26 83%\u00a0 28%\u00a02mph NNW\u00a0 bar 30.15 rises windchill25\u00a0\u00a0 Yuletide<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Waning Gibbous Cold Moon<\/p>\n
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto chilled me, chilled me more than the air temperature outside.\u00a0 My reaction surprised me since I have no Pakistani friends, feel no special affiliation with the Pakistani people and know only a little about Ms. Bhutto.\u00a0 Yeats comes to mind:\u00a0 The center will not hold.\u00a0 This targeted political violence is the rough beast that slouches toward the Bethlehems in every country and toward the calm in our souls.<\/p>\n
There is\u00a0no place on the globe any longer that does not affect us, no matter how remote from our understanding or apparent sympathies.\u00a0 This is good in a general sense and perhaps bodes well for the long term future when these kind of strong links bind us together even more strongly; but now, in the short term, the ripples will have unexpected consequences.<\/p>\n
The material below is interesting.<\/p>\n
From Scientific American Online<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n People who describe themselves as being politically liberal can better suppress a habitual response when faced with situations in which that response is incorrect, according to research that used a simple cognitive test to compare liberal and conservative thinkers. Tasks that require such \u201cconflict monitoring\u201d also triggered more activity in the liberals\u2019 anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region geared to detect and respond to conflicting information.<\/p>\n Past research has shown that liberals and conservatives exhibit differing cognitive styles, with liberals being more tolerant of ambiguity and conservatives preferring more structure. The new paper \u201cis exciting because it suggests a specific mechanism\u201d for that pattern, com\u00adments psychologist Wil Cunningham of Ohio State University, who was not involved with the study. In the experiment, subjects saw a series of letters flash quickly on a screen and were told to press a button when they saw M, but not W. Because M appeared about 80 percent of the time, hitting the button became a reflex\u2014and the more liberal-minded volunteers were better able to avoid the knee-jerk reaction.<\/p>\n The study\u2019s lead author, psychologist David Amodio of New York University, emphasizes that the findings do not mean that political views are predetermined. \u201cThere are a lot of steps be\u00adtween conflict monitoring and political ideology, and we don\u2019t know what those steps are,\u201d he says. Although the neurocognitive process his group measured is so basic that it is most likely in place in early childhood, he notes that \u201cthe whole brain is very malleable.\u201d Social relation\u00adships and other environmental factors also shape one\u2019s political leanings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 26 83%\u00a0 28%\u00a02mph NNW\u00a0 bar 30.15 rises windchill25\u00a0\u00a0 Yuletide \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Waning Gibbous Cold Moon The assassination of Benazir Bhutto chilled me, chilled me more than the air temperature outside.\u00a0 My reaction surprised me since I have no Pakistani friends, feel no special affiliation with the Pakistani people and know only a little about Ms. … Continue reading What Rough Beast Comes?<\/span>