The state of the culture

We are in danger from information overload. The modern world overwhelms people with data, and this overabundance is both confusing and harmful to the mind.

The psychiatric employment plan. If they keep finding and labeling new conditions, they'll never run out of patients!

Lost  the remote control and can't be bothered to get up to change the channel on the TV? Don't worry, you're not lazy, you simply have sluggish cognitive tempo disorder.

Or maybe you're prone to a bit of a tantrum when you misplace the car keys? Possibly a sign of intermittent explosive disorder.

If you wanted to disprove the contention that "Self-help gurus are charlatans and hucksers," you probably shouldn't use James Arthur Ray. He preaches that success can come to those who will it, and he gets people to pay good money to do things like sit in sweat lodges to benefit from the techniques "he searched out in the mountains of Peru and the jungles of the Amazon" so they can "gain strength and confidence by mastering physical discomfort."

The times, they are a changin:

Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.

I've know families that underwent severe stress, even to the point of breaking up, when one spouse became more religious than the other, especially if a "take no prisoners" fundamentalism was being embraced. This sounds a little like that:

The Chicago Sun-Times, believe it or not, has a blog devoted exclusively to Chicago's favorite talk show host -- "All Oprah. All the the time," says the subhead. The buzz on there Friday was about Lady Gaga, who canceled a Thursday night performance at Purdue University claiming illness ("An hour before the show I was feeling dizzy and had trouble breathing," she tweeted later):

One of the more intersting aspects of the Harry Reid case is how oddly anachronistic he sounded with "Negro dialect." He has let time pass him by, apparently unaware that Negro has gone from favored word to taboo word.

I was considering weighing in on the Harry Reid light-skinned/Negro dialect imbroglio, but this is far more important:

"I'm sure it was my fault," Seinfeld joked of The Jay Leno Show's declining ratings. "The tuxedo was way over the top," he added, referencing what he wore during his appearance on Leno's debut show.

What's that old quip, "With friends like that, you don't need enemies"?

Police were called to the home of Robert Crow, 38, at 116 E. Willow St. around 8:20 p.m. When officers arrived, they found Jaime Gasso, 43, dead from a single gunshot wound.

Crow made the 911 call, and was arrested for assisting in a suicide. That is a Class C felony. Thursday the Dekalb County coroner confirmed Gasso's death was a suicide.

[. . .]

We've all heard about parents who try to ease their children into alcohol by supervising their parties and monitoring their drinking. Somebody usually tries to make the argument for that practice by pointing out that in France, after all, kids even drink wine at the dinner table. But a story like this is so creepy that it knocks all the props out from under that position: