Attention Sickness

Marty Kaplan describes the symptoms and gives a name to "the very real nausea that culture (to use a kind word for it) can cause":  Attention Sickness.  First the BIG THING was ANNA NICOLE. Then it was WAR FUNDING. Then it was SANJAYA, and vote-for-the-worst sadism. Then it was CANCER, and…

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Book Review: The End of Iraq

Summary: A scathing, informative chronicle of the Bush administration's failures in Iraq, yet one that speaks with compelling plausibility of all the missed opportunities to turn things around. Former U.S. diplomat and ambassador Peter Galbraith has been deeply and personally involved with the affairs of Iraq for over twenty years.…

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Americans’ dietary laziness just got lazier.

American culture celebrates the quick fix. Diet pills like Trimspa and Ephedra enjoyed massive popularity despite their health risks because many people want to look healthy without actually living healthfully. Take a diet pill, pop a multivitamin instead of getting nutrients through food, starve yourself- it doesn’t matter how you…

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Lose your religion for tax purposes

A Jesuit college in St. Louis just won a Missouri Supreme Court case allowing them to get public money, $8 million of it, for their college.  Not being one that believes public money should be spent in support of religion, I was aghast.  "How could that possibly happen?" you might say.  The answer…

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