Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. Many of this week’s stories were related to remembering the bad things in order to make a better, happier, and more pain-free future.

Researchers find “manipulating” past memories of drug use can help addicts avoid relapse:

Tests 180 days later showed that levels of cravings were lower in those treated during the “memory window” than in the other groups. These experiments were backed up by further tests on “addicted” rats.

Aristotle

There is no doubt that Aristotle’s texts are misogynist; he thought that women were inferior to men and he said so explicitly. For example, to cite Cynthia Freeland’s catalogue: “Aristotle says that the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman’s lies in obeying;” that “matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful;” that women have fewer teeth than men; that a female is an incomplete male or “as it were, a deformity”: which contributes only matter and not form to the generation of offspring; that in general “a woman is perhaps an inferior being”; that female characters in a tragedy will be inappropriate if they are too brave or too clever.” 

During his freshman year at Kansas State in 1972, he joined the Air Force ROTC and took the Air Force Officers Qualifying Test, which he nearly aced. Then during a physical exam his left eye failed him, and he was told he will never fly a jet—at least not one owned by the U.S. government. He still could have entered the Air Force as an officer, but for him, what was the point? Continue Reading

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí wrote about this technique that he called “Slumber with a key.” He featured it as one of his 50 secrets of magic craftsmanship. Dalí presents this afternoon nap as a means of lucid dreaming (though one could argue it is more along the lines of hynagogia). It lasts less than a minute, in fact, even a second could be too long! Dalí recommends that the slumber last even less than a quarter of a second. 

I squirmed in my seat, an American in the Middle East, needing very badly to pee. I was already shaking from cold, and—reaching for my gloves—I realized how badly I’d prepared. Can you get hurt trying to sled without gloves?   Continue Reading

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, some people wanted to be loved, while others just want people to show a little more love to their fellow man.

Woman’s account of sleeping with her favorite male porn star, whom she picked up (very quickly) in a bar:

Instead of being entertained, I was doing the entertaining, and I suspect he was too — but for whom, exactly? We were the only audience.

John Henry Browne

“Attorney John Henry Browne,” read a headline on the cover of Pacific, a Seattle news magazine. “He shoots from the hip to defend the notorious.”

[...]

His father worked on the Manhattan Project and later for the Atomic Energy Commission. Mr. Browne played bass in the Crystal Palace Guard, a band that opened for some of the most popular bands of the 1960s. His office includes a black-and-white etching of a somber Abraham Lincoln, a framed 45 of “Imagine,” by John Lennon and a sculpture of a laughing Buddha. He is happy to talk about “the curse of awareness” and how he struggles “to keep my ego under control.”

“My skeletons aren’t in the closet,” he said. “They’re on the front lawn.”  

Then I noticed a fleet of jet-black SUVs, windows tinted, creeping down the block. The old man closed his curtains. Street lights kicked on with a buzzing of white light. I’d gone, perhaps, from watching to being watched.   Continue Reading

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, jungle growth was obscuring New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, while the white saviour industrial complex wanted a growth now, no matter the costs. Like a clumsy teenage boy, desired and unwanted growth spurts provoke strange reacts.

Teju Cole on the white savior industrial complex:

If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.