firsttimeuser:

Josef Koudelka. Portugal, 1976

(gallery)

(Source: luzfosca)

Austerity: harshness, strictness, asceticism, rigor

“I used to drink vodka in the morning like people drink coffee. I did it to the hilt, and I’m sort of over it. … No matter how good of a party it was, there’s this invisible line it crosses where it becomes a major burden,” he says. “And so eventually, you just get tired of all of it.”

Slash for NPR

(Source: samwitwicky)

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Gene Kelly

In the nineteen forties, when I was the eldest child of an ever-growing family in rural Co. Derry, we crowded together in the three rooms of a traditional thatched farmstead and lived a kind of den-life which was more or less emotionally and intellectually proofed against the outside world. It was an intimate, physical, creaturely existence in which the night sounds of the horse in the stable beyond one bedroom wall mingled with the sounds of adult conversation from the kitchen beyond the other. We took in everything that was going on, of course - rain in the trees, mice on the ceiling, a steam train rumbling along the railway line one field back from the house - but we took it in as if we were in the doze of hibernation. Ahistorical, pre-sexual, in suspension between the archaic and the modern, we were as susceptible and impressionable as the drinking water that stood in a bucket in our scullery: every time a passing train made the earth shake, the surface of that water used to ripple delicately, concentrically, and in utter silence.

Space and philosophy: an argument for space flight

  Our conception of ourselves and of each other has always depended on our image of the earth.

        When the earth was the World - all the world there was - and the stars were lights in Dante’s Heaven, and the ground beneath our feet roofed Hell, we saw ourselves as creatures at the center of the universe, the sole particular concern of God.  And from that high place, man ruled and killed as he pleased. 

        And when, centuries later, the earth was no longer the world but a small, wet, spinning planet in the solar system of a minor star off at the edge of an inconsiderable galaxy in the vastness of space - when Dante’s Heaven foundered and there was no Hell - no Hell, at least, beneath our feet - men began to see themselves not as God-directed actors in the solemn paces of a noble play, but rather as the victims of an idiotic farce where all the rest were victims also and multitudes had perished without meaning.

        Now, in this latest generation of mankind, the image may have altered once again.  For the first time in all of time men have seen the earth with their own eyes - seen the whole earth in the vast void as even Dante never dreamed of seeing it - seen what whimpering victims could not guess a man might see.

        When they saw the earth, “halfway to the moon” they put it, they asked “Is it inhabited?” and laughed.  And then they did not laugh.

        The medieval notion of the earth put man at the center of everything.  The scientific notion put him nowhere: beyond the range of sense or reason, lost in absurdity and death.  This latest notion may have other consequences.  Formed as it was in the eyes of heroic voyagers where were also men, it may remake our lost conception of ourselves.  No longer the preposterous player at the center of an unreal stage - no longer that degraded and degrading victim off at the verges of reality and blind with blood - man may discover what he really is.

        To see the earth as we now see it, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night - brothers who see now that they are truly brothers.

part deux

The summer program was now in its seventh week, and most of the children had yet to show signs of improvement. Some, including Michael, were actually worse; one had begun biting the counselors. At the start of the program, Waschbusch noted, Michael’s behavior was comparatively good: he would sometimes jump up from his desk or run around the classroom but would only rarely have to be forcibly removed, as often happened with the wildest children. Since then, his behavior had spiraled badly — in part, Waschbusch thought, because Michael had been trying to impress another child in the program, a girl I’ll refer to as L. (Her name has been abbreviated to her first initial to protect her privacy.)

Charming but volatile, L. quickly found ways to play different boys off one another. “Some manipulation by girls is typical,” Waschbusch said as the kids trooped inside. “The amount she does it, and the precision with which she does it — that’s unprecedented.” She had, for example, smuggled a number of small toys into camp, Waschbusch told me, then doled them out as prizes to kids who misbehaved at her command. That strategy seemed particularly effective with Michael, who would often go to detention screaming her name.

According to Waschbusch, calculated behavior like L.’s distinguishes so-called “hot-blooded” conduct disorders from more “coldblooded” problems like psychopathy. “Hot-blooded kids tend to act out very impulsively,” he added as we followed the children inside. “One theory is that they’ve got a hyperactive threat-detection system. They’re very fast to recognize anger and fear.” Coldblooded, callous-unemotional children, by contrast, are capable of being impulsive, but their misbehavior more often seems calculated. “Instead of someone who can’t sit still, you get a person who may be hostile when provoked but who also has this ability to be very cold. The attitude is, ‘Let’s see how I can use this situation to my advantage, no matter who gets hurt from that.’ ”

I’m going to start collecting phrases that are interesting to me

May 13, 2012

Can you call a nine year old a psychopath?

For years, Anne and Miguel have struggled to understand their eldest son, an elegant boy with high-planed cheeks, wide eyes and curly light brown hair, whose periodic rages alternate with moments of chilly detachment. 

….

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