Author: Andrew Sullivan

Balk finds "Between Bears":

I know almost nothing about this short film by Eran Hilleli, and presumably it was passed my way due to my fascination with bears and constant posting of bear videos. Having watched it twice it is still something of a mystery to me—what does it all mean? etc.—but for a five-minute animated movie for what the Internet tells me is a graduation project for an Israeli art school, it is pretty transfixing. But then again, it has bears in it, so I'm an easy sell.

I confess to being just as befuddled – and entranced. More scenes of dramatic shaving here.

Jonah Lehrer relays new research showing how Russians better cope with depression than Americans:

The psychologists gave subjects in Moscow and Michigan a series of vignettes that described a protagonist who either does or does not analyze her feelings when she is upset. After reading the short stories, the students were then asked to choose the protagonist that most closely resembled their own coping tendencies. The results were clear: While the American undergraduates were evenly divided between people who engaged in self-analysis (the brooders) and those who didn’t, the Russian students were overwhelmingly self-analytical. (Eighty-three Russians read the vignettes; sixty-eight of them identified with the brooders.) In other words, the cliche is true: Russians are ruminators. They are obsessed with their problems. …

When Russians engaged in brooding self-analysis, they were much more likely to engage in self-distancing, or looking at the past experience from the detached perspective of someone else. Instead of reliving their confused and visceral feelings, they reinterpreted the negative memory, which helped them make sense of it. According to the researchers, this led to significantly less “emotional distress” among the Russian subjects.

David Kiefaber highlights a series of ads running in nine states throughout the US:

In an unofficial campaign not connected to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons have made a slew of ads depicting themselves as regular people who just happen to be attractive and interesting enough for television. (The online clips are extended versions of the shorter TV spots.) It seems random, but it really isn't. Being run out of town is a constant in Mormon history, and South Park's 2003 hatchet job of the Mormon church still resonates with people my age. So, it makes sense that they'd want to reassure their fellow Americans that they aren't racist, homophobic polygamists. Some suspect this whole thing is advance work for Mitt Romney's inevitable 2012 presidential campaign, as well as penance for supporting Florida's campaign against gay marriage. But it could just be a long-overdue call for tolerance.

From Hitchens to Hume. James Boswell visits the great skeptic on his deathbed:

I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not burn; and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that we should exist for ever. That immortality, if it were at all, must be general; that a great proportion of the human race has hardly any intellectual qualities; that a great proportion dies in infancy before being possessed of reason; yet all these must be immortal; that a porter who gets drunk by ten o'clock with gin must be immortal; that the trash of every age must be preserved, and that new universes must be created to contain such infinite numbers. This appeared to me an unphilosophical objection, and I said, 'Mr. Hume, you know spirit does not take up space'…

He had once said to me, on a forenoon while the sun was shining bright, that he did not wish to be immortal. This was a most wonderful thought. The reason he gave was that he was very well in this state of being, and that the chances were very much against his being so well in another state; and he would rather not be more than be worse. I answered that it was reasonable to hope he would be better; that there would be a progressive improvement. I tried him at this interview with that topic, saying that a future state was surely a pleasing idea. He said no, for that it was always seen through a gloomy medium; there was always a Phlegethon or a hell. 'But,' said I, 'would it not be agreeable to have hopes of seeing our friends again?' and I mentioned three men lately deceased, for whom I knew he had a high value: Ambassador Keith, Lord Alemoor, and Baron Mure. He owned it would be agreeable, but added that none of them entertained such a notion. I believe he said, such a foolish, or such an absurd, notion; for he was indecently and impolitely positive in incredulity. '…

Mr. Lauder, his surgeon, came in for a little, and Mr. Mure, the Baron's son, for another small interval. He was, as far as I could judge, quite easy with both. He said he had no pain, but was wasting away. I left him with impressions which disturbed me for some time.

(Photo: David Hume's tomb in Edinburgh, Scotland.)

Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 6.55 am

A new study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion finds that Americans between the ages of 36 to 50 are more loyal to religion than Baby Boomers:

Philip Schwadel, of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said this was true even though they were less likely than previous generations to have been brought up with a religion. He said the trend "is good news for those who worry about declining religious adherence."

Schwadel attributed the younger generation's overall loyalty to religion to a less staid and more innovative religious scene in America today, while religion in the past was more conservative, less diverse and stricter. If people are not happy with one religion now, they can easily switch to a different denomination or faith, he added.

A lion yawns on July 19, 2010 in the Edeni Game Reserve, South Africa. Edeni is a 21,000 acre wilderness area with an abundance of game and birdlife located near Kruger National Park in South Africa. By Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

And 135 of her children:

A reader writes:

I also hated the line of argument pursued by one of your readers. I'm a foster parent, in a school district that still engages in integration motivated busing.  Our black foster child was behind grade level when she came to us last summer, even though she was coming from a suburban school with very high test scores.  We live in the significantly more affluent (predominantly white) neighborhood of the two this school serves.  The other neighborhood is low income and a mix of Latino and black families.  The test scores from our neighborhood match the high scores of our school district, while the test scores from the other neighborhood fall well below acceptable levels.

To give her an opportunity to catch up, our daughter was placed in a class with one of the top teachers in the school and in a reduced sized classroom (16 kids). This classroom was divided between kids who were performing well (majority white) and kids who needed work (mostly students of color).  Over the course of the year, our daughter made significant strides in her test scores, reading ability, and math skills.  I do not believe the other struggling children who entered her class saw the same level of success.

It was clear to me that as beneficial as the smaller class size and skill of her teacher were, they would have all been wasted had our foster daughter not been getting four simple things from us:
 
1. A regular bed time
2. Regular meals
3. Set time to do homework every night
4. Parental involvement and expectation
 
I'm a huge liberal, who believes in proper school funding and smaller class sizes.  However, I'm tired of the belief that schools are failing simply because of underfunding. 

These schools, and their students, are failing because of what is going on at home.  Either the parent is physically absent, which could be caused by everything from a a need to work multiple jobs to outright neglect, or the parent is uninvolved.

I know there are times in which a lack of proper funding harms a school and the performance of its students, but not to the extent that entire systems are failing 50, 60, 70 percent of the students in many cities.  That is caused by a standing social and economic problem, one that manifests itself in race due to the lingering effects of segregation and economic inequities drawn on racial lines. 

But it is not because Federal, State and Local Governments aren't putting enough money into the district.  No amount of money being thrown at the school district will fix it.  Only good jobs in urban areas, that provide for stable families, will change that problem.  It seems that since we have no easily identifiable solution to that problem we rely too much on talking about the need for more funding for schools.  More dangerously, it makes us focus our efforts for a solution on only one area, even if that area won't address the problem.