Your over-achieving honor student is ruining it for the rest of us

The Intel Science Talent Search is considered the nation’s most elite and demanding high school research competition, attracting the crème de la milk-fats-encased-in-a-phospholipid-and-protein-membrane of aspiring young scientists. Victors and near-victors in the 69-year-old contest have gone on to win seven Nobel Prizes in physics or chemistry, two Fields Medals in mathematics, a half-dozen National Medals in science and technology, a long string of MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants — and now, an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role.

Above from the beginning of an interesting and amusing piece — Natalie Portman, Oscar Winner, Was Also a Precocious Scientist.

Ms. Portman studied neuroscience and the evolution of the mind at Harvard (B.A. 2003) and is mentioned in passing in The Social Network. Her name is Natalie Hershlag.

Indeed

“Huckabee was never an entirely plausible candidate for President–could we actually ever elect a man who has his doubts about evolution? whose comments about Israel seemed to indicate a literal interpretation of the Bible and the Rapture myth?–but he always struck me as a good guy, more concerned about working-class America than most of his rivals. These comments, however, and his subsequent lie that he really meant Indonesia not Kenya, really show a demented, perverse sensibility, and they demonstrate some of the ugliness at the heart of Obama hatred.”

Joe Klein

What Huckabee said:

“If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

That’s the key

“This is worth repeating. It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology is not enough. It’s tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities. Nowhere is that more true than in the post-PC products. Our competitors are looking at this like it’s the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive.”

Steve Jobs at Apple’s iPad 2 event quoted by Engadget

As for the iPad 2. Can’t wait (and I’ve waited since last April).

World Press Photo Winners

On the morning of February 11, 2011, the international jury of the 54th World Press Photo Contest named a photo by South African photographer Jodi Bieber, World Press Photo of the Year 2010. The image is a portrait of Bibi Aisha, disfigured as punishment for fleeing her husband’s house, taken in Kabul, Afghanistan. Over 5,691 photographers entered 108,059 images in the 2011 World Press Photo Contest and after the two-week judging period, 56 were named winners in nine categories. It is a prestigious contest and an honor to be named a winner. The following post shares 23 of those winning images. For more on the contest, including a time-lapse video of the jury room being set up, to hear the jury chairs discuss the images that were named winners, and to learn more about the competition, World Press Photo — Paula Nelson (23 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

Nice

“A ruling from Britain’s high court found that a Pentecostal Christian couple’s belief that homosexuality is morally wrong could be used as a factor in deciding whether they can care for foster children.”

CBS News

“[Illinois] State officials are investigating whether religious agencies that receive public funds to license foster care parents are breaking anti-discrimination laws if they turn away openly gay parents.”

Chicago Tribune.com

Above via pourmecoffee on Twitter

Best picture, hardly

The results seemed preordained. “The King’s Speech” is a pudding of a movie, easy in, easy out, and its lack of chew is ideal for those porcelain veneers twinkling in the dark at the Kodak. “The Social Network,” by contrast, requires you to listen, watch, think, which isn’t often demanded of movie viewers. Academy members might be the ultimate film insiders, but there’s no reason to believe that they’re different from most moviegoers, who, used to facile entertainments, have voted for “The King’s Speech” ($114 million domestic box office and counting, as of Tuesday) over “The Social Network” (just under $97 million). Truly, considering the Academy’s track record (“A Beautiful Mind,” ad nauseum), the surprise was that “The Social Network” was even in contention. As a friend said, “If you combine regiphilia with disability, you’ve got a winning ticket.”

From a look at the Oscars and the ceremony by Manohla Dargis of The New York Times.

I thought Colin Firth was superb, but The King’s Speech did not make my top five.

Best lines R us (and more)

“So if trains represent soulless collectivism, count me in.”

Paul Krugman responding to the increasingly irrelevant George Will.
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“Newt Gingrich is forming exploratory committee to find support for his presidential run. Work involves time travel.”

Twitter / pourmecoffee
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“You don’t see it coming. One day life is normal, and the next its off the cliffside.”

Swimming in Quicksand on learning she has breast cancer.
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A great photo of San Agustin Church, Belchite.
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An interesting look at The King’s Speech from Amy Davidson including video of the Princess’s speech in 1940 and her farewell to her father in 1952.
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And a fun Defense of Frank Burns by our very own Karen.

Witch way did they go?

On March 1, 1692, Salem, Massachusetts authorities charged Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and a slave woman, Tituba, with practicing witchcraft. The arrests inaugurated the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Over the following months, more than 150 men and women in and around Salem were jailed on sorcery charges. Nineteen people eventually hanged on Gallows Hill and an additional victim was pressed to death.

Cousins Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began entering trance-like states and suffering from convulsive seizures in January. By late February, prayer, fasting, and medical treatment had failed to relieve the girls’ symptoms and quiet the blasphemous shouting that accompanied their fits. Pressured to explain, they accused three local women of sorcery.

A recent epidemic of small pox, heightened threats of Indian attack, and small town rivalries, primed the people of the Salem area for the mass hysteria that characterized the witch trials. Although social status and gender offered little protection from accusations, historians note that single women particularly were vulnerable to charges of practicing witchcraft. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba all lacked male protectors.

Acting on the recommendation of the clergy, civil authorities created a special court to try accused witches. As the number of imprisoned people approached 150, however, public opinion shifted against the proceedings. On October 29, 1692, Massachusetts Governor William Phips dissolved the special court. When the remaining witchcraft cases were heard in May 1693, the Superior Court failed to convict anyone.

In the 1950s, playwright Arthur Miller explored the Salem witchcraft trials in The Crucible. Writing during a period when concern about “subversive activities” ran high, Miller used his play to protest the red scares of the postwar era. Once again, Miller implied, innocent people were sacrificed to public hysteria. Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956, Miller refused to supply names of people he met years before at an alleged Communist writers meeting. The resulting contempt conviction was overturned on appeal.

Library of Congress

Yellowstone National Park

AN ACT to set apart a certain tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park.

Yellowstone Act

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming, lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River . . . is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate or settle upon or occupy the same, or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.

Yellowstone Canyon

SEC 2. That said public park shall be under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall provide for the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition.

. . .

s / Ulysses S. Grant, March 1, 1872

Document photo, National Archives. Yellowstone Canyon photo, NewMexiKen 2002. Click images for larger versions.

It ought to be a national holiday

Harry Belafonte is 84 today.

Ron Howard’s brother’s only brother is 57.

Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach) is 57.

Javier Bardem is 42.

Well-known Americans of the 20th century born on this date include band-leader Glenn Miller (1904), author Ralph Ellison (1914), poet Robert Lowell (1917), Mad magazine publisher William M. Gaines (1922) and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (1926).

And it is my brother Lee’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Middle Bro.

Lee hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 2002, amazingly enough providing a journal along the way (on the tiniest of keyboards). Here’s my favorite excerpt:

For the first time since I began this Odyssey I fear my life-long dream to do a single season thruhike of the Pacific Crest Trail could be in serious jeopardy.

Four consecutive days of 110 degrees didn’t stop me.

Streams deep and icy enough to make all men equal didn’t stop me.

High mountain passes clogged with ice and snow didn’t stop me.

Rattlesnakes, cougars, bears, howling packs of coyotes, ticks, wasps, bees, hornets, gnats, biting flies, and mosquitoes did not deter me.

Raging fires with smoke thick enough to give me headaches and a sore throat have not chased me off the trail.

God help me even a broken heart didn’t stop me.

So what insidious thing could hold me back on the threshold of my dream? The huckleberry!

“But how,” you ask? By slowing my progress to a veritable standstill! One can walk by only by so many bushes teeming with these succulent purple orbs of orgiastic delight without stopping! My God, I’m not made of stone!

So my pace seems to be half of what it was. Instead of the mighty 30 mile days I had looked forward to in Oregon I will be very lucky to eke out a meager 15 or less. There just isn’t enough time to reach British Columbia before winter sets in. I fear the only hope to salvage my trek may be to enlist the aid of a top-notch hypnotist to attempt to persuade my subconscious that I really don’t like wild huckleberries, at least until I get to Manning Park. Drastic measures indeed, but what else can I do?

Go Easy on Yourself

The Eagles had it right, “Take it easy, don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.”

Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?

That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.

Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges

How much are you willing to pay for oil?

Timothy Noah writes about Saudi Arabia:

No public criticism is permitted of the country’s monarchical rule, there is no penal code, and women are not permitted to drive. A continuing system of male guardianship prevents women from traveling overseas, undergoing certain kinds of surgery, and appearing in a government office without first receiving the consent of a male family member. Male guardians have complete freedom to rape or otherwise physically abuse their female charges; domestic violence is not illegal. Religious freedom is virtually nonexistent.

Do you think more freedom would be good in Saudi Arabia? Are you willing to pay for it at the pump? How much? $4 a gallon? $5? $6? $10?