Category Archives: Psychology

Weiner, Pick Up Your Ball(s) and Go Home

I’m tired of seeing Anthony Weiner called a narcissist, as if he’s merely self-centered.

The man’s an exhibitionist.  He’s like the perverts running around in raincoats exposing themselves to women.  The mayor of New York is supposed to protect his citizens from such sickos, he’s not supposed to be one himself.

Drop out, Anthony.  You’ve dropped your drawers too many times.

Weiner — It’s All Twitter’s Fault

In his NYT Magazine interview, Anthony Weiner blames Twitter for his over-sharing of his penis:

“And if it wasn’t 2011 and it [Twitter] didn’t exist, it’s not like I would have gone out cruising bars or something like that.  It was just something that technology made possible and it became possible for me to do stupid things.”

Damn you, 2011, as Jon Stewart would say.  Um, Weiner, I’m guessing you would have found a way to do stupid things, cause that’s just the kind of narcissistic, immature, obnoxious little prick that you are.

More Weiner:

“I wasn’t really thinking. What does this mean that I’m doing this?  Is this risky behavior?  [Duh!]  Is this smart behavior?  [Double Duh!]  To me, it was just another way to feed this notion that I want to be liked and admired.  [For your penis?  You were a congressman with a pregnant wife, not a thirteen-year-old boy.]”

The Epidemic of ADHD Diagnoses

How can this be?

Almost one in five of American high school boys is being diagnosed with ADHD.  In the South, it’s almost one in four.

Children on Medicaid are diagnosed at rates about one-third higher than those who are not.

Taking ADHD medication can result in drug addiction and even psychosis.

Diagnoses have gone up more than 50% in the last decade.

Something is disturbingly, dangerously wrong here.  And I think it’s with our parents, schools, and doctors, not with our children.

For more see “More Diagnoses of Hyperactivity Causing Concern,” Alan Schwarz and Sarah Cohen, NYT

Fathers and Sons

From “Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents,” Binyamin Appelbaum, NYT:

“The decline of two-parent households may be a significant reason for the divergent fortunes of male workers, whose earnings generally declined in recent decades, and female workers, whose earnings generally increased, a prominent labor economist argues in a new survey of existing research.

“David H. Autor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that the difference between men and women, at least in part, may have roots in childhood. Only 63 percent of children lived in a household with two parents in 2010, down from 82 percent in 1970. The single parents raising the rest of those children are predominantly female. And there is growing evidence that sons raised by single mothers ‘appear to fare particularly poorly,’ Professor Autor wrote in an analysis for Third Way, a center-left policy research organization.

“In this telling, the economic struggles of male workers are both a cause and an effect of the breakdown of traditional households. Men who are less successful are less attractive as partners, so some women are choosing to raise children by themselves, in turn often producing sons who are less successful and attractive as partners.

“’A vicious cycle may ensue,’ wrote Professor Autor and his co-author, Melanie Wasserman, a graduate student, ‘with the poor economic prospects of less educated males creating differentially large disadvantages for their sons, thus potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation.’

“The fall of men in the workplace is widely regarded by economists as one of the nation’s most important and puzzling trends. While men, on average, still earn more than women, the gap between them has narrowed considerably, particularly among more recent entrants to the labor force.

“For all Americans, it has become much harder to make a living without a college degree, for intertwined reasons including foreign competition, advancements in technology and the decline of unions. Over the same period, the earnings of college graduates have increased. Women have responded exactly as economists would have predicted, by going to college in record numbers. Men, mysteriously, have not.

“Among people who were 35 years old in 2010, for example, women were 17 percent more likely to have attended college, and 23 percent more likely to hold an undergraduate degree.”

Having raised a son in a two-parent household, this theory makes sense to me on a gut level.  I was the one who made sure my son had the latest video game he wanted, my husband was the one who made sure he did his homework.

Donald Trump Has Yet Another Talent

In addition to all his many other skills, Donald Trump apparently is a handwriting analyst.  You thought the Donald was just a “short-fingered vulgarian,”* when actually he’s quite the Renaissance Man.

Trump says that Treasury nominee Jack Lew’s handwriting “shows he’s a very, very secretive person, unbelievably secretive.”

* Young ‘uns should Google Spy magazine

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Glenn Beck is planning to build a $2 billion Libertarian residential community in Texas called Independence Park.  It will produce its own food and energy and do TV and film production.

Also, fake historian David Barton will create a “national archive” where children can be “deprogrammed.”

I think we know how this ends — a long line of folks waiting for their cup of Kool-Aid.

Can you imagine what it’s like to be inside Glenn Beck’s head?

 

 

Two Types of People

We’ve all heard many iterations of “the world is divided into two types of people” meme.

I would say the world is divided into people who give up and go home when they knock on a door and are turned away, and those who take a deep breath, square their shoulders, and head to the next door.

It’s okay to sit on the doorstep and cry a little or go get a hot fudge sundae before you try the next door, but it’s not okay to go home.