The affect of wealth on rudeness

From and article titled "How Wealth Reduces Compassion" in Scientific American Mind: "[L]uxury car drivers were more likely to cut off other motorists instead of waiting for their turn at the intersection. This was true for both men and women upper-class drivers, regardless of the time of day or the amount of traffic at the intersection. In a different study they found that luxury car drivers were also more likely to speed past a pedestrian trying to use a crosswalk, even after making eye contact with the pedestrian." But why would it be that having a lot of money might lead people to be less compassionate to other people?

The answer may have something to do with how wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings. This leads us towards being more self-focused. Another reason has to do with our attitudes towards greed. Like Gordon Gekko, upper-class people may be more likely to endorse the idea that “greed is good.”

To be fair, many wealthy people are incredibly compassionate and, in fact, many wealthy people are prime movers behind organizations that seek the level the playing field.  The big question, then, is what is going on in the minds of THOSE people that allows them to escape the corrupting influence of money?

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The real problem with Guantanamo

Glenn Greenwald spells out the real problem with Guantanamo:

What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil. Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp.

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Summer hockey

The pro-wrestling trucks have pulled up to take over the winter home of the St. Louis Blues Hockey club. I don't know . . . maybe they ought to simply call it "summer hockey" to maintain the fan-base. Can you think of another sport where a fistfight breaks out yet the officials stand around and watch it, and where the repeated aggressors are not expelled from the game and from the sport?

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Bill Moyers is highly critical of the NRA

Bill Moyers is highly critical of the NRA:

Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S.," he said. "Firearm violence may cost our country as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns than guns ... we have become so gun loving, so blasé about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined.

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Many restaurants and bars play special (ear-damaging) music to make you eat and drink too much.

Restaurants and bars play special music to make you eat and drink too much. This claim sounded a bit far-fetched, but then I read this article by the NYT: "Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar." Not only can the loud music and the rhythms make you eat and drink too much; it can and does damage the hearing of the patrons. Much of the music is louder than "a C train hurtling downtown in Manhattan." Normal conversation is 60-65 decibels. Music in many restaurants exceeds 90 decibels, some exceeding 100 decibels. How loud is too loud?

The background noise is too loud, Dr. [Gordon] Hughes said, if a person’s voice has to be raised to be heard by someone three feet away. Signs of too much exposure include not hearing well after the noise stops, a ringing sound and feeling as if the ears are under pressure or blocked. None of these symptoms necessarily mean the damage is permanent, though even if hearing seems restored to normal, damage may have been done. Yet hearing loss from noise typically takes months or even years to develop.
I played in a band when I was younger, and I do regret the damage I've done to my ears (I hear fairly well, but I have a difficult time discriminating a particular conversation in a loud room. Because I'd like to hear other people talk and because I want them to be able to hear me, I work hard to sway the selection process toward a restaurant or bar in which we can hear each other easily. Not only do I want to hear the word, but I want to hear the dynamic range of the other people--it's hard to express oneself fully if one is always shouting. Nonetheless, despite my efforts, and despite the assurance that we're going to a "quiet" place, probably half of these places fail the test quoted above. Further, I find it strange that we have become a country where people need to wear hearing protection in order to safely enjoy many types of concerts.

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