Marijuana Goes Mainstream, Ctd

CAMedicalMarijuana

Jonah Lehrer continues a discussion he began at the Dish:

I thought this brand new paper on stress and the cannabinoid receptor was extremely interesting. The Israeli scientists demonstrated that microinjecting an agonist of the CB1 receptor (a primary binding site of THC, the active ingredient in pot) significantly reduced the elevation of stress hormones in response to scary stressors. They researchers argue that their evidence "supports a wide therapeutic application for cannabinoids in the treatment of conditions associated with the inappropriate retention of aversive memories and stress-related disorders." Like I said before, pot just might be the next Prozac. Are you listening Eli Lilly?

(Image from the LA Times shows medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles; Hat tip: Reason)

The Recession Generation

Ryan Sager parses a study on the impact of downturns on individuals:

[T]he effects here aren’t solely on stock-market participation. Another study (abstract / PDF) looks at how recessions affect our beliefs about the world, using data from the General Social Survey from 1972 to 2006. Using time and regional variations in macroeconomic conditions to identify the effect of recessions on beliefs, the study finds that:

[I]ndividuals growing up during recessions tend to believe that success in life depends more on luck than on effort, support more government redistribution, but are less confident in public institutions.

What’s more, it finds that these effects, like the stock-market effects, are long-lasting.

Let’s Hope The Camcorder Is Biodegradable

No Impact Man made a movie:

Dana Stevens reviews it:

Unlike Morgan Spurlock's similarly themed Supersize Me, No Impact Man never fully embraces the gimmickiness of its own conceit; neither the filmmakers nor their subjects completely convince us that what the Times called "The Year Without Toilet Paper" was worth it. That ambivalence makes this film less punchy and entertaining than Spurlock's, but also more complex. If Michelle and Colin are bourgeois fucks, yet we still somehow admire their tenacity, what does that make us?

Marriage Matters

A reader writes:

I'll be honest, there was something about the pro gay marriage argument I didn't quite get until recently.  I've always detested the hate and illogical arguments spewing from the Right, and found Bush-Rove's cynical use of the issue in '04 sickening.   Ultimately though I found it RINGJustinSullivan:Getty to be one of those debates, fueled by culture war nonsense,  where both sides just ended up talking past each other.   We've reached a point where many social conservatives don't deny the need to give gay couples hospital visitation rights, survivor benefits, and all the other legal protections of marriage, yet the Left seemed content blowing past a fertile middle ground in favor of what seemed to me to be largely a semantical argument.  Why not secure gays the basic rights they've been denied and worry about what name is given to their relationship down the road?  Surely when those under 40 become the generation over 40, the controversy over calling it marriage will seem almost quaint.  

 In the hellish months of planning my wedding in June, I found myself quoting Chris Rock to my friends — can't get sent to war, can't get married, sign me up. Maggie and I started living together in 2004, and for years we shared expenses and were secure in our commitment to spend our lives together.  So besides spending a chunk of our savings on the wedding and developing a strained relationship with my parents (it's the nature of the beast someone won't like the wedding plans) I didn't see how my life was going be radically altered by marriage.

Well,

as anyone whose been married knows, I was wrong.

The bond between Maggie and I is infinitely stronger and my life is so much richer for having her as my wife.  I feel foolish for not having done it 3 years ago.   As I stood on the dunes in Truro where we got married, overwhelmed by the life changing event that I'd just experienced, I looked across the bay at Provincetown.  I thought of all the engaged gay couples we'd encountered while planning our wedding, I thought of all those personal stories your readers shared back when the Prop 8 debate was raging, and I thought of you and your husband.  I'd always been on the pro gay marriage side of the debate, but not until I actually got married did I understand the core of the debate itself.  There is no separate, but equal argument to be made on this issue — and any heterosexual, who has experienced the joys of marriage, is being intellectually dishonest in his attempt to make one.

From JD Salinger To John Grisham

Several years ago, Nina Siegal read through Publisher's Weekly bestseller list from 1900:

The bestseller in fiction took a precipitous turn in the 1980s towards what might be termed the “throwaway read,” a novel with a shelf life of yogurt. Interestingly, that doesn’t seem to be quite as true with nonfiction bestsellers. America’s nonfiction bestseller lists still have some pretty hefty titles.

Scott Esposito adds his two cents.

The Roots Of Morality

A researcher finds universal concerns, not culture, shape morals:

“It’s remarkable how little cultural variation we have found in developmental patterns of moral reasoning,” says Helwig, who presented his results in Park City, Utah, at the recent annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Helwig and like-minded researchers don’t assume that kids’ universal responses spring from a biologically innate moral-reasoning capacity. Instead, they say, children gradually devise ways of evaluating core family relationships in different situations. Kids judge the fairness and effectiveness of their parents’ approaches to punishing misbehavior, for example. These kinds of relationship issues are much the same across all cultures, from Helwig’s perspective.

The Next Bubble?

Peter Boone and Simon Johnson predict:

The bubbles this time will likely appear abroad. Parts of Asia and Latin America, a tiny fraction of the size of the U.S. economy, are experiencing large capital inflows, low interest rates, and the beginnings of a major boom. Countries with intact banking systems and access to global capital markets will lead the next speculative wave. The United States will be pulled in–probably soon enough that we will all be surprised by a supposedly robust recovery, fed by continued low interest rates and loose credit. We all know these episodes end in tears, but they can be spectacular while they last.