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Before judging, I'd want to hear from some serious medical people as to whether this is even vaguely a good idea. One thing in particular bothered me in this article: During the hour-long consult with Hallowell, I answer a battery of diagnostic questions, which we then discuss at relative length: Were you considered an underachiever in school? I hear questions like that and I think "phony fortune teller." But again, I want to hear from the experts (though I do think this could easily give kids the "I read it in the Atlantic" excuse before doping up now).
Here's the intro to the story: Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news -- vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the US and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means. And then came the End of History, summed up by Francis Fukuyama's influential 1989 essay declaring that mankind had arrived at the "end point of ... ideological evolution" in globally triumphant "Western liberalism." The two decades beginning in 1991 witnessed the greatest rise in living standards that the world has ever known. Credit was easy, complacency and apathy were rife, and street protests looked like pointless emotional sideshows -- obsolete, quaint, the equivalent of cavalry to mid-20th-century war. The rare large demonstrations in the rich world seemed ineffectual and irrelevant. But for young people, radical critiques and protests against the system were mostly confined to pop-culture fantasy: "Fight the Power" was a song on a platinum-selling album, Rage Against the Machine was a platinum-selling band, and the beloved brave rebels fighting the all-encompassing global oppressors were just a bunch of characters in The Matrix. "Massive and effective street protest" was a global oxymoron until -- suddenly, shockingly -- starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times.
did two things (my emphasis): A federal judge Tuesday rejected a request to hold the Food and Drug Administration in contempt of court over its policy on the emergency contraceptive Plan B but said he would consider reviewing the government's refusal to make it easier for girls and women to get the drug. Rejecting the request to hold the FDA in contempt of court is small potatoes compared to the suggestion that he would put Sebelius's (and, one must assume, Obama's) decision under court review: Korman said he was willing to hear arguments over whether the agency should have allowed the sale of the morning-after pill to girls younger than 17 without a prescription, and he instructed advocacy groups to file the appropriate legal motions. Korman specifically suggested adding Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the lawsuit.
Romney grew up in a rich political family, spend the past two decades running for political office because he's so rich he doesn't need a real job - and mind you, Romney doesn't have a job now. You don't get to be that person, and then accuse some guy whose father abandoned him, left him and his now-single mom with meager resources, of being the "1%". This is more of Romney trying to be everything to everyone, and lying about his record along the way. I mean seriously, the man is filthy rich and he accuses Obama of being the one percent? From Americans United for Change, via email: Oh, now THIS is rich...
interview with The Washington Post, offered some of his toughest criticism to date of the politician whose sudden rise in the polls has made him, at least for now, the front-runner for the nomination. He also had tough words for President Obama and his campaign, saying he would not let them portray him as a tool of Wall Street and calling the president "a member of the 1 percent." New York Post, December 13: Mitt's megabucks day with elite of Wall Street' Center for Responsive Politics, Oct. Romney says the stock market collapse in 2008 shouldn't scare workers away from investing in private accounts."
From AP: The number of young adults lacking medical coverage has shrunk by 25 million since the new health care overhaul law took effect, according to a new analysis the Obama administration is to release Wednesday. Under the health overhaul, children can remain on their parents' health insurance plans until they turn 26, and families have flocked to sign up young adults making the transition to work in a challenging economic environment. But the fate of President Barack Obama's signature domestic accomplishment remains uncertain, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a constitutional challenge next year, and Republican presidential candidates vowing to repeal it.
writing at Naked Capitalism about the Fed, Alan Grayson, and how the corrupt system works as seen from the inside. After an introduction with some thoughts about the Fed and its power -- and also the nature of American money -- Stoller talks about his experience with the Fed and Congressman Alan Grayson.
t is important to put something on the record about the Federal Reserve's politics. From 2009 onward, the Fed fought bitterly and fought dirty to prevent any disclosure whatsoever. I've never told this story before, about the Fed's nasty and dishonorable lobbying campaign against a Fed audit. Stoller then backgrounds the tale with instances of how amazingly deferential everyone in Congress is to the Fed, from staffers to Barney Frank.
this great post: The story of how I became involved with the Fed audit fight starts with a semi-random event. I connected with Grayson in the fall of 2008, when a Democratic landslide seemed imminent; My title was "Senior Policy Advisor", a Lake Wobegon-ish line used on the Hill to designate catch-all advisor (there are no "Junior Policy Advisor" titles). Soon after, in the beginning of the session, he got put on the Financial Services Committee, because that's where Democratic leadership put a lot of freshmen in swing districts. Still, despite my handicap of having written stuff on the internet, I ended up covering the Financial Services Committee in my issue portfolio. Our specific fight with the Fed started in January, 2009, when I put a stack of blog posts and Bloomberg articles on the trillion dollar expansion of the Fed's balance sheet in front of Grayson to prep him for a hearing with Fed Vice Chair Don Kohn. And what I didn't know, and what Kohn was about to find out, was that Grayson was basically the best cross-examiner in Congress and fluent in central banking parlance and international investing. Members get just five minutes to ask questions, and when the witnesses are important, they can't ask for more time. As I noted before, Barney was especially aggressive about preventing members from getting more time, especially when the witnesses were from the Fed and the questions were probing.
Grayson would ask a question, and when Kohn didn't answer, simply repeat the question. The droning contrast of Kohn's evasive answers, combined with Grayson's clear questions, was an entertaining metaphor for the power of a cold and enormous bureaucracy up against a scrappy iconoclast. As Kohn got tripped up, and confused spending and lending, bored observers in the committee room woke up and note. One experienced journalist told me that Kohn is a master of these hearings, and it was shocking to see him embarrassed by a random freshman legislator The video went viral, because Grayson was the only member who had theatrically focused on what Mark Pittman of Bloomberg reported, a remarkable and unprecedented expansion of the Fed's balance sheet. After the hearing, banks began calling our office, afraid that we knew something abo...
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