Is Free Will an Illusion? Sam Harris on His New Book Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is the stud you love to hate—at least onscreen. As Jaime Lannister, the rakish, incestuous “Kingslayer” on Game of Thrones, he’s an object of attraction (devilishly handsome) and derision (he loves his sister). On Sunday night’s episode, the pendulum swung towards the latter when he sexually assaulted his sister, Cersei, beside the altar of their dead love child, Joffrey. He’s not much better in The Other Woman. In Nick Cassavetes’s comedy, the Danish actor plays Alex King, a suave, Maserati-driving, bespoke suit-wearing angel investor who cheats on his adoring wife, Kate (Leslie Mann), with two other beauties—a career-minded lawyer, Carly (Cameron Diaz), and a young hottie, Amber (Kate Upton). In an interview with The Daily Beast, Coster-Waldau discussed his comedy chops, Jaime Lannister’s dark turn, and much more. Note: Portions of this interview were included in a separate piece on THAT scene. Is that the craziest thing you’ve ever done in a film or TV show? Yeah.
Binge Drinking Among Women Is Both Dangerous And Overlooked : Shots - Health News hide captionA picture from the photo story "Keg Stand Queens," which explores the gender dynamics of undergraduate binge drinking. Amanda Berg/The Alexia Foundation for NPR A picture from the photo story "Keg Stand Queens," which explores the gender dynamics of undergraduate binge drinking. Binge drinking is something many people want to shrug off. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it's a public health problem that deserves more attention. You might be tempted to think binge drinking is mainly an issue for men, but that's not the case. About 13 percent of U.S. women go on drinking binges each month, says the CDC, citing survey data collected in 2011. Consuming four or more drinks in a single session is considered a binge for women, in case you were wondering. All told, the CDC figures 14 million women in the U.S. binge drink. Binge drinking is more common among non-Hispanic whites (a prevalence of 13 percent). Dr. The U.S.
‘Free Will,’ by Sam Harris But the last half-century has seen this ancient subject pulled down from its academic perch and into courtrooms, laboratories, real-world questions about moral responsibility, and even popular culture. (It forms the plot of such contemporary movies as “Minority Report” and “The Adjustment Bureau.”) Over the last few decades, procedures for measuring, imaging and analyzing mental processes have grown in number and subtlety. During this same period, books for the general reader about the brain and its functions, consciousness and will, thought and reasoning have proliferated. We have Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Cordelia Fine, Oliver Sacks, Michael Gazzaniga, Daniel Kahneman and scores of others explaining, and extrapolating from, new findings in neuroscience and almost always addressing the matter of free will. His absolutist position, I should add, because, as he puts it near the beginning of the book: “Free will is an illusion. Of course, questions persist.
Painkiller Paradox: Feds Struggle To Control Drugs That Help And Harm : Shots - Health News hide captionMichael Israel (shown here, left, with his father, Avi, in 2006) killed himself after becoming addicted to prescription painkillers. Avi Israel Michael Israel (shown here, left, with his father, Avi, in 2006) killed himself after becoming addicted to prescription painkillers. A few years ago, a doctor started prescribing Michael Israel painkillers for bad cramps in his gut. "So he was prescribed, you know, Lortab, or Vicodin or whatever. Then one day, Michael confessed that something was wrong. "Michael came over to my bedroom one night and said, 'Pops, I have a problem with the pills,' " says Israel. Michael admitted that he was taking more pills than he was supposed to. "Michael walked into my bedroom, and he had a shotgun that he used to use for target practice, because that was one of his favorite things. Israel ran to the door and heard his son cock the gun. "I kicked the door open. Michael was just 20 years old. "It's not a white or black or Hispanic issue. Notes
Kurt Vonnegut term paper assignment from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Buck Squibb. Suzanne McConnell, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s students in his “Form of Fiction” course at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, saved this assignment, explaining that Vonnegut “wrote his course assignments in the form of letters, as a way of speaking personally to each member of the class.” The result is part assignment, part letter, part guide to writing and life. This assignment is reprinted from Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, edited by Dan Wakefield, out now from Delacorte Press. This course began as Form and Theory of Fiction, became Form of Fiction, then Form and Texture of Fiction, then Surface Criticism, or How to Talk out of the Corner of Your Mouth Like a Real Tough Pro. As for your term papers, I should like them to be both cynical and religious. I invite you to read the fifteen tales in Masters of the Modern Short Story (W. Proceed next to the hallucination that you are a minor but useful editor on a good literary magazine not connected with a university.
Harvard LSD Research Draws National Attention Sitting in Winthrop dining hall with a few classmates in the fall of 1959, Allan Y. Cohen ’61 pondered what courses to take the next semester. Conversation gradually shifted to a supposedly easy course on motivation. Someone asked who the professor of the course was. “I am,” emerged a voice from the end of the table, Cohen remembered. Dass and his research partner Timothy F. By administering hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin to Cohen and Harvard students in the Harvard Psilocybin Project, Dass and Leary generated discord among faculty and students and propelled Harvard to the center of national media attention when details of the ongoing project were exposed in the spring of 1962. While psilocybin, LSD, and other hallucinogenic drugs are illegal today, these substances were legally available in the summer of 1960, when Leary first tried psilocybin during a fateful trip to Mexico with his family. His interest was not unusual.
Kurt Vonnegut's Daily Routine by Maria Popova “In an unmoored life like mine, sleep and hunger and work arrange themselves to suit themselves, without consulting me.” As a lover of letters and of all things Kurt Vonnegut, I spent months eagerly awaiting Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (public library), which has finally arrived and is just as fantastic as I’d come to expect. What makes the anthology particularly sublime is that strange, endearing way in which so much of what Vonnegut wrote about to his friends, family, editors, and critics appears at first glance mundane but somehow peels away at the very fabric of his character and reveals the most tender boundaries of his soul. Here’s a taste: In the mid-1960s, Vonnegut was offered a teaching position at the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Dearest Jane,In an unmoored life like mine, sleep and hunger and work arrange themselves to suit themselves, without consulting me. Compare and contrast with Henry Miller’s daily routine. Donating = Loving
The Drug Laws That Changed How We Punish hide captionNew York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had been a champion of drug rehabilitation, job training and housing. Then, he did a dramatic about-face and backed strict sentences for low-level criminals. Central Press/Getty Images New York Gov. The United States puts more people behind bars than any other country, five times as many per capita compared with Britain or Spain. It wasn't always like this. Those tough-on-crime policies became the new normal across the country. 'Life Sentence, No Parole' In a little town in northern New York called Ray Brook, an old hospital and a complex for athletes who competed in the Winter Olympics in nearby Lake Placid now house inmates. They're part of a massive infrastructure that sprang up in America over the past 40 years, a prison network that now houses more than 2 million people. Rewind to the 1970s. Rockefeller, New York's Republican governor, had backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing. But the political mood was hardening.
The Daily Routines of Famous Writers By Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity. Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. Ray Bradbury, a lifelong proponent of working with joy and an avid champion of public libraries, playfully defies the question of routines in this 2010 interview: My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. Joan Didion creates for herself a kind of incubation period for ideas, articulated in this 1968 interview: I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. E. I never listen to music when I’m working. Photograph by Tom Palumbo, 1956 Jack Kerouac describes his rituals and superstitions in 1968: He then adds a few thought on the best time and place for writing: Don DeLillo tells The Paris Review in 1993: Image by Nick Bilton
Decades On, Stiff Drug Sentence Leaves A Life 'Dismantled' hide captionNow 59, George Prendes works as a telemarketer in New York and struggles to make the rent on his small Bronx apartment. Natasha Haverty Now 59, George Prendes works as a telemarketer in New York and struggles to make the rent on his small Bronx apartment. There are roughly half a million people behind bars for nonviolent drug crimes in America. But no one really knows how many people have been sentenced to long prison bids since the laws known as Rockefeller drug laws first passed 40 years ago. What's clear is that tough sentencing laws, even for low-level drug dealers and addicts, shaped a generation of young men, especially black and Hispanic men. Men like George Prendes, now 59. "It's just the drudgery," Prendes says of his life today. His wife, Yvonne, says prison carved a hole in the middle of Prendes' life. "His experience damaged a part of him, you know? 'Everyone Was Doing Cocaine' "Everyone was doing cocaine. Courtesy of Yvonne Prendes 'A Big Chunk Of My Life'
Mr. Carpenter's Slaughterhouse-Five page Kurt Vonnegut (Wikipedia) Slaughterhouse-Five (Wikipedia) Slaughterhouse-Five (Sparknotes) Slaughterhouse-Five Summary [in] Stop-Motion [Animation] (YouTube) Slaughterhouse-Five Timelines Timeline (codex)Timeline (interactive)“The Neverending Campaign to Ban Slaughterhouse-Five” (The Atlantic) Short article on Slaughterhouse-Five (PBS, American Masters) Article by Nanny Vonnegut on her father, Kurt, and Slaughterhouse-Five (Huffington Post) Bombing of Dresden [Germany] in World War II (Wikipedia) Key Terms to Better Understand Slaughterhouse-Five (all from Wikipedia) Reading Questions on Slaughterhouse-FiveAudio & Video Resources Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories Kurt Vonnegut on How to Write a Short Story [Kurt] Vonnegut Talks with Charlie Rose [and grades his own novels] Kurt Vonnegut Interviewed About Dresden Essay Topic