This article examines the possibility that romantic love (with intensity, engagement, and sexual interest) can exist in long-term relationships. A review of taxonomies, theory, and research suggests that romantic love, without the obsession component typical of early stage romantic love, can and does exist in long-term marriages, and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high self-esteem.

Supporting the separate roles of romantic love and obsession in long-term relationships, an analysis of a moderately large data set of community couples identified independent latent factors for romantic love and obsession and a subsample of individuals reporting very high levels of romantic love (but not obsession) even after controlling for social desirability. Finally, a meta-analysis of 25 relevant studies found that in long- and short-term relationships, romantic love (without obsession) was strongly associated with relationship satisfaction; but obsession was negatively correlated with it in long-term and positively in short-term relationships.

{ Review of General Psychology | Continue reading | PDF }

photo { Herb Ritts }

The email might contain “privileged, confidential and/or proprietary information,” they are told. If it landed in their inbox by error, they are strictly prohibited from “any use, distribution, copying or disclosure to another person.” And in such case, “you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email.” (…)

Email disclaimers, those wordy notices at the end of emails from lawyers, bankers, analysts, consultants, publicists, tax advisers and even government employees, have become ubiquitous—so much so that many recipients, and even senders, are questioning their purpose. (…)

Emails often now include automatic digital signatures with a sender’s contact information or witty sayings, pleas to save trees and not print them, fancy logos and apologies for grammatical errors spawned by using a touch screen. (…)

Some lawyers say the disclaimers have value, alerting someone who receives confidential, proprietary, or legally privileged information by accident that they don’t have permission to take advantage of it.

Others, including lawyers whose email messages are laden with them, say the disclaimers are for the most part unenforceable. They argue that they don’t create any kind of a contract between sender and recipient merely because they land in the recipient’s inbox.

It’s largely untested whether email disclaimers can hold up in court and at least one ruling on the matter was mixed.

Boilerplate language attached to every email dilutes the intention, some say. For instance, when every message from a sender’s account is tagged with “privileged and confidential,” it might make it difficult to convince a judge that any one email is more private than another.

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

Of the 110 sword swallowers queried, 46 responded and agreed to have their results reported. (…)

The most common medical complaint: a sore throat, or “sword throat” as it’s known in the business, which typically occurred while they were still learning, after frequent performances or from stunts involving multiple or odd-shaped swords. Some experienced lower chest pains, often lasting for days, which could be relieved by not swallowing any swords for a few days. Sixteen mentioned intestinal bleeding and one was told a sword had “brushed” his heart. (…)

The study also revealed how swallowers learned their craft. Often practicing daily for months or years, many desensitized their gag reflexes by gradually increasing the size of objects they shoved down their throats, beginning with their finger, then spoons, paint brushes and knitting needles before moving on to the commonly used bent wire coat hanger.

Performers must learn how to align a sword with their upper esophageal sphincter, a muscular ring at the upper end of the esophagus, and how to relax muscles in the pharynx and esophagus, which usually are not under voluntary control.

Tricks used to coax a blade down the throat varied: Many performers lubricated their swords first with saliva; one performer used butter and another had to retire because of a dry mouth condition. Some performed “the drop,” in which the sword falls abruptly down the throat; some invited audience members to move the sword.

{ LiveScience | Scientific American | more }

In 1925, Benito Mussolini initiated a campaign to destroy the Mafia and assert Fascist control over Sicilian life. (…) Mussolini appointed Cesare Mori as the Prefect of Palermo in October 1925 and granted him special powers to fight the Mafia. Mori formed a small army of policemen, carabinieri and militiamen, which went from town to town, rounding up suspects. To force suspects to surrender, they would take their families hostage, sell off their property, or publicly slaughter their livestock. By 1928, over 11,000 suspects were arrested. Confessions were sometimes extracted through beatings and torture. Some mafiosi who had been on the losing end of Mafia feuds voluntarily cooperated with prosecutors, perhaps as a way of obtaining protection and revenge. (…)

Mori’s campaign ended in June 1929 when Mussolini recalled him to Rome. Although he did not permanently crush the Mafia as the Fascist press proclaimed, his campaign was nonetheless very successful at suppressing it. As the Mafia informant Antonino Calderone reminisced: “After the war the mafia hardly existed anymore. The Sicilian Families had all been broken up.”

Sicily’s murder rate sharply declined. Many mafiosi fled to the United States. Among these were Carlo Gambino and Joseph Bonanno, who would go on to become powerful Mafia bosses in New York City.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Another time I bought security footage of these killers. Before they went out to basically kill people, they went to a Popeyes Chicken. I went to that location and let’s just say I bought $1000 worth of chicken. (…)

This aggregation thing, it’s a bad ethos. If people are not producing original journalism, why should people pay attention? Overtime, they won’t. But by then the real institutions are going to be gone, and you just don’t build those overnight. Everyone’s going to be locked into these aggregators until they get bored and realize they don’t serve their interest, and they’re going to look around for the real newspapers and the real newsmakers, and they’re not going to be there anymore.

{ Kerry Burke/The Awl | Continue reading }

artwork { Berni Searle }

Microwave Massacre is a 1983 dark comedy/horror film directed by Wayne Berwick. (…)

After coming home drunk one night and getting into an argument with his wife May, Donald loses his temper and bludgeons her to death with a large pepper grinder. He wakes up the next day with a bad hangover, no memory of the night before, and a growling stomach. He discovers May’s corpse in the microwave and after the initial wave of horror passes, he starts to take it in stride, telling his co-workers that he and May separated. After work, he cuts up May’s body and stores it in foil wrap in the fridge.

Looking for a midnight snack one night, Donald unintentionally takes a few bites of May’s hand, and after the initial wave of horror passes, he realizes it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten. He even brings some to work with him and shares it with Phillip and Roosevelt, who concur. He soon starts picking up hookers and using them for meat in his recipes. (…)

Donald’s lunches continue to be a hit with his friends, and he decides to cater an outing to a wrestling match with a new recipe he calls “Peking chick.” When Roosevelt and Phillip show up to pick up Donald, they discover him dead on the floor of a heart attack, and some body parts in the microwave. They leave in horror and disgust, realizing what Donald had been serving them.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

photo { Glenn Glasser }

To determine “how public figures realize creative forms of apologetic speech in order to minimize their responsibility for misdeeds,” Kampf examined 354 conditional apologies made by Israeli public figures, organizations, or institutions between 1997 and 2004, breaking them down into specific categories and sub-categories. (…)

After making racist remarks about Ethiopian immigrants, writer Samuel Shnitzer replied with a classic “if” statement: “If someone was hurt by the column I wrote, I am very sorry about that.” Ariel Sharon’s 2002 statement concerning the deaths of Palestinian civilians during a military campaign managed to include both an “if” and a “but”: “The Israeli Defense Force is sorry if civilians were injured, but not for the successful operation.”

As Kampf pointed out, this delicate wordplay is important to politicians who want to keep their jobs. But it’s even more crucial to business executives who, if they truly accepted responsibility, might end up in jail. A research team led by the University of Ulster’s Owen Hargie analyzed the testimony of four CEOs of financial institutions before a committee of the British Parliament in 2009 and noted a similar pattern of obfuscation.

“The main type of apology used by the senior bankers fell into the ‘I’m sorry you’re sick’ category, where the person is in effect saying that he or she has no personal responsibility for what happened, but recognizes and expresses sympathy for the person’s predicament,” the researchers write.

{ Miller-McCune | Continue reading }

photo { Stephanie Gonot }

There are basically two possible outcomes from here. First, Ben Bernanke and his gang artificially suppress interest rates for a very long period of time creating the “Japan Syndrome” in the US, which leads to rolling recessions and a general economic malaise. Or, secondly, interest rates rise back towards more normalized levels as the economy begins a real and lasting recovery. I am really hoping for the later. In either case there is a negative and sustained impact to housing going forward. The excesses that were created over the last 20 years will have to be absorbed into the system, allowing prices to return to a more normalized and sustainable level.

{ Advisor Perspectives | Continue reading }

History suggests that 2012 will see neither a big housing rebound nor a second crash. After the last housing collapse, which first bottomed out in April 1991, prices stayed almost perfectly flat for about six years.

{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }

photo { Luisa Opalesky }

There is no consensus about the symptom criteria for psychopathy, and no psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis of psychopathy itself. (…)

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist is a standard ratings tool in forensic settings to label people as psychopaths.

A study by Hare and colleague suggested that one to two percent of the US population score high enough on a screening version of the scale to be considered potential psychopaths.

According to some, there is little evidence of a cure or effective treatment for psychopathy; no medications can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy might become more adept at manipulating others and more likely to commit crime. (…)

According to Hare, psychopathy stems from as yet unconfirmed genetic neurological predispositions and as yet unconfirmed social factors in upbringing. A review published in 2008 indicated multiple causes, and variation in causes between individuals.

Hare also notes that some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments He has described psychopaths as “intraspecies predators.” (…)

Psychopaths are rarely psychotic.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Robert D. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R) is the psycho-diagnostic tool most commonly used to assess psychopathy. (…)

▪ Glibness/superficial charm
▪ Grandiose sense of self-worth
▪ Pathological lying
▪ Cunning/manipulative
▪ Lack of remorse or guilt
▪ Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
▪ Callousness; lack of empathy
▪ Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
▪ Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
▪ Parasitic lifestyle
▪ Poor behavioral control
▪ Lack of realistic long-term goals
▪ Impulsivity
▪ Irresponsibility
▪ Juvenile delinquency
▪ Early behavior problems
▪ Revocation of conditional release
▪ Promiscuous sexual behavior
▪ Many short-term marital relationships
▪ Criminal versatility
▪ Acquired behavioural sociopathy/sociological conditioning (Item 21: a newly identified trait i.e. a person relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive)

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

{ Cai Guo-Qiang, Head On, 2006 | 99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass | The wolves were produced in Quanzhou, China, from January to June of 2006. They are fabricated from painted sheepskins and stuffed with hay and metal wires, with plastic lending contour to their faces and marbles for eyes. | Deutsche Guggenheim }

{ At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao }

{ The drawings of butterflies done by Vladimir Nabokov were intended for “family use.” He made these on title pages of various editions of his works as a gift to his wife and son and sometimes to other relatives. None of these drawings portray real butterflies, both the images and the names he assigns to them are his invention. | Nabokov Museum | Continue reading }

{ Apple sells more phones in a day than people make babies | An hour of video posted every second on YouTube }

image { Robert Mangold, 1/3 Gray-Green Curved Area, 1966 | Guggenheim, until Feb. 8 }