Every time you tell yourself “I can't”, you're creating a feedback loop that is a reminder of your limitations. This terminology indicates that you're forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do.

In comparison, when you tell yourself “I don't”, you're creating a feedback loop that reminds you of your control and power over the situation. It's a phrase that can propel you towards breaking your bad habits and following your good ones.

“I can't” and “I don't” are words that seem similar and we often interchange them for one another, but psychologically they can provide very different feedback and, ultimately, result in very different actions. They aren't just words and phrases. They are affirmations of what you believe, reasons for why you do what you do, and reminders of where you want to go.

The ability to overcome temptation and effectively say no is critical not only to your physical health, but also to maintaining a sense of well–being and control in your mental health.

To put it simply: you can either be the victim of your words or the architect of them. Which one would you prefer?

James Clear

August 11, 2019

our availability

August 11, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

God does not ask about our ability, but our availability.

August 09, 2019

Proactive Language

August 09, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

There’s nothing I can do.. Let’s look at our alternatives.
That’s just the way I am.. I can choose a different approach.
He makes me so mad.. I control my own feelings.
They won’t allow that.. I can create an effective presentation.
I have to do that..I will choose an appropriate response.
I can’t..I choose.
I must.. I prefer.
If only.. I will.

A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces - other people, circumstances, even the stars - for their own situation.

Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

August 09, 2019

greener grace

August 09, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

The grass is always greener wherever you water it. – Anonymous

August 08, 2019

The goal in marriage

August 08, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together. -Robert C. Dodds

August 07, 2019

Death Ground

August 07, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressures. Put yourself in situations where you have too much at stake to waste time or resources – if you cannot afford to lose, you won’t. Cut your ties to the past; enter unknown territory where you must depend on your wits and energy to see you through. Place yourself on “death ground,” where you back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.

Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

August 06, 2019

Grace arrives

August 06, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Grace arrives, unannounced, in lives that least expect or deserve it. - Andrew Sullivan

August 05, 2019

Articles of Interest - August 5

August 05, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

Women Rewriting the Rules of Reporting in the Arab World The New York Times

What newsrooms need to know about Americans’ news habits RTDNA

Investigative journalism students play a key role in overturning a conviction Harvard’s Nieman Report

I’ve Seen the Limits of Journalism The Atlantic

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Dying Gasp of One Local Newspaper The New York Times

A Future without a Front Page The New York Times

***FAKE NEWS

He Was The Face Of A Bike-A-Thon To Fight Cancer. He Was Also A Fake The New York Times

***SOCIAL MEDIA

10 facts about Americans and Twitter Pew Research

The 2019 Instagram Rich List — Who Earns The Most From Sponsored Posts? Hopper HQ

TikTok, The Internet's Hottest Meme Breeding Ground, Turns 1 NPR

***SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK

Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind MIT Tech Review

EU ruling says sites could be liable for user-tracking Facebook Like buttons The Verge

Why doesn’t Facebook help after your account gets hacked? Digitsal Trends

Facebook says it dismantles covert influence campaign tied to Saudi Arabia Reuters

***BIG DATA & AI

Chaos Computing: What it is and why we should care about it? Medium

These studies offer clues about the early universe and the arrow of time and “hope that we can describe even these very messy, complicated systems with simple patterns” Quanta Magazine

MIT Debuts language designed for Bayesian stats and machine learning: great for tracking objects in space, estimating 3D, the structure of a time series Infoq

National Reconnaissance Office product Sentient: “an omnivorous analysis tool…pointing satellites toward the most interesting parts of that future” making “things simpler downstream for human analysts” The Verge

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Capital One Says Hacker Breached Accounts Of 100 Million People; Ex-Amazon Employee Arrested Forbes

Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US The Guardian

Kids at the center of facial recognition Axios

Internet of Things Cybersecurity Tips Offered by Science Agency Bloomberg

***PRODUCING MEDIA

PR’s Journalistic Roots Help Brands Transition to Digital Story Hunter

***INTERNET

People forged judges’ signatures to trick Google into changing results ArsTechnica

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Tech giants crush other media despite looming threats Axios

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Motivated Reasoning Becoming (my blog)

The trick that makes you overspend BBC

***GRAMMAR

The Birth of the Semicolon The Paris Review

Grammar rules are an invention: It’s time to stop taking them so seriously NBC News

A Defense of the Semicolon and Other Adventures in the English Language New York Times

***WRITING & READING

Dallas bodycam footage released showing moments before death of unarmed man NBC News

Authors Guild Hides Jokes In Their Copyright Notices Tech Dirt

***LANGUAGE

Because Internet,' A Guide To Our Changing Language, LOL NPR

Is the English language better because of the Internet? This linguist thinks so CTV

***LITERATURE

From every teen to annoying: are today's young readers turning on The Catcher in the Rye? The Guardian

A School Librarian's Philosophy of Lost Books School Library

How Japan's modern literature came under Nietzsche's spell Japan Times

***BORDER ISSUES

Border Patrol Detained a 9-Year-Old American Girl on Her Way to School for 32 Hours GQ

California professors install seesaws along U.S.-Mexico border wall NBC News

***POETRY

I’m ditching social media for poetry books this summer The Times

Opera inspired Walt Whitman; now his poetry is doing the same for musicians Star Tribune

The place of poetry and the poetry of place SMH

***GENDER

Transgender treatment: Puberty blockers study under investigation BBC

This Journal's Future Is Female Inside Higher Ed

Craving Freedom, Japan's Women Opt Out Of Marriage The New York Times

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

How white nationalists have co-opted fan fiction Wired

‘It was terrifying’: Black Chadds Ford couple left shaken by white Pa. trooper’s alleged misconduct Philadelphia Inquirer

***CRIME & COURTS

Man calls cops on himself asking for help: Body cams show cops making jokes after they'd restrained him and he'd gone limp Dallas News

Amazon Ring alerts often tie up police with false alarms Cent

No Immunity For Cops Who Arrested A Man For Creating A Facebook Page Mocking The Police Department Tech Dirt

Court warns reporters to be careful publishing reports from police logs Universal Hub

***RELIGIION

Early Christian 'Church of the Apostles' Possibly Unearthed Near Sea of Galilee Live Science

The Story Behind John Allen Chau, An American Missionary Who Was Killed While Working NPR

Evangelical Publisher’s Africa-Themed Bible School Kit Had Kids Pretending To Be Slaves Huff Post

What did church teach white students posing with guns in front of Emmett Till marker? Religion in the News

Radical Baptist church preaches LGBTQ hate just miles from California’s Capitol LA Times

Evangelicals’ Civility Religion in Public

U.S. Jews know a lot about religion – but other Americans know little about Judaism Pew Research

Christian group warns against rise of 'Christian nationalism' The Hill

***GOOD NEWS

Nurse helps save driver who crashed into her home Fox 35

***REALLY?!

Texas Man Caught With Missile Launcher In Checked Baggage At BWI Airport CBS Baltimore

The runner who makes elaborate artwork with his feet and a map The Guardian

Will Hitler HQ makeover create a Nazi theme park? BBC

***ART & DESIGN

Thousands of Miniature Mirrors Dazzle and Refract in Multi-Media Sculptures by Lee Bul The is Colossal

Where Does Major American Art Come From? Mapping the Whitney Biennial The New York Times

Fine and Street Art Aesthetics Merge in Anthony Lister’s Expressive Murals The is Colossal

Yulia Brodskaya Reveals Her Process of ‘Painting With Paper’ in a New Book The is Colossal

Meticulous Portraits of Young Women by Ozabu Are Eerily Fused with Plants and Feathers The is Colossal

An Artist Crochets a Life-Size, Anatomically-Correct Skeleton, Complete with Organs in Art, Biology, Creativity, Science Open Culture

***MUSIC

Why the Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit makes no sense (video)

Showtime's four part docuseries on Rick Rubin Showtime

The Wizard of Oz vs Lil Nas X (video) Lewis Wake Memes

***ARTICLES ABOUT JOBS

Journalism career advice Twitter threat

This Google Executive Reviewed More Than 20,000 Resumes--He Found These 5 Stunning Mistakes Over and Over Inc

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Ohio State’s troubled sexual assault center failed to report 57 potential felonies, audit finds Dispatch

Students accused of sexual harassment sue California universities LA Times

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

The Invention of Money New Yorker

***ENVIRONMENT

Trails of Wind (visualization)

Ethiopia Plants 350 Million Trees in One Day to Combat Drought Bloomberg

***HEALTH

Babies get critical gut bacteria from their mother at birth, not from placenta, study suggests Science Mag

Instagram’s ‘clean eating’ culture is everywhere. It could be giving rise to a little-known eating disorder The Lily

Where People Don't Get Enough Sleep, Mapped Digg

Dark mode isn't as good for your eyes as you believe Wired

High levels of oestrogen in the womb linked to autism University of Cambridge

***TRAVEL

***FOOD

Krispy Kreme is redesigning its stores for the first time in a decade and making its menu even more sugar CNN

Is it unsafe or just unsightly? There’s an art to assessing produce Washington Post

America's Most Popular Burger Places, Visualized Digg

The first guacamole recipe written in English came from a British pirate Vox

***CHILDREN

Why Kids Invent Imaginary Friends The Atlantic

Behind gender-reveal party fouls, a parenting truth Washington Post

Kids See Bearded Men As Strong — But Unattractive, Study Finds NPR

Dying Dad Writes 'I Love You Like...' Book for Young Son MSN

Japanese park encourages kids to play with saws, light bonfires for learning experiences SoraNews24

***ANIMALS

Pit bull grabs baby by diaper, saves her from fire ABC-13

Meet he’e the octopus The Guardian

***SCIENCE

A scientific Ponzi scheme University of Pittsburg

The Milky Way is warped around the edges, new star map confirms National Geographic

Japanese Scientists Plan to Create Human-Mouse Hybrids: Here's How Live Science

***PSYCHOLOGY

Should Psychology Journals Adopt Specialized Statistical Review? Sage Journals

Paths to Treating Mental Illness (opinion) The New York Times

Neural correlates of weighted reward prediction error during reinforcement learning classify response to cognitive behavioral therapy in depression Science Mag

How expectation influences perception MIT Tech Review

The Psychiatric 'Wonder Drug' That Almost No One Is Using VICE

***NEUROSCIENCE

A cold case team is searching for who betrayed Anne Frank National Geographic

Neuroscientists find brain activity patterns that indicate how expectation influences perception MIT

UCSF Researchers Synthesize Speech From Brain Waves MIT Tech Review

***RESEARCH

Some of the scientists said that the prospect of financing blinded them to the seriousness of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual transgressions The New York Times

Fudged research results erode people’s trust in experts The Conversation

Why we shouldn’t take peer review as the gold standard Washington Post

Joint position statement on predatory publishing Taylor & Francis Online

***HIGHER ED

Wealthy Parents Are Giving Up Custody of Their Kids to Get Need-Based College Financial Aid Propublica

Tribal Colleges Struggle to Connect Diverse Educaiton

Major Universities are launching cannabis degrees and courses Quartz

Federal panel on accreditation will study how regional agencies should monitor politicians' influence over public colleges Inside Higher Ed

“The $300 textbook is dead,” says the CEO of textbook maker Pearson Vox

Some Colleges Collect More From Their Students Than They Spend Actually Teaching Forbes

Grandson of NNU Founder Passes Away Northwest Nazarene University

***TEACHING

Author discusses approaches that work to get students to the finish line Inside Higher Ed

***STUDENT LIFE

Are New Graduates Happier Making More Money or Having More Time? Harvard Business Review

Millennials say dating has gotten 'way too expensive,' 30% can't even afford love USA Today

A Fraternity Member Who Had "A Fascination With Death" Allegedly Encouraged Five People To Kill Themselves BuzzFeed News

New data on the first three jobs held by graduates of six popular majors show career pathways are a swirl rather than a straight line Inside Higher Ed

22 percent of millennials say they have “no friends” Vox

Almost 70 percent of college students favor banning assault-style weapons Newsweek

Why is the teen birth rate falling? Pew Research

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Major study led by a lifelong Republican finds no evidence that professors are discriminating against conservative students Pacific Standard

For academics, what matters more: journal prestige or readership? Science Mag

Academic freedom, scholarly responsibility and the new gender wars University Affairs

College faculty have become more racially and ethnically diverse, but remain far less so than students Pew Research

August 05, 2019

Motivated Reasoning

August 05, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

When we identify too strongly with a deeply held belief, idea, or outcome, a plethora of cognitive biases can rear their ugly heads. Take confirmation bias, for example. This is our inclination to eagerly accept any information that confirms our opinion, and undervalue anything that contradicts it. It’s remarkably easy to spot in other people (especially those you don’t agree with politically), but extremely hard to spot in ourselves because the biasing happens unconsciously. But it’s always there.

Criminal cases where jurors unconsciously ignore exonerating evidence and send an innocent person to jail because of a bad experience with someone of the defendant’s demographic. The growing inability to hear alternative arguments in good faith from other parts of the political spectrum. Conspiracy theorists swallowing any unconventional belief they can get their hands

We all have some deeply held belief that immediately puts us on the defensive. Defensiveness doesn’t mean that belief is actually incorrect. But it does mean we’re vulnerable to bad reasoning around it. And if you can learn to identify the emotional warning signs in yourself, you stand a better chance of evaluating the other side’s evidence or arguments more objectively.

Liv Boeree writing in Vox

August 04, 2019

Frantic Orthodoxy

August 04, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

August 04, 2019

Forget

August 04, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you. -Gesser

August 03, 2019

Dreams & Reality

August 03, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Abundance makes us rich in dreams, for in dreams there are no limits. But it makes us poor in reality. It makes us soft and decadent, bored with what we have and in need of constant shocks to remind us that we are alive. In life you must be a warrior, and war requires realism.

While others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in reality, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have. They look for the perfect economy of motion and gesture – the way to give their blows the greatest force with the least expenditure of effort. Their awareness that their days are numbered – that they could die at any time- grounds them in reality.

There are things they can never do, talents they will never have, lofty goals they will never reach; that hardly bothers them. Warriors focus on what they do have, the strengths that they do possess and that they must use creatively. Knowing when to slow down, to renews, to retrench, to outlast their opponents. They play for the long term.

Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

August 02, 2019

Genuine love

August 02, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Genuine love is an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person, rooted in one’s own capacity to love. -Eric Fromme

August 01, 2019

Walking a Tightrope

August 01, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

“We like to think that maturation is based a lot on experience, but even in adolescence we also have to recognize that learning may not count as much so much until the underlying brain structures are in place,” Peter Jensen, a former head of child and adolescent research at the National Institutes of Mental Health says.

While waiting for those structures to develop- and perhaps helping them get set up right in the first place- Jensen says parents of teenagers often have to “walk a tightrope.” On the one hand, they have to respect and encourage their teenagers’ need for autonomy because, in adolescence, “that’s where the action is.” But sometimes they also need to step in, offer a road map, and help those teenagers point their size ten feet down the right path.

To do that effectively, he says, parents might take tips from some of the ways psychiatrists, through the years, have found to deal with teenagers. Parents, says Jensen, might try acting a bit like the psychiatrist played by Judd Hirsch in the movie Ordinary People, talking through possibilities and options. They have to function like a surrogate set of frontal lobes, as “auxiliary problem solver.”

“With little kids you can tell them what the best thing to do is and then offer them a reward.. But with tennagers that’s not often a productive approach. If you just flat out tell a teenager what to do, you can lose that kid. You have to cut them some slack, but you can’t just leave them there, you also have to to help them figure out things themselves. You can say, ‘What do you think the consequences will be if you act a certain way?’ for instance, or ‘What will happen if you are rejected by your peers if you reject drugs?”

Barbara Strauch, The Primal Teen

July 31, 2019

Our Choices

July 31, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (born July 31, 1965)

July 30, 2019

Remember

July 30, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. –Henry Ford (born July 30, 1863)

July 29, 2019

Articles of interest - July 29

July 29, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

This website uses AI to turn your selfies into haunted classical portraits The Verge

Brain-computer interface Neuralink is state of the art, but still has a long way to go MIT Tech Review

A distinguished centenarian scientist prophesies the future: Cyborgs will save humanity Economist

A new tool uses AI to spot text written by AI MIT Technology Review

***BIG DATA & AI

Attacking satellites is increasingly attractive—and dangerous (a missile hitting a satellite creates a huge amount of space shrapnel) Economist

“I’m a data scientist who is skeptical about data” Quartz

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Teen Love for Snapchat Is Keeping Snap Afloat Wired

Women are getting jaw shots to look like their Instagram filters New York Post

***MOBILE

Mobile Spend Takes More Than Half Of Search Budgets Media Post

AP Explains: What T-Mobile takeover of Sprint means for you Associated Press

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

‘Death of A Salesman’ Playing Out at TV Networks Broadcasting & Cable

***JOURNALISM

A journalist's guide to open-source tools Media news Journalism.co

Tools and tips for digging into Facebook from two investigative journalists The GroundTruth Project

Whose stories get told? Why media diversity matters The Hill

How to cover 11,250 elections at once: Here’s how The Washington Post’s new computational journalism lab will tackle 2020 Nieman Journalism Lab

What multimedia journalists say makes a good news director RTDNA

The Washington Post is hiring not one but two reporters to cover the videogame industry JournoTerrorist

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

5 key takeaways about the state of the news media in 2018 Pew Research Center

The next media mega-merger Axios

I was owed about $5,000 from late-paying publications. I tried to hold them all accountable Wudan Yan Blog

Digital news platform Patch pivots away from advertising to payments Axios

Shady Online Marketers Are Selling Links In Articles On The New York Times, BBC, CNN, And Other News Sites BuzzFeed News

***FAKE NEWS

Why ‘worthless’ humanities degrees may set you up for life BBC

5 Things to Know About Military Romance Scams on Facebook New York Times

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Go claim your $125 from Equifax’s data breach settlement Slate

Researchers spotlight the lie of ‘anonymous’ data Tech Crunch

Chicago police have for years compiled profiles on every citizen who spoke at public meetings of the city’s police disciplinary panel Chicago Tribune

Apple contractors 'regularly hear confidential details' on Siri recordings The Guardian

53% of IT security managers don't know whether the cybersecurity products they use actually work as promised Axios

Why Facebook’s new ‘privacy cop’ is doomed to fail (opinion) The Conversation

Louisiana declares state of emergency in response to ransomware attack ArsTechnica

Libraries push back against Linkedin learning over data privacy eLearning

***INTERNET

About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online Pew Research Center

The Census Could Undercount People Who Don’t Have Internet Access Slate

***PERSONAL GROWTH

The Good Samaritan Experiment Becoming

The science of regrettable decisions Vox

A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn’t seem like an obvious mark, would he? The Cut

What's the difference between a lame excuse and good one? A philosopher thinks she has the answer NBC News

Junky TV is actually making people dumber — and more likely to support populist politicians Harvard’s Nieman Lab

***WRITING & READING

Don’t steal, don’t lift: Thoughts on the consequences of plagiarism Robert M Chapple

How to Use a Thesaurus to Actually Improve Your Writing (video) Big Think

The Jane Austen Fiction Manuscript Archive Is Online: Explore Handwritten Drafts of Persuasion, The Watsons & More Open Culture

True crime book for every US state New York Times

***LANGUAGE

Can Artificial Intelligence Decipher Lost Languages? Researchers Attempt to Decode 3500-Year-Old Ancient Languages Open Culture

Is the internet killing language? LOL, no Vox

Animal Sounds Around the World Scholarly Kitchen

***LITERATURE

Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie among 13 authors longlisted for Booker Prize, the UK's most prestigious literary award Publisher’s Weekly

Takeaways from the revealing new Toni Morrison documentary CBC

Born 200 years ago, Herman Melville was globalisation’s first great bard Economist

Behind the Myths of Scott and Zelda's Epic Romance Literary Hub

Rudyard Kipling and the American imagination Economist

10 Surprising Facts About Pride and Prejudice Mental Floss

***POETRY

Port Kembla couple explain poetry is on the rise thanks to Instagram and slam nights Illawrra Mercury

At age 101, this woman released her first collection of poems Washington Post

The heartbreaking poetry a 17-year-old wrote before he was shot to death Washington Post

The Way I Begin Poems: Edaki Timothy Medium

Was the poet John Keats a graverobber? BBC

***GENDER

Another Major Error Found in a Peer-Reviewed Paper Used to Support the IAAF Regulations of Female Athletes Roger Pielke Jr Blog

Why half the scientists in some eastern European countries are women Economist

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

The Problem With Diversity Questions Inside Higher Ed

They look white but say they're black: a tiny town in Ohio wrestles with race The Guardian

New Study Says White Police Officers Are Not More Likely To Shoot Minority Suspects NPR

Critics of Peer Review Ask How ‘Race Science’ Still Manages to Slip Through Undark

***LEGAL ISSUES

Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there Economist

California Bar 'Inadvertently' Reveals Essay Topics Days Before Exam Law.com

***LEGAL ISSUES & THE MEDIA

Reporters Committee, AP continue fight against FBI’s FOIA non-compliance RCFP

Judge dismisses Sandmann lawsuit against the Washington Post CNN

Appeals court rules Baltimore police mandatory non-disclosure agreements unconstitutional RCFP

***BORDER ISSUES

Migrant children camps: Thousands of unaccompanied migrant children could be detained indefinitely CBS News

No shower for 23 days: U.S. citizen says conditions were so bad that he almost self-deported Dallas News

***RELIGION

In U2's 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For,' A Restless Search For Meaning NPR

6 facts about what Americans know about religion Pew Research Center

What happens when a leader in the purity movement gets a divorce? Big Think

Tennessee man says his sexual orientation stands between church & father's funeral plans WTVC

For some in America, religious freedom has limits A personal and political account of discrimination against Muslims Economist

Europe experienced a surge in government restrictions on religious activity over the last decade Pew Research Center

What Americans Know About Religion — And What They Don’t FiveThirtyEight

Joshua Harris' separation from wife and faith is 'hard to hear', says megachurch he used to pastor Christianity Today

Video links Beth Moore, Russell Moore, James Merritt to ‘Trojan horse of social justice’ Religious News Service

***MEGACHURCHES

The Village Church sued for more than $1 million over alleged abuse at church camp Religious News Service

Crystal Cathedral, the original evangelical megachurch, has a conversion to Catholicism LA Times

Willow Creek plans reconciliation service to move on; Hybels not involved Religious News Service

Chinese megachurch pastor imprisoned for faith in Jesus hit with more charges 7 months after arrest Christian Post

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Small church makes big news with ‘America, love it or leave it’ sign Baptist News

Netflix Docu concerns secret Christian organization in Washington People

***GOOD NEWS

Sisters read bedtime stories on Facebook Live so kids can fall asleep to a story each night ABC

Human chain forms to save swimmers caught in rip current during Tropical Storm Barry Washington Post

Google Glass helps kids with autism read facial expressions Stanford

‘It wasn’t in his job description’: Metro police officer escorts a mom and her tantruming autistic child home Washington Post

Recovering Veterans Help Injured Sea Lions Return to the Ocean NBC-LA

A 6-year-old was swept out to sea, and a group of brothers dove in after her Washington Post

Hair stylist carries her red salon chair to the homeless KARE-11

73-year-old, his dogs rescued after 4 days in remote Oregon by long-distance mountain biker ABC

A boy with one hand met a soccer player with the same limb difference, and the photo went viral Washington Post

Beachgoers form human chain to rescue swimmer from rip currents at Panama City Beach Associated Press

***REALLY?!

Utah boy advertises 'Ice Cold Beer' at root beer stand Associated Press

Australian women freed after complimenting kidnapper's flowers NDTV

***ART & DESIGN

Melancholy Creatures Explore Imagined Worlds in Wistful Murals by Hayley Welsh The is Colossal

The winners of the 2019 iPhone Photo contest Diyphotography

***MUSIC

Pop Songs Are Sung So Quickly These Days—Why? GQ

How big stars maximize their take from tours Economist

Kanye West’s choir covers two Nirvana songs (video)

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Suit Seeks to Protect Students Accused of Sexual Assault Inside Higher Ed

Professors discuss federal laws and institutional policy around consent, and what colleges get wrong Inside Higher Ed

The evidence is clear and convincing: universities’ approaches to Title IX are broken The FIRE

Do Title IX Protections Discriminate Against Fraternity Members? Inside Higher Ed

***SOCIAL ISSUES

How Peppa Pig became an LGBTQ icon Vox

Television producers need to stop encouraging teen drinking – here’s how they can The Conversation

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

China has now reached parity with the U.S. on the 2019 Fortune Global 500—a signifier of the profound rivalries reshaping business today Fortune

Why is the U.S. facing a federal firefighter shortage? PS Mag

Many consumers neither read nor understand the contracts they sign Economist

Brutally Honest Advertising Slogans Sad & Useless

***BUSINESS OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Sweden is going cashless CBS News

Chinese and Taiwanese companies combine to outnumber US companies for first time Fortune

***ENVIRONMENT

America's dirtiest beaches are prone to unsafe bacteria, report shows USA Today

Putting ecocide on a par with genocide The Guardian

***HEALTH

Microfluidics device helps diagnose sepsis in minutes MIT News

Wonder where generic drug names come from? Two women in Chicago, that's where Los Angeles Times

Weird New Kinds Of Cocaine Could Start A “Hidden Epidemic” Of Health Threats BuzzFeed News

***HEALTH: LIFESTYLE

Healthy lifestyle may offset genetic risk of dementia Science Daily

How Atkins Became Keto Medium

Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment Vox

***MEDICAL RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

New embryo-inspired bandage that speeds wound-healing developed; material automatically contracts on contact with skin Harvard

Liver transplants could be redundant with discovery of new liver cell Science Daily

Doctors In The U.S. Use CRISPR Technique To Treat A Genetic Disorder For The 1st Time NPR

***TRAVEL

Older drivers are more likely to be distracted by tech while driving, AAA report USA Today

***SPORTS & GAMES

Baseball card collecting world rocked by fraud scandal, FBI investigation Axios

Teenager becomes Fortnite's first-ever solo world champion CNN

***ANIMALS

Officials Investigate Award-Winning Lamb for Performance-Enhancing Drugs Geek.com

Looking to declaw your cat? Don’t look in New York anymore Associated Press

Police Department Lets People Pay Parking Tickets with Donations for Shelter Cats My Modern Met

How to Make Quicksand Like an Octopus Daily Jstor

Two dogs save the life of their 87-year-old owner when he got stuck in knee-high mud Daily Mail

11 Fierce Facts About Tigers Mental Floss

***PSYCHOLOGY

How well the brain ejects waste may affect disease susceptibility Axios

5 Toxic Subtypes of Narcissism Psychology Today

***PHILOSOPHY

In our Universe, time seems to go from past to future, not in reverse. But what if time doesn’t even have a direction? Aeon

***HISTORY

The unsung hero of WWII who volunteered to go to Auschwitz and told the world about its horrors--or, he tried to Economist

***POLITICS

Pro-Trump Republican aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar charged with felony theft The Guardian

Georgia election officials accused of destroying evidence Associated Press

***RESEARCH

How a data detective exposed suspicious medical trials Nature

Our data “reveals the scale of scientific misconduct in Australia, although senior scientists claim it is just the tip of the iceberg” BMJ Journals

Satirical contributions in toxicology Springer

What’s published in the journal isn’t what the researchers actually did Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

How One Researcher Is Looking to Improve Peer Review Wiley

New Guidelines for Statistical Reporting: a requirement to replace P values New England Journal of Medicine

Predatory journals are infiltrating citation databases Springer

***HIGHER ED

Growing Number of San Diego Community College Students Transferring to 4-Year Institutions Times of San Diego

Has College Gotten Too Easy? The Atlantic

The Most Expensive Public Colleges And Universities In The United States, Visualized Digg

Armed Ole Miss Students Posed With an Emmett Till Memorial Sign. They Went Unpunished by the University Chronicle of Higher Ed

Chegg's alternative data may be showing cracks in the textbook retailer's engagement Thinknum

University Fires 9 Police officers for offensive comments Washington Post

***HUMANITIES

Why ‘worthless’ humanities degrees may set you up for life BBC

Addressing Homelessness and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education Inside Higher Ed

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

Liberty University's "culture of fear" where Jerry Falwell Jr. "silences students and professors who reject his pro-Trump politics..." Washington Post

Firing of Nazarene Professor Over Novel Threatens Academic, Artistic Freedom (press release)

Nonprofit defends LGBTQ students from their universities Religious News Service

***TEACHING

Want to Reach All of Your Students? Here’s How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive Chronicle of Higher Ed

***STUDENT MEDIA

The Dead or Dying State of Student Journalism at Independent Schools Medium

In landmark victory for student press rights, Ninth Circuit rebukes UCSD’s censorship of satirical student newspaper The FIRE

The Dead or Dying State of High School Student Journalism at Independent Schools Medium

***STUDENT LIFE

Millennials use PowerPoint to help friends score dates New York Post

Famous Birthdays Is Wikipedia for Gen Z The Atlantic

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Wall Street Journal op-ed on faculty work and pay irks academics Inside Higher Ed

I'm a College Professor Who Faked Dissertation Data on the Side Vice

July 29, 2019

The Good Samaritan Experiment

July 29, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

In 1973, the research duo of John Darley and Daniel Batson asked Princeton Theological Seminary students to visit a group of children across campus to deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The researchers told some of the future pastors, “It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over.” They told others, “You’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. You’d better get moving.”

While proceeding across campus, each subject passed a man slumped in a doorway, moaning and coughing.

Imagine yourself in this situation: A classroom of children awaits you but, along the way, you encounter a man who’s clearly in distress. Is there any doubt what you do? Or what religiously attuned students would do? No matter the circumstances, we’d expect everyone to help. However, only 10 percent of the “hurried” students stopped to offer assistance.

The best explanation for this behavior is that, amid the anxiety of running late, most of the students experienced a perceptual shift that caused them not to see the man or recognize his distress.

Robert Pearl writing in Vox

Becoming

ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire

Grace

Articles of Interest - August 12

I can’t and I don’t