Would you be Willing?

Elizabeth Stokoe, professor of social interaction at Loughborough University, and her colleagues, have analysed thousands of hours of recorded conversations, from customer services to mediation hotlines and police crisis negotiation. They discovered that certain words or phrases have the power to change the course of a conversation.

People who had already responded negatively when asked if they would like to attend mediation seemed to change their minds when the mediator used the phrase, “Would you be willing to come for a meeting?” “As soon as the word ‘willing’ was uttered, people would say: ‘Oh, yes, definitely’ – they would actually interrupt the sentence to agree.” Stokoe found it had the same effect in different settings: with business-to-business cold callers; with doctors trying to persuade people to go to a weight-loss class. She also looked at phrases such as “Would you like to” and “Would you be interested in”. “Sometimes they worked, but ‘willing’ was the one that got people to agree more rapidly and with more enthusiasm.”

Rosie Ifouldwriting in The Guardian 

When Company Values Falter

When we talk about cases of clear fraud or criminal misdoing, it seems so easy to say, “What was wrong with these evil people?” But when they’re in the moment, they’re saying to themselves, “I have to do things for these investors” or “I have to do things for my employees to keep things going.” It’s the concept of escalation of commitment; at first you had very small things that would get covered up and justified, but then the amount of deception gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Theranos might be a good example of this. The people who founded that company had good intentions, right? They wanted to develop medical testing and products that would benefit the world. They believed in it. And either for the mission, for the long-term viability of the company, or for the employees, you can see how they end up making mistakes and unethical actions even though they began with good intentions.

Ken Shotts quoted in Fast Company

we are here

The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we’ve been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be. This idea overwhelms some people. -Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) 

Articles of Interest - April 8

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Can you stop your parents sharing photos of you online?  BBC

YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Let Toxic Videos Run Rampant  Bloomberg

Snapchat launches new gaming service, platform and ad updates  Axios

Americans think social media is the worst - but can't stop using it  NBC News  

‘Old Town Road’ proves TikTok can launch a hit song  The Verge

***MOBILE  

FCC “fined” robocallers $208 million since 2015 but collected only $6,790  ArsTechnica

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

How China turned a city into a prison: a surveillance state reaches new heights  New York Times

What the internet knows about you  Axios  

What e-books at the library mean for your privacy  Cnet  

***BIG DATA & AI 

Cornell prof on using artificial intelligence hiring  NPR

A surprising quantum computer front-runner: carmakers  Axios 

Open-source activism: using GitHub to improve working conditions for coders  Wired 

Why Google’s announced creation of an external AI ethics board is getting push back  The Verge 

***PRODUCING MEDIA

5 Useful Chrome Extensions For Screen Recording  Gizbot 

The best microphones to start podcasting with  The Verge

***INTERNET

Why there’s so little left of the early internet  BBC 

How Do You Print Out the Entire Internet?  New York Times 

***JOURNALISM

NYT NICAR 2019 Doxxing Handout  

Georgia House Republicans file bill to create state Journalism Ethics Board  AJC

The first act of Slovakia’s first female president: To visit a shrine to for murdered reporter Jan Kuciak  LA Times 

What kind of local news is Facebook featuring on Today In? Crime, car crashes, and not too much community  Harvard’s Nieman Lab 

Your countless Google Docs can be easier to handle  Tools For Reporters

Taking local news to the really local level: Using location data to deliver relevant local news  Harvard’s Nieman Lab

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Smart speakers are challenging the foundations of radio, and news outlets are racing to find a place on the platform   Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Plain Dealer lays off a third of unionized newsroom staff  Cleveland Plain Dealer   

Smart Speaker Use Is Growing. Will News Grow With It?  Harvard’s Nieman Lab

***FAKE NEWS 

10 tools and tricks to verify Instagram posts  Fact Checking Day 

Why smart people are more likely to believe fake news  The Guardian

Pizzagate, Satanic Panic, and the Power of Conspiracy Theories  Jezebel 

***PERSONAL GROWTH 

Your Pain  Becoming (my blog)

6 things successful people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos do on weekends to make their Mondays more productive  CNBC  

According to a new study from Oxford and Yale researchers, exercise might make you happier than money Business Insider 

***WRITING & READING 

A Harvard Linguist's 13 Simple Tips for Becoming a Great Writer  Inc. 

Poet Hanif Abdurraqib Discusses His Writing Process  NPR

***LANGUAGE 

Why Spanish-Language Websites For 2020 Democratic Contenders Are Filled With Errors  NPR

We've Added Over 300 New Words  Dictionary.com   

Coding Is for Everyone—as Long as You Speak English  Wired

***LITERATURE

The unsuccessful history of product placement in books, from Bulgari to Sweet’N Low  Vox

New Conservation Center to Preserve Hemingway’s Legacy in Cuba  Smithsonian  

The 8 best food descriptions in Ruth Reichl’s new memoir  Vox

***GENDER    

She’s 28. She’s an Immigrant. She’s in Charge of Texas’ Most Populous County. Get Used to It Texas Observer

How Old Is 37? Depends on Your Gender  New York Times 

***RACE & ETHNICITY 

Jazz's Kyle Korver discusses racism in the NBA, white privilege  Sporting News

Facebook delivers ads based on race and gender stereotypes, researchers discover  CNBC

Decoding Chinese film stereotypes: from Red Sorghum to Crazy Rich Asians  Telegraph

***LEGAL ISSUES 

Do we really own our digital possessions?  The Conversation 

Court Tosses $11-Million Libel Lawsuit Brought By The 'King Of Bullshit News'  TechDirt 

Hollywood's Drone War: Licensed Pilots or Unionized Photographers?  Hollywood Reporter  

***POLITICS 

How we uncovered 10,000 times lawmakers introduced copycat model bills — and why it matters  USA Today 

San Diego County Sues Trump Admin Over Its Handling of Asylum-Seekers  Voice of San Diego

Want to Know How to Build a Better Democracy? Ask Wikipedia  Wired 

***CRIME  

Alabama's Prison Are Unsafe And Unconstitutional, Justice Department Says  NPR

***GAMES & SPORTS

An analysis of nearly 4 million pitches shows just how many mistakes umpires make  The Conversation  

How This Guy Became a World Yo-Yo Champion  Wired 

***RELIGION

A Man Created An Instagram About Church Leaders In Expensive Designer Shoes  BuzzFeed News

LDS Church Rolls Back Policy That Restricted Baptizing Children Of Gay Parents  NPR

Texas bans clergy from executions after Supreme Court ruling  Associated Press

‘I cut people,’ a megachurch pastor threatened as she preached. Her target? The local newspaper  Washington Post 

Suspicious fires consume 3 black churches in 10 days in a Louisiana parish  CNN  

It’s Official: The “Nones”– People Who Profess No Religion–Are Now as Big as Catholics & Evangelicals in the US  Open Culture 

5 facts about Buddhists around the world  Pew Research Center 

Catholic missionaries are evangelizing on college campuses and trying to bring back the ‘nones’  The Conversation 

The countries with the 10 largest Christian populations and the 10 largest Muslim populations Pew Research Center 

Buttigieg to Mike Pence: “Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator”  Vox

***GOOD NEWS 

Police officers pool money to replace hard-working gardener's stolen equipment CNN

Dad uses his paintbrush and the Mona Lisa to teach daughter life lessons ABC News

 Card tricks turn hotel worker and boy with autism into fast friends  WNEP 

13-year-old sells Xbox, does yard work to buy his single mom a car CBS News

Dad who overcame paralysis surprises daughter with 1st dance on her wedding day  ABC News

An infant did not have any hospital visitors for five months: So this nurse adopted her  Washington Post 

Brad Paisley breaks ground on free grocery shop in Nashville  Associated Press

***REALLY?!

Disabled Chicken Who Survived Weasel Attack Learning to Walk Thanks to Custom Wheelchair  People 

El Chapo’s wife is launching a clothing brand   LA Times 

Father admits to staging home invasion to cover up his theft of daughter’s Girl Scouts cookie sales  Global News 

***ART & DESIGN

Aerial photo & video contest  Sky Pixel

Frida Kahlo: The woman behind the legend    

***MUSIC  

How The Beach Boys Composed 'God Only Knows'  Digg 

Kanye to perform his Sunday Service on Easter during Coachella  Desert Sun 

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA  

Apple News+ could lead to a massive value destruction for the magazine industry  Monday Note 

Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand  ArsTechnica 

Ironically, Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy  Techdirt 

From Amazon, Apple, Comcast, and AT&T: Who owns the media today  Recode

Gizmodo Media Group is sold to a private equity firm, and Univision is out of the English-language website business  Nieman Lab ***STUDENT MEDIA   

Signs taken down at College over “fat shaming” concerns  The Dickinsonian (student newspaper)

Teacher who defended student journalists at San Gabriel High, Alhambra Unified settle lawsuit  San Gabriel Valley Tribune 

 ***VIDEO GAMES 

Five damaging myths about video games – let’s shoot 'em up  The Guardian

Snap Inc started a gaming platform. But...why?  Thinkum 

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

The millennials who are making it  Axios

Millennial jobs by income, percent non-white and gender  Axios 

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT 

Scientists have #MeToo issues too. Don't exempt them from accountability laws (opinion)  Los Angeles Times 

National Academy of Sciences will vote on ejecting sexual harassers  Science Magazine  

***ACADEMIC LIFE 

The Death of an Adjunct: Thea Hunter was a promising, brilliant scholar. And then she got trapped in academia’s permanent underclass  The Atlantic  

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

How the war on drugs forces sick, poor people to die in unnecessary agony  Vice

The American Worth Ethic is actually two different standards — one for the wealthy and one for the poor  LongReads

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

Filing your taxes? watch out for phishing scams  Wired 

Patagonia Is Refusing To Sell Its Iconic Power Vests To Some Financial Firms  BuzzFeed News

Cincinnati Enquirer Reporters set out to discover if we've actually recovered from the Great Recession: This is what they found  Cincinnati

5 Ways to Help Your Team Be Open to Change  Harvard Business Review 

***ENVIRONMENT

India Will Ban All Single-Use Plastics by 2022  Global Citizen

***HEALTH 

Mosquito bites can be avoided by listening to electronic music - specifically dubstep  BBC 

New antibiotics could be developed using fish slime, scientists say  The Guardian  

Prostate cancer is on the decline worldwide  American Association for Cancer Research

Older women benefit significantly when screened with 3D mammography  Science Daily

The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System  TheWeek 

Swallowable Vibrating Pill Shakes Faecis to Relieve Constipation  Med Gadget

Most people with dementia have a number of brain abnormalities, not just Alzheimer’s disease: The finding is forcing scientists to rethink the search for treatments  New York Times 

It’s not your imagination: Allergy season gets worse every year  Vox  

***HEALTH & HOSPITALS 

Hospitals across the United States are holding honor walks to show respect to patients at the end of life who are donating organs to others  New York Times

Drug-resistant “superbugs” are spreading — but your hospital doesn’t have to tell you Vox

Violence Against Hospital Employees Is On The Rise  NPR 

***TRAVEL 

The 25 Best US Cities to Spend a Weekend  Thrillist  

Tourists 'threatened with death penalty' for taking selfies on beach in Thailand  Mirror Online 

***FOOD

Don’t cry, but milk sales plummeted by $1.1 billion last year  Fast Company

Kale is now one of the most pesticide-contaminated vegetables  CNBC  

When did America’s heart turn cold on buffet chains?  Vox 

***FAMILY 

What Makes a Happy Marriage? Data Shows the Answer Changing  Fatherly

The Loneliness of Infertility  The Walrus

***ANIMALS 

Stray kitten becomes cyclist's companion on around-the-world adventure  Edinburgh Live

Dog owners are much happier than cat owners, survey finds  Washington Post

How a lost dog was found two days after a massive fire  WHSV

The wild world of trust funds for pets   The Hustle 

Cats Might Not Act Like It, But They Know Their Names As Well As Dogs  NPR  

***SCIENCE

GPS glitch threatens thousands of scientific instruments  Nature  

Two unusual galaxies shake up the dark matter debate, again  Wired

What Americans Know (and don’t know) About Science   Pew Research Center

***PSYCHOLOGY 

The Challenge of Going Off Psychiatric Drugs  The New Yorker

The Psychology Behind why Couples Look Alike  TIME

***PHILOSOPHY 

The New Science of How to Argue—Constructively Disagreement is central to our lives online  The Atlantic 

The End of Satire: The toxic disinformation of social media has rendered traditional forms of humor quaint and futile  New York Times 

Tim Blake Nelson, Classics Nerd, Brings “Socrates” to the Stage  The New Yorker 

***PRODUCTIVITY

To Improve Memory, Tune It Like an Orchestra  New York Times 

Google killed the mailbox app Inbox. The shutdown was a gift to productivity  Inc

***RESEARCH 

Does a new generation of social scientists have to publish more to achieve less? London School of Economics & Political Science

***HIGHER ED

College President Sparks Controversy by Taking Down Blackface Photos  The Chronicle of Higher Education    

Hampshire President Quits; Board Votes to Try to Stay Independent  Inside Higher Ed 

College Campus Tries Out Robot Delivery  NPR

How America's College-Closure Crisis  Leaves Families Devastated  The Chronicle of Higher Education    

Why Colleges Love Influencers  Mashable 

Online university degree provider 2U acquires Trilogy for $750M to expand into tech bootcamps and training  Tech Crunch  

A provost and dean leave their positions at Western Kentucky  Inside Higher Ed

LGBTQ Victory at Azusa Pacific U. Leaves Significant Questions About Future and Faculty Security  Rewire

U of San Diego's Take on Building Name Dispute  Inside Higher Ed

Petition claims Baylor allows homophobic, mysoginistic speaker but prohibits LGBTQ campus groups  KXXV-TV 

***HIGHER ED LAWSUITS 

Lawsuit: Michigan State University professor exploits students to work at personal lab  Detriot News 

Court upholds expulsion of former law student accused of plagiarism  Daily Trojan

Court rejects effort by MIT and Harvard to dismiss video captioning lawsuits Inside Higher Ed

***HUMANITIES

Why Worthless Humanities Degrees May Set You up for Life  BBC 

The Digital Humanities Debacle Computational methods repeatedly come up short  The Chronicle of Higher Education    

***TEACHING

A Professor Interviewed Hundreds of Excellent Teachers and Found a Common Theme  The Chronicle of Higher Education    

How to Access Lynda LinkedIn Learning for Free  Forbes

Digital Distraction Is a Problem Far Beyond the Classroom. But Professors Can Still Help  The Chronicle of Higher Education    

***STUDENT LIFE

 2 Students Face Criminal Charges After Calling Border Agents ‘Murderers’ during protest  The Chronicle of Higher Education

For Some Students, There's A New Way To Pay For College  NPR

Can Doctors Talk Teenagers Out of Risky Drinking?  New York Times 

Your Pain

Finding a different way to interact with your pain is hard. People have the most difficulty embracing the paradox of acceptance. Our instinct is to run as far away from our pain as possible, to be as safe as we can be. Making a decision to step into it rather than trying to get rid of it can be excruciatingly difficult. Feeling the intensity of those difficult, painful emotions and sensations can feel very dark and very lonely. I see it in all forms of suffering. The depression that never seems to lift, the drink that has to be drunk, the highway we cannot drive on, the hands that must be washed over and over and over. The reality is that most people are willing to embrace acceptance only when they have run out of options – when what they have been doing, often for years, simply doesn’t work anymore. This is a dark place that feels like there is no light to guide you out. It can be devastating. 

To be able to connect and embrace a lifetime’s worth of suffering in service of a valued end, that – in its very essence – is acceptance. 

Joseph Trunzo writing in Aeon 

The Hedonic Treadmill

One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one’s native land and goes abroad; one is [weary of Europe] and goes to America etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star. Or there is another direction, but still extensive. One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold; one burns down half of Rome in order to visualize the Trojan conflagration. This method cancels itself and is the spurious infinity.

Søren Kierkegaard, Either / Or

Riding the Wave of Boredom

It turns out that bliss – a second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious – lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (tax returns, televised golf), and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Constant bliss in every atom.

David Foster Wallace 

Was it an April Fools’ Joke?

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has released a rap song. 

Mosquito bites can be avoided by listening to electronic music - specifically dubstep.

DJ Khaled is TikTok’s new Chief Motivational Officer.

Google has developed an audio assistant that attempts to talk with plants. 

Tinder is introducing a Height Verification Badge.

McDonald's is adding Shake-Dipping Sauces.

Burger King has put out an Impossible Meats beefless Whopper.

Starbucks is opening new stores aimed at dogs.

The US Open to add puppies to the ballperson teams at the 2019 tournament.

New Alarm Clock App wakes you to the Sound of a Puking Dog.

Fish slime could help the development of new antibiotics, researchers say. 

Shutterstock is opening a brick-and-mortar library for stock images.

Snoop Dogg once left a sack containing £400,000 cash in a nightclub, its owner said. 

A globe company is selling a flat Earth globe.

Hasbro Has Found a Millennial-Friendly Replacement for Mr. Potato Head is is Mr. Avo Head who sports a man-bum.

A comedian with no political experience has won the most votes in the first round of Ukraine's presidential elections.

The weed-flavored cottage cheese.

Auntie Annie’s is getting into the hot yoga business.

White Castle is auctioning off a carbon-frozen burger from 1921.

Pasta air fresheners.

Scroll down to see which of the stories in this list are real.

These stories are real!

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has released a rap song.

Mosquito bites can be avoided by listening to electronic music - specifically dubstep.

Burger King has put out an Impossible Meats beefless Whopper.

Fish slime could help the development of new antibiotics, researchers say.

New Alarm Clock App wakes you to the Sound of a Puking Dog.

Snoop Dogg once left a sack containing £400,000 cash in a nightclub, its owner said.

A comedian with no political experience has won the most votes in the first round of Ukraine's presidential elections.

Articles of Interest - April 1

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Facebook CEO calls for global regulation of harmful content on the internet in Washington Post op-ed  The Verge  

The New York Times takes a look at Tic Tok New York Times

***MOBILE 

On the Trail of the Robocall King  Wired  

5 Ways Your Phone Still Can't Beat Your Laptop  Gizmodo

***TECHNOLOGY 

Google Photos Will Now Automatically Detect Your Documents  Forbes

10 technologies that will impact higher education the most this year Tech Republic

Oculus founder Luckey: Rift S lenses won’t fit 30% of users  VentureBeat      

***BIG DATA & AI 

Mass satellite launches by SpaceX and OneWeb are a threat to the future of space  MIT Technology Review 

LAPD’s expensive, mostly-automated data-based policing hasn't produced worthwhile results according to watchdog group  TechDirtt 

US computer-science seniors outperform their university counterparts from China/India/Russia on coding, math, operating systems, software engineering, graphics, intelligent systems, security..  ZDnet

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

HTTPS Isn't Always As Secure As It Seems  Wired  

How Grindr became a national security issue  The Verge  

DEA never checked if its bulk surveillance data was legal Engaget

New Apple ecosystem marks step toward privatizing identity Axios

***PRODUCING MEDIA 

I'm Jad Abumrad, Founder and Co-Host of Radiolab, and This Is How I Work  Life Hacker

***INTERNET 

How to Be a Better Web Searcher: Secrets from Google Scientists  Scientific American    

Longing for an Internet Cleanse  New York Times 

***EMAIL

Gmail will now let you interact with messages just like web pages right in your inbox  The Next Web 

Gmail for iOS finally gets handy customizable swipe actions  Digital Trends

***PERSONAL GROWTH 

The Power of Small Wins  Becoming (my blog)

'Love Your Enemies' ... And Maaaybe You'll Get Them To Agree With You NPR

Top takeaways from Yale's free online course on the psychology of happiness  Business Insider    

***GRAMMAR

Olivia Jade Is Reportedly at Risk of Losing Her Beauty Trademarks Because of Her Bad Punctuation  Elle

The agony and ecstasy of grammar Teaching and learning it should be fascinating—and fun  Economist

***WRITING & READING

Spoken-Word Poetry’s Dynamic Duo  The New Yorker

Writing a Nonfiction Book? Here’s Advice from a Pulitzer Prize Bestselling Author Global Investigative Journalism Network

***PLAGIARISM 

Plagiarism detectors are a crutch, and a problem  Nature  

Among 239 retractions by authors from India over a period of more than 20 years, the most common reason was plagiarism  Scientometrics 

The Problem with Press Release Plagiarism Today

***APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

It’s April Fools’ Day. Here’s 2019′s updated, depressing and comprehensive list of pranks and hoaxes Washington Post

April Fools': A Running List Of Good, Bad And Terrible Corporate Gags Digg

***GENDER   

As a woman with a wooden leg, Virginia Hall was an unlikely spy. That’s what made her so good Medium

Judge Strikes Down North Carolina School Uniform Skirt Requirement  BuzzFeed News

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Study: Racial Bias in Police Traffic Stops and Searches (video)  Cheddar  

'Black Press Only!': Political meeting in Georgia turns away journalists based on race, reports say  USA Today

MacArthur Genius Recipient Jennifer Eberhardt Discusses Her New Book 'Biased'  NPR

13 professors who teach in its ethnicity, race and migration studies program say they'll walk if they don't get the resources and autonomy they've been promised Inside Higher Ed

Science knowledge varies by race and ethnicity in U.S.  Pew Research Center 

***FREE SPEECH

Beloit calls off talk by conservative speaker after students bang drums and pile chairs on stage to prevent him from starting Inside Higher Ed

***LEGAL ISSUES 

European parliament votes for controversial copyright reform (yes, again)  Tech Crunch

Alabama Court: Publicity Rights over First Amendment In S-Town Lawsuit TechDirt

Japanese court rules against journalist in HPV vaccine defamation case  Science Mag 

Buzzfeed Beats a Libel Suit Hollywood Reporter  

Nevada Judge Says Online News Publications Aren't Protected By The State's Journalist Shield Law TechDirt

Meet the Lawyer Defending the Media Hollywood Reporter

***CRIME 

I Broke Dumb Laws in Front of Police to See If They'd Arrest Me - VICE Video: Documentaries, Films, News Videos  Vice 

Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted  Vox  

Police Misconduct Records Show California Police Officer Busting Sober Drivers For DUI TechDirt

***RELIGION

A Visual Map of the World's Major Religions (and Non-Religions)  Open Culture

A church in turmoil: Inside Harvest Bible Chapel's questionable financial moves and erratic leadership  Chicago Tribune  

'Jesus: His Life' review: History brings hybrid format to greatest story ever told  CNN

The Secret Jehovah’s Witness Database of Child Molesters   The Atlantic

Atlanta pastors await possible United Methodist Church split over LGBTQ rights  Reporter Newspaper

The countries with the 10 largest Christian populations and the 10 largest Muslim populations  Pew Research Center

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Pope Francis: 'Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up'  CNN

The Trump era has exposed divisions among Catholics and evangelicals Economist  

***GOOD NEWS

Kenyan educator who gives most of his salary to students in need wins $1 million global teaching prize  BBC 

***ART & DESIGN 

How to Improve iOS for Grandma  Medium 

Who should get the credit for AI art? CNN

***MUSIC 

DJs of the future don't spin records—they write code  Wired 

Band of wounded warriors healing through music  CBS News  

An algorithm just signed a major music deal  High Snobiety

‘Blurred Lines’ on Their Minds, Songwriters Create Nervously  New York Times

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA   

What If Google And Facebook Admitted That All This Ad Targeting Really Doesn't Work That Well?  Tech Dirt

***JOURNALISM 

AP Stylebook update: It’s OK to call something racist when it’s racist  Poynter

Why slow journalism and finishable news is (quickly) growing a following  Harvard’s Nieman Lab 

Do technology companies care about journalism?  Columbia Journalism Review

For Local News, Americans Embrace Digital but Still Want Strong Community Connection  Pew Research Center  

Alabama reaches new milestone in barriers to access  MuckRock  

Most Americans – especially Republicans – say local journalists shouldn’t express views on local issues  Pew Research Center 

TV News Anchors Try Teen Slang; Leave Viewers Cringing  Washington Post  

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Americans Don't Know Local Newspapers Are Dying  The Atlantic

After the death of alt-weeklies, alt-alt-weeklies  Columbia Journalism Review 

Knight Foundation Makes $6 Million Investment In 3 Organizations Media Post

***FAKE NEWS

How Alex Jones and Infowars Helped a Florida Man Stalk Sandy Hook Families  New York Times

All those annoying April Fool’s pranks you’ll see Monday might help researchers better detect fake news  Harvard’s Nieman Lab

***JOBS

This is the easiest way to make your LinkedIn profile stand out  Fast Company

ProPublica Is Again Expanding Its Local Reporting Network: Apply for a Spot  ProPublica

Apple is hiring writing and editorial teams to make Siri more "fun" and "witty"  Thinkum

 ***FREELANCE WRITING 

Freelancers to write about the latest sneaker trends and releases  Elite Daily

Sobriety story pitches  The Temper 

Freelance writing pitches  Novelty Media 

Pitches on "climate change, extinction, food choices, and whether cats are really hell-demons"  The Nib 

Freelance pitches for upcoming issues  Edible Queens

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT 

Federal grant will bolster sexual assault prevention at five local college campuses  The San Diego Union-Tribune

***SOCIAL ISSUES  

The US Is Holding Hundreds Of Shivering Immigrants In A Pen Underneath A Texas Bridge  BuzzFeed News 

Facebook announces a long-overdue transparency tool for News Feed  The Next Web  

***BUSINESS & FINANCE 

Why Startups Fall Apart at 50 Employees  Medium 

Where in The U.S. Are You Most Likely to Be Audited by the IRS?  Propublica

How Brands Can Build Successful Relationships with Influencers  Harvard Business Review 

***ENVIRONMENT 

Who keeps buying California's scarce water? Saudi Arabia  The Guardian

The Hidden Air Pollution in Our Homes  The New Yorker

The recycling crisis  The Week

***HEALTH

At 71 she's never felt pain or anxiety - now scientists know why  New York Times

Viral Photo Shows How Much Bacteria Is on 8-Year-Old’s Hand  Fatherly

News stories about the flu shot spawn debates about vaccines in general  Journalists Resource  

Hospital using drones to fly blood samples between buildings  Associated Press

***HEALTHY LIVING 

NASA research found the perfect length for a power nap  Business Insider

What Makes a Healthy Community?  US News 

***FAMILY 

Toddlers engage more with print books than tablets: Study  ABC News

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Daughter Calls Out Mom for Posting Selfie Without Consent  Fatherly

Why Don't You Want Kids?   Wired

How to help a kid write a college admissions essay without cheating  Chicago SunTimes

Online preschool programs A ‘shockingly bad’ idea (opinion)  Washington Post  

***RELATIONSHIPS

Seattle rated the worst city for singles  Seattle Times 

How one woman improved her relationship by paying attention to her partner's 'bids' to connect  NBC News 

Women With a Twin Brother Are More Likely to Face Penalties at School and  Work  New York Times

***ANIMALS 

Video of father and son killing bear, cubs released in Alaska  USA Today

50 Fascinating Facts About Cats  Mental Floss 

***SCIENCE 

How to read the news like a scientist  TED  

Is it the end of ‘statistical significance’? The battle to make science more uncertain  The Conversation

***PSYCHOLOGY 

Deep Brain Stimulation where implant delivers some pulses of electricity to the brain  NPR 

Behold an Anatomically Correct Replica of the Human Brain, Knitted by a Psychiatrist  Open Culture

The Challenge of Going Off Psychiatric Drugs  The New Yorker

Acceptance and commitment therapy teaches us how to live a values-driven life even in the face of dark emotions and trauma Aeon

High-strength cannabis increases risk of mental health problems  The Guardian

***NEUROSCIENCE  

Old brains make neurons, possibly protecting against Alzheimer's   STAT

The Brain-Computer Interface Is Coming  Psychology Today 

How the Brain Links Gestures, Perception and Meaning  Quanta Magazine 

***POLITICS

Does Democracy Demand the Tolerance of the Intolerant? Karl Popper’s Paradox  Open Culture

***ETHICS 

Do Ethicists Behave Better Than the Rest of Us?: New Research Answers the Question  Open Culture  

Many professions have codes of ethics - so why not politics?  The Conversation 

***RESEARCH  

Publishing research in high-impact factor journals 'poisons hiring and funding decisions' says eLife boss  Cambridge Independent 

Trends in the Use of Common Words and Patient-Centric Language in the Titles of Medical Journals, 1976-2015  JAMA Network Open 

Nature editor: researchers should be forced to make data public  Times Higher Education

***RESEARCH ERRORS & FRAUD 

Academic publishing is in ‘crisis’ and must be put on a more sustainable and open footing   ResearchResearch 

Plagiarism and Data Falsification are the Most Common Reasons for Retracted Publications in Obstetrics and Gynecology

Figure errors, sloppy science, and fraud: keeping eyes on your data  Journal of Clinical Investigation

Meet the data detective who checks the images in all submitted manuscripts  EMBO

***RESEARCH & PEER REVIEW  

NIH may bar peer reviewers accused of sexual harassment  Science Mag

Technological Support for Peer Review Innovations  Scholarly Kitchen

***LIBERAL ARTS

To survive, small colleges are rethinking the liberal arts Education Dive

UVM cites decline in humanities enrollment for faculty cuts  WCAX-TV  

Making a case for liberal arts  Virginia Business 

Debunking common misconceptions about liberal arts degrees  Study International

***HIGHER ED

Liberty University scrutinized over fuel contract with Pentagon  The Hill

Small Methodist institution in Tennessee announces it would shut down  Inside Higher Ed

Oklahoma Christian University asks for forgiveness from former students, arrested and expelled on racially tinged charges  Christian Chronicle 

***TEACHING

 4 Lessons From Moving a Face-to-Face Course Online  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

***STUDENT MEDIA  

 A letter from a Notre Dame mother, urging women to not wear the gym attire in lieu of pants, prompts backlash and debate  Inside Higher Ed 

***STUDENT LIFE

Tufts University recently expelled a student for allegedly hacking grades, but did the university make the right call? Inside Higher Ed

12 Industries Experts Say Millennials Are Killing — And Why They’re Wrong  CBI Insights 

The 10 Best Cities for Millennials in 2019 (Plus the 10 Worst)  Mental Floss

***ACADEMIC LIFE  

This Is How You Kill a Profession (opinion)  Chronicle of Higher Ed

South Korean professor forced students to write her daughter’s thesis paper  AFP 

Former U. of Oklahoma Dean Sues President, Provost, and University for Bias and Free-Speech Violation  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Racist writing instructor's Listserv post prompts debate about the future of the field and how scholars communicate with one another  Inside Higher Ed 

The Power of Small Wins

Try to remember the last time you – or anyone you know – had a truly enormous breakthrough in solving a problem or achieving one of those audacious goals. It’s pretty hard, because breakthroughs are very rare events. On the other hand, small wins can happen all the time. Those are the incremental steps toward meaningful (even big) goals. Our research showed that, of all the events that have the power to excite people and engage them in their work, the single most important is making progress – even if that progress is a small win. That’s the progress principle. And, because people are more creatively productive when they are excited and engaged, small wins are a very big deal for organizations.

Religiously protect at least 20 minutes – and, ideally, much more – every day, to tackle something in the work that matters most to you. Hide in an empty conference room, if you have to, or sneak out in disguise to a nearby coffee shop. Then make note of any progress you made (even if it was a small win), and decide where to pick up again the next day. The progress, and the mini-celebration of simply noting it, can lift your inner work life.

Teresa Amabile talking about her book The Progress Principle  

Embracing Life as it Is

For millennia, philosophers have understood that we don’t see life as it is; we see a version distorted by our hopes, fears, and other attachments. The Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.” Marcus Aurelius said, “Life itself is but what you deem it.” The quest for wisdom in many traditions begins with this insight. Early Buddhists and the Stoics, for example, developed practices for reducing attachments, thinking more clearly, and finding release from the emotional torments of normal mental life.

The goal is to minimize distorted thinking and see the world more accurately. When people improve their mental hygiene in this way—when they free themselves from the repetitive irrational thoughts that had previously filled so much of their consciousness—they become less depressed, anxious, and angry. 

Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt writing in The Atlantic 

Patriotism & nationalism

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism when hate of people other than your own comes first. -Charles de Gaulle

Mental illness: Out of the shadows

Mental illnesses account for more suffering and premature death in rich countries than heart disease and strokes, or than cancer. One study estimates that depression is 50% more disabling than angina, asthma or arthritis. Men with mental-health problems die 20 years earlier than those without, according to the British Medical Association, mostly from causes other than suicide. That is partly because mental illnesses make physical ones tougher to treat, and because sufferers often live less healthily. Research has linked even moderate levels of stress to lower life-expectancy. 

Half of adults with long-term mental conditions suffered their first symptoms before turning 14. Left untreated, even moderate conditions such as anxiety hurt school results and the prospects for employment. For serious conditions such as psychosis, prompt treatment greatly improves outcomes.

From The stigma of mental illness is fading in The Economist 

Articles of Interest - March 25

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA   

How “Baby Shark” was manufactured in a Korean toddler entertainment factory  Vice 

Nexstar to Sell 19 TV Stations for $1.32 Billion  Hollywood Reporter 

***JOURNALISM

Google News Initiative launches new fact checking tools, supporting more subscription models 9to5Google 

18 journalists on how—or whether—they use tape recorders  Columbia Journalism Review***FAKE NEWS 

Conspiracy Theories Can’t Be Stopped  FiveThirtyEight  

WhatsApp wants to label viral forwards to rein in fake news – but it’ll have to do more  The Next Web

How OpenAI's Fake News Warnings Triggered Actual Fake News  PC Mag

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Instagram Is Full of Conspiracy Theories and Extremism  The Atlantic

China’s new social media craze: Paying random people to shower you with over-the-top compliments  CNBC 

Facebook is hiring 22 people for its secretive blockchain division The Next Web   

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

Education and Science Giant Elsevier Left Users’ Passwords Exposed Online  Mother Board 

Watchdog: FEMA wrongly released personal data of victims  Associated Press

Help may be on the way for those suffering from “password hell”  Wall Street Journal (sub. req.’d)

Facebook left millions of passwords readable by employees  Associated Press ***TECHNOLOGY

Better Living Through Crispr: Growing Human Organs in Pigs  Wired  

Everything Apple announced at its ‘show time’ event  TechCrunch 

***BIG DATA & AI 

Big data got us here, but small data will get us the rest of the way  Axios

Stanford University launches the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence  Stanford

CERN discovery of a tiny effect in particles indicating a difference in the way matter and antimatter behave—one that physicists have been hunting for decades  Nature    

How Walmart uses graphics processing units for better demand forecasting  Datanami

***PERSONAL GROWTH 

No one was paying attention  Becoming (my blog)

24 Common Cognitive Biases: A Visual List of the Psychological Systems Errors That Keep Us From Thinking Rationally  Open Culture 

***GRAMMAR

Author of grammar guide traces language love to cookie sign (video)  MSNBC 

***WRITING & READING

The rise of robot authors: is the writing on the wall for human novelists?  The Guardian 

Why Do Wite-Out and Liquid Paper Still Exist?  The Atlantic

***LANGUAGE 

16-Year-Old Swedish Environmental Activist, Has Been Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize Mental Floss

The man bringing dead languages back to life  BBC  

***LITERATURE

How 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' Became a Classic  The Atlantic

Meet 10 Emerging Writers Who Just Won the 2019 Whiting Award  The Cut

***GENDER   

U.S. Mathematician Becomes First Woman To Win Abel Prize, 'Math's Nobel'  NPR

Sports-Bra Outrage And a Fight Over Everyday Sexism  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Journal Issues Revised Version of Controversial Paper That Questioned Why Some Teens Identify as Transgender  Chronicle of Higher Ed

A Transgender Student Said He's Being Barred From Running For Prom King  Buzzfeed News

The narrowing, but persistent, gender gap in pay  Pew Research Center 

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES 

Why white nationalist terrorism is a global threat: The Christchurch killer acted alone but followed a terrifying trend  Economist 

Supreme Court Justices Seem Incredulous At Repeated Racial Bias In Jury Selection  NPR

A study of nearly 100 million traffic stops: black drivers are 20% more likely to get pulled over  CNN

50 Years Ago Students Shut Down This College To Demand Ethnic Studies Courses  NPR

A third of the convictions overturned because of DNA involved witnesses who identified the wrong person who was of another race  New York Times 

Laila Lalami: ‘White supremacists target Muslims but the threat isn't taken as seriously as other forms of terror’  The Guardian 

***FREE SPEECH

UC Berkeley in spotlight as Trump expected to issue campus free-speech order  San Francisco Chronicle 

Trump’s Free-Speech Order Could Have Been Harsher: Higher-Ed Leaders Still Don’t Approve Chronicle of Higher Ed

A student was briefly suspended for social media posts, angering many on campus: He believes his rhetoric was judged as a threat, unfairly, because he is Muslim  Inside Higher Ed 

***LEGAL ISSUES  

An academic who helped a company gather data on millions of Facebook users is suing for defamation New York Times 

A coalition of 41 media organizations is urging a court to uphold a decision dismissing a professor’s defamation lawsuit  Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press 

Jeanine Pirro Beats Defamation Lawsuit From Black Lives Matter Activist  Hollywood Reporter 

***CRIME 

Here are the stories about police misconduct uncovered so far by a new media partnership LA Times

Pregnant Behind Bars: What We Do And Don't Know About Pregnancy And Incarceration NPR

***STATISTICS

800 scientists say it’s time to abandon “statistical significance” P-values and “statistical significance” are widely misunderstood: Here’s what they actually mean  Vox 

The Guardian view on statistics in sciences: gaming the (un)known (opinion)  The Guardian 

***RELIGION

Templeton Prize winner believes science, spirituality are complementary  The Boston Pilot 

Evidence of improper voting raises questions about Methodist gay clergy vote  Religion News

Did John MacArthur visit the Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated just hours after it happened?  Throckmorton Blog 

‘Nones’ now as big as evangelicals, Catholics in the US  Religious News Service  

***RELIGION OUTSIDE THE U.S.

4 facts about religion in New Zealand  Pew Research Center

China Tells Christianity To Be More Chinese  Christianity Today

***ISLAM 

The baffling argument that ‘Islam is not a religion’  Washington Post 

Evangelicals and Muslims see similarities in faiths and favor closer ties, survey says Religious News Service

***RELIGION & FINANCES  

LifeWay to Close All 170 Christian Stores  Christianity Today  

Christian financial planner praised by Robert Jeffress facing Ponzi scheme charges  Religious News Service 

***THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 

395 Catholic priests, church staff accused of sex misconduct in new  Chicago Sun Times

Pope Francis wants psychological testing to prevent problem priests. But can it really do that? Washington Post 

West Virginia sues Catholic diocese, alleging it knowingly employed pedophiles The Hill

***RELIGION AND LGBT

Christian group drops lawsuit over Austin's LGBT protections  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Google resists pressure to pull LGBT "conversion therapy" app  Axios

Michigan will no longer fund adoption agencies that deny LGBT parents  Washington Post 

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Secrecy surrounding briefing for ‘faith-based media’ raises eyebrows  MSNBC 

***GOOD NEWS

Man with Down Syndrome honored for working at same McDonald's for 27 years  11 Alive

104-year-old woman arrested  BBC 

Blind runner, guide dog trio makes history in NYC Half Marathon  CNN

Twelve-year-old Former intensive care patient returns to play guitar for newborns  Health Maters  

Former wounded warrior is spending his retirement volunteering at Walter Reed  The Week 

Man gifts car to stranger during trade-in at El Cajon dealership  10 News

Woman Who Was Smallest Baby Born in Texas Now Works at Same Hospital  People 

Dad's Adopted Daughter Turns Out to Be Perfect Kidney Donor Match  Inside Edition 

***ART & DESIGN

The very mathematical history of a perfect color combination  Wired

Sean Adams's The Designer's Dictionary of Type explains famous fonts  Fast Company 

9 Photo Stories That Will Challenge Your View Of The World  BuzzFeed News

Web Design Trends of 2019 [Infographic]  SocialMediaToday

***MUSIC 

The Oral History of the Les Paul  Guitar 

Why music affects your productivity  Quartz 

What Will Happen When Machines Write Songs Just as Well as Your Favorite Musician?  Mother Jones

The Case for Why Captain Beefheart's Awful Sounding Album, Trout Mask Replica, Is a True Masterpiece  Open Culture 

In Times of Crisis, We Need Classical Music What will we lose if Bach and Beethoven disappear from our schools and concert halls?  The Walrus

***FILM 

How ‘God’s Not Dead’ Perpetuated the Modern Evangelical Victim Narrative (opinion) Relevant Magazine 

***STUDENT MEDIA  

USC's Student Newspaper Published A Brutal Editorial About The Cheating Scandal  LAist 

***STUDENT LIFE

Poll: 74% of parents admit to making appointments for their adult children  KTVU 

New data shows more than half of young people in America don't have a romantic partner  Washington Post 

***VIDEO GAMES 

How Designers Engineer Luck Into Video Games  Nautil 

Google Unveils Plan for Video Games Streaming Service Hollywood Reporter

***FREELANCE WRITING 

Writers for love & sex short fiction platform of Slide Stories  

Freelance reporters with an interest in state/local policy based in West Coast or Midwest   Stateline.org

Freelance pitches on Asian American / Pacific Islander issues  Hyphen Magazine  

Emergent science and technology story pitches  Futurism

Freelance pitches  The North Star

Four paid fellowships  Mother Jones  

Freelance writer (night+weekend Gizmodo (remote) 

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

US government uses several black-site shelters to detain immigrant children  Reveal

California Wildfire Survivors Say They’re Living In Dire Conditions And There’s Little Help Buzzfeed News 

Canada’s becoming a tech hub thanks to Donald Trump immigration policies  Reddit

Border Patrol Detained a 9-Year-Old U.S. Citizen for Over a Day on Her Way to School  NBC-7

Wellbeing Inequality May Tell Us More About Life Than Income  Gallup

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

The lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are aiming at Realtors and their 6% fee  MarketWatch

Google, Facebook Scammed For More Than $100 Million In Fake Invoices  Media Post

Boeing is doing crisis management all wrong – here’s what a company needs to do to restore the public’s trust  The Conversation

***ENVIRONMENT

16-Year-Old Swedish Environmental Activist, Has Been Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize Mental Floss

Shocking autopsy photos show toll of plastic waste on dead whale  The Guardian

Adidas Sold 1 Million Eco-Friendly Shoes Made from Ocean Plastic, Plans 11 Million More  The Epoch Times  

Finland is offering free trips to people in need of happiness lessons  Tree Hugger 

West Virginia industry group successfully argues the state doesn’t need new clean-water standards because the obese population can tolerate higher levels of cancer-causing chemicals  Sustainability Times 

The insect apocalypse is not here but there are reasons for concern  Economist

***HEALTH

Daily Aspirin to Prevent Heart Attacks No Longer Recommended  NBC4 Washington

My Friend’s Cancer Taught Me About a Hole in Our Health System  New York Times

***HEALTH: VACCINES 

What anti-vaxxers are actually afraid of (it's not all about autism): A new study from the University of Pittsburgh details how the anti-vaxx movement has divided and grown  BigThink

Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her CNN  

Why the Washington measles outbreak is mostly affecting one specific group Box

Measles Rages in Brooklyn as Some Yeshivas Defy Vaccine Rule  The Daily Beast

One Doctor Is Responsible for a Third of All Medical Vaccine Exemptions in San Diego  Voice of San Diego 

Kentucky Gov. says he intentionally exposed kids to chicken pox instead of giving them vaccine  ABC News 

5 facts about vaccines in the U.S.  Pew Research Center  

Why anti-vaxxer mobs go after pro-vaccine doctors online — and what to do about it  Mashable 

***FOOD

Celery was once as sexy as kale  Quartz 

***PARENTING  

Forget helicopter parents, snowplow parents are killing kids' life skills  USA Today

How parents feel about – and manage – their teens’ online behavior and screen time Pew Research Center

***ANIMALS 

The 10 Most Popular Puppy Names of 2019  Mental Floss

Man jumps shirtless into frozen Irvington, New York, lake to rescue stranded dogs  abc7ny.com 

***SCIENCE 

Philosophy of Biology: Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid  eLife 

Scientists find new evidence that humans may be sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field; quick changes caused as much as 60% drop in alpha brain waves  Cal Tech 

Public confidence in scientists has remained stable for decades  Pew Research Center

***PSYCHOLOGY 

Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris The biology of mental illness is still a mystery, but practitioners don’t want to admit it  The Atlantic 

Here’s A Breakdown Of The 6 Core Emotions We Feel  Daily Infographic

How the Brain Links Gestures, Perception and Meaning  Quantam

***NEUROSCIENCE  

People don't become 'adults' until their 30s, says neuroscientist  BBC 

Neuroscience proves Nietzsche right: some people are wired to be more spontaneous than others  The Conversation 

***PHILOSOPHY

Oxford's Free Course Critical Reasoning For Beginners Teaches You to Think Like a Philosopher  Open Culture

Philosophers and neuroscientists join forces to see whether science can solve the mystery of free will  Science Mag  

***ETHICS

Moral technology Self-driving cars don’t drink and medical AIs are never overtired. Given our obvious flaws, what can humans still do best? Aeon

Microsoft will be adding AI ethics to its standard checklist for product release  Geekwire   

***RESEARCH 

Peer reviewed studies soon to be replaced by CAPS LOCK  The Science Post  

University of Illinois at Chicago Missed Warning Signs of Research Going Awry, Letters Show  ProPublica 

Error vs. Fraud in Research  Medium 

We need to relearn how to play nice in peer review  University Affairs    

Five Article-Writing Mistakes and How to Fix Them  The Professor is in

Are Papers with Open Data More Credible?  International Conference on Information  Springer 

Duke University to Pay $112.5 Million to Settle Claims of Research Misconduct  New York Times

***HIGHER ED

The Deeper Education Issue Under the College Bribery Scandal  Wired

The Growing Crisis of Guns on Campus  The New Republic

***HUMANITIES 

The Humanities and the Future Scientific American Blog Network

What majoring in the humanities can teach us  The Independent Florida Alligator

***TEACHING 

Hitler was a ‘good leader,’ guest speaker tells N.J. students. School says it won’t happen again NJ.com

Many Professors Want to Change Their Teaching but Don’t. One University Found Out Why  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Trigger Warnings May Not Do Much, Early Studies Suggest  New York Times

***ACADEMIC LIFE 

Eight academics who were implicated in allegations of plagiarism at the North West University have been found guilty after an investigation by the university  City Press 

It is “up to scientists to free themselves…from the tyranny of academic publishers by refusing to perform free peer-reviews for them  PeerJ  

Professor in Prostitution Sting Says He Was Doing 'Research'   KAAL-TV

Did Utah professor confess to viewing child porn to class?  Desert News

No one was paying attention

Hazel Motes walked along down town close to the store fronts but not looking in them. The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky. The stores…stayed open on Thursday nights so that people could have an extra opportunity to see what was for sale.

Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

(Born March 25, 1925)

the tragic fate of most individuals

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born, when we die, although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born. -Erich Fromm (born March 23, 1900)

Plenty of reason for doubt, anger and sadness

All of us — whatever our natural serotonin level — look around us and see plenty of reason for doubt, anger and sadness. A child dies, a woman is abused, a schoolyard becomes a killing field, a typhoon sweeps away the innocent. If we knew or felt the whole of human suffering, we would drown in despair. By all objective evidence, we are arrogant animals, headed for the extinction that is the way of all things. We imagine that we are like gods, and still drop dead like flies on the windowsill.

The answer to the temptation of nihilism is not an argument — though philosophy can clear away a lot of intellectual foolishness. It is the experience of transcendence we cannot explain, or explain away. It is the fragments of love and meaning that arrive out of the blue — in beauty that leaves a lump in your throat, in the peace and ordered complexity of nature, in the shadow and shimmer of a cathedral, in the unexplained wonder of existence itself. 

Michael Gerson, published in the Washington Post