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POPSNo Matter How Deep The Tinsel Gets "Their passion notwithstanding, they're no match for a $450-billion marketing juggernaut whose seasonal tally helps determine the course of our national economy. Don't get me wrong; I'd never discourage the purists from raising their questions. After all, contention itself confers importance on an issue in America. And the paradox inherent in modern Christmases is worth grappling with. The very fact that the battle to save Christmas is joined year in and year out -- and has been since we started down the gift-giving, Black Friday, mallification path of excess -- seals the deal. If the tension lives, the true meaning of Christmas does too, no matter how deep the tinsel gets. And that ought to give everyone at least a little comfort and joy."
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POPSFresh water lakes in the heart of the Sahara Desert The reason for the apparent paradox—fresh water lakes in the heart of the desert—is that fresh water from a very large aquifer reaches the surface in the Ounianga Depression. The aquifer is large enough to keep supplying the small lakes with water despite the high evaporation rate. Mats of floating reeds also reduce the evaporation in places. The lakes form a hydrological system that is unique in the Sahara Desert. The aquifer was charged with fresh water and the original lake evolved during the African Humid Period (about 14,800 to 5,500 years ago), when the West African summer monsoon was stronger than it is today. Associated southerly winds brought Atlantic moisture well north of modern limits, producing sufficient rainfall in the central Sahara to foster an almost complete savanna vegetation cover.
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POPSWomen in the GDR by Sybille Bergemann [GDR fashion photography] The photographs of Berlin-born Sibylle Bergemann are awe-inspiring for one because of the diversity of their subject matter and second for their astonishing insights and sensitivity. Bergemann commands subjects such as fashion, reportage, photographic essays, urban and rural landscapes as well as portraits in an equally self-assured manner. At first known as a fashion photographer, she fast became noted for her photographic essays and her precise observations of hidden contexts.
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POPSThe Reassurance of Magic A very straightforward polemic to chew over between the cornflakes and the coffee. (Certainly, almost anything is better than pop science).
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POPSBarbara Ehrenreich: Are women getting sadder? Not necessarily
More: So why all the sudden fuss…? Mostly because it's become a launching pad for a new book by the prolific management consultant Marcus Buckingham…a cookie-cutter classic of the positive-thinking self-help genre…all bookended with an ad for the many related products you can buy, including a "video introduction" from Buckingham, a "participant's guide" containing "exercises" to get you to happiness, and a handsome set of "Eight Strong Life Plans" to pick from… It's an old story: If you want to sell something, first find the terrible affliction that it cures. In the 1980s, as silicone implants were taking off, the doctors discovered "micromastia" -- the "disease" of small-breastedness. More recently, as big pharma searches furiously for a female Viagra, an amazingly high 43% of women have been found to suffer from "Female Sexual Dysfunction," or FSD. Now, it's unhappiness, and the range of potential "cures" is dazzling: Seagrams, Godiva, and Harlequin, take note.
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POPSAt 10% Unemployment America Still Doesn't Have Enough Workers But of course, it's really not much a paradox at all. After years and years of a housing bubble, we have millions of Americans trained in some capacity relating to housing, and those skills are no longer needed. Concepts like this should shred anyone's notion of an output gap. Sure, American hands are underutilized, but if those hands don't have anything to do that's productive, can they really be considered unused "capacity." No, they can't. And this is the problem with big, macro-thinking. You can point to two GDP trendlines and say "Look, undercapacity..." but that totally ignores the ground level where real employees have to find jobs that they're suited for, and no amount of expansionary practice can change that problem.
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POPSWhy Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize — Yet
Any one of these would have been worthy of global praise. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions. robert reich Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize YetGiving the Peace Prize to the President before any of these goals has been attained only underscores the paradox of Obama at this early stage of his presidency. He has demonstrated mastery in both delivering powerful rhetoric and providing the nation and the world with fresh and important ways of understanding current challenges. But he has not yet delivered. To the contrary, he often seems to hold back from the fight — temporizing, delaying, or compromising so much that the rhetoric and insight he offers seem strangely disconnected from what he actually does. Yet there’s time. He may yet prove to be one of the best presidents this nation has ever had — worthy not only of the Peace Prize but of every global accol
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POPSThe Christian Paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
Just how Christian is America? Aside from what studies show about what we do and do not know about Christianity or how often we go to church, it is how we behave that is most telling. Jesus summed up his message for his disciples when he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. We are ranked near the bottom among developed countries in government foreign aid. We are the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate 4 or 5 times that of our European peers. Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate at just over half. Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Just how Christian is America?
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POPSChange 4 Climage Change? Sure, Someone (else) Should Do Something! You don't need a psychologist to tell you why people agree there should be change but do nothing. If you own a car, are you going to voluntarily use it less? Without someone holding a gun to your head? If gas went sort of permanently up to $4.50 a gallon, the first thing most people would do would be to complain and try to get Washington to lower the price. It takes 15 minutes, on average to walk a mile. Are you willing to park you car one mile further away from your work and spend 30 minutes walking to and from work? Now you have your answer why people are not doing much about climate change - it's way toooo hard and distant from them to do anything.... duh.
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POPSI Am a Liar I began by saying, "I am a liar." But if I am, then you have to negate the sentence. I am in fact a truth teller. But if I'm a truth teller, that means I am in truth a liar.
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POPSwhy we should...(shouldn't) go to space it started: the creation of a cosmic diaspora is just one argument for putting humans in space- a bad one. But, now, as human-made climate change has thrust us into the role of stewards of the global biosphere, new reasons, good ones, have emerged. Indeed, keeping our space ambitions relatively local--within our own solar system- can help us find solutions for the climate crisis.
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POPSAmerica's Hidden Nightmare for its Sick Poor It is part of the paradox that while, for instance, the USA is light years ahead of Europe in research into and treatment of cancers, its basic services lag far behind. The interest in universal healthcare is motivated surely by a response to what is available for the most vulnerable. Whatever, the 'interest' is surely worthwhile, and should be inflected by morality rather thanm rigid political dogma.
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POPSDon't work all the time.You'll live to regret it. "Because while we think we're planning for the future by being pragmatic, we forget we also want our lives to include lovely, dazzling moments of fun and not just the daily cubicle grind. "When you view your life from a broader lens," Kivetz says, "there's a focus on feeling you'll miss out on the pleasures of life." Kivetz isn't suggesting you stop acting like a reasonable adult. But the next time you're wavering over whether to call in sick and join your friends on their impulsive three-day jaunt to Iceland, try this mind hack: Imagine yourself 10 years from now, looking back on your decision. What choice will make you feel happy then?" Iceland huh? :-) (Do they need an experiment to reach that conclusion? :-p )
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