psychology

It's late so I won't say much.

But I want to mention that one thing I love about Big Love is how close to the perfect the scripting is around issues of family dysfunction and healing.

In the latest episode, Nicki says point blank to her husband. "I get so angry about how we were raised sometimes. I wish I could be more like you." He says, "Well you can't hang on to the past, you just have to move on." To which she replies. " I don't think I can, there's something in me that's damaged."

The Atlantic June 2009, "What Makes Us Happy?"

An article on a longitudinal study of mental and physical well-being conducted at Harvard that has lasted over 70 years. Chief 'curator' of the study, psychiatrist George Vaillant offers profound insight into how what is considered health or illness is socially defined. Vaillent also brings a nuanced theory of 'defense mechanisms' that evolve over time, to bear on his subjects' case histories. Through an analysis and narrative construction of case histories from a mass of documentation, the doctor argues against a simplistic understanding of what contributes to happiness.

Yet another one: Feminism in the Web era: It ain't pretty. This one, by Judith Timson, is a little less virulent - at least.

But it's still wrong.

At the outset Timson ponders the bigger issues that may lie behind an increased trend towards extreme violence (and especially in the context of intimate relationships) perpetrated by young women:

But this column in the G&M is bang on the money. At least as far as I can tell based on my thesis - (that's right now I have a body of research I can appeal to what a bonus!).

Kids who don't come from advantage need hella more then "portfolio based curriculums (new school education reform), or the 3 R's and standardized testing (old-schoool education reform), or portfolio-based learning with standardized testing tacked on at the end (Quebec bien oui!).

The schools she is talking about here, the KIPP program (Knowledge Is Power Program) have instituted many changes to a traditional public or even private model school, school days are much longer, students can actually call their teachers off school hours for homework help, and the curriculum includes some non-standard elements like overt training in listening and attention skills, instead of the simple yet- in-effective exhortion to; "PAY ATTENTION CLASS".