aneurysm. How did that make it through any sort of usability review?” Hear, hear.

A hilarious post on the obsession with Freshly Pressed. I have to confess that I once harbored hopes in that area. Not any more, though.

“I realize tenure is the holy grail of academia, and goodness knows I have struggled with what it would mean to give it up. I guess I just never considered that the decision might not be mine to make.”

I’m trying to eat more beans, and this recipe for a red kidney beans curry is amazing.

“On one chilly Friday morning, I visited Madelyn Gould, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, one of the country’s largest suicide research centers. “Suicide contagion is real,” she said. “Social behavior is contagious and influential. We wouldn’t have a billion-dollar advertising market in this country if people didn’t think you could influence someone else’s behavior.”” Everybody I know who works at Columbia was hired there as a result of disgusting and blatant corruption. It seems like this is also the case of the quoted illiterate hack.

“Quantified Self (QS) is a growing global movement selling a new form of wisdom, encapsulated in the slogan “self-knowledge through numbers”. Rooted in the American tech scene, it encourages people to monitor all aspects of their physical, emotional, cognitive, social, domestic and working lives.” As long as people do it for fun and not to self-flagellate, then why not?

“If you don’t know, by the age of 45, whether some characteristic is part of your inherent nature or just a piece of an ideology, you have failed in your life’s mission, which is, or ought to be self-determination through self-knowledge.” Absolutely true. Although I still have a few years to go until 45.

“Median male compensation, adjusted for inflation, is lower today than it was in 1975, a full generation ago.” It’s very interesting why these weepy articles never say anything about median female compensation. I’m guessing that’s because they are written by weepy men.

Reader V observes:

“Almost any high-tech product can be produced outside of the First World… And low-tech products can be made anywhere. “

Today, things are not about making products any longer. That’s Fordism speaking, so let’s just let it go. The 21-st century will be about Big Data, handling information, processing data flows, quantitative methods, that kind of stuff. And people who can hop on that wave and ride it will make out like bandits. Also, people who can manipulate data, make something out of it. But there are very very few of them, which is why there is such a higher ed boom in the US.

This is why Windows 8 and equivalents are coming in so heavily. Windows 8 separates those who will handle data and those who will be excluded from any form of competency in this area. The opportunities to be a completely clueless consumer of technology who can only buy but not make, change or control are growing.

The creators of Windows 8 and Co are drawing a magic circle around themselves by schooling everybody into consuming and never daring to try to join their ranks of data handlers.

As Zygmunt Bauman has pointed out, we are arriving in a highly fluid state of modernity. People who are clinging to the desire for steady employment and permanent place of living are being left behind by the new system. This system is in the process of formation right now, but already those who want high-paying careers know that a CV showing you worked in the same place for 14 years condemns you on the job market. In my profession, people who got all of their degrees at the same place are valued very poorly. It used to be that employers looked at such CVs as a sign of a person’s stability and reliability. But that’s Fordism, it’s dead.

I don’t like Juan Cole, people. He is so uneducated and unintelligent and so deeply proud of it that it’s sad. See the following, for instance:

The Associated Press article on the Ukrainian hijacker who tried to divert a plane to Sochi on Friday is interesting for the words it does not use. . . Note that this Ukrainian, presumably an Eastern Orthodox Christian, threatened to blow up an airplane full of innocents.

Why, on God’s green Earth, is a random Ukrainian drunk presumed to be “an Eastern Orthodox Christian” (whatever that even is)? Among the few religious people in the country, many are Catholic and there is a growing number of Protestants. There are also some Jews and some Muslims. However, religious people constitute a tiny minority. It makes zero sense to presume that a Ukrainian practices any religion. And anybody who knows anything about the history of our country realizes that.

It would be very nice if Mr. Cole could stop projecting his obsession with religion onto other cultures.

My 4-year-old niece Klubnikis was getting hassled by a boy called Xavier in her daycare. She likes to dress like a princess, and his unintelligent Mommy taught him to bully girls who like princesses.

I told my sister to teach Klubnikis to beat the bully. “This will get him to fall in love with her on the spot,” I said.

A while later, Klubnikis let us know that she had taken these lessons to heart.

“I’m tired of fighting with Xavier, Mommy,” she said.

“Why are you tired?” my sister asked.

“My hands and arms hurt from hitting him,” Klubnikis explained.

The other day, my sister called me and exclaimed, “Your method worked! Now Klubnikis and Xavier are best friends and are planning to get married.”

“Duh,” I said. “How do you think I always achieved success in my personal life?”