Mental Health & Society

Yes, life is unfair, and that partially explains why billionaires exist. But many billionaires have used their tremendous wealth to help the poor and boost public health. For these reasons, we should not be scornful, but grateful.
The Massachusetts lawmaker wants to end "traffic violence." What? The word violence implies purposeful, often malicious, intent. That word in no way describes how most people die in car crashes, which are accidents. As a Democratic candidate for President, she's trying to scrounge-up votes from people who see themselves as victims.
Microsoft Japan decided to try an experiment: Three-day weekends, every weekend. It might be reasonable to assume that productivity would fall in proportion to the number of hours lost, i.e. a 20% drop, right? But that's not what happened. Microsoft observed a 40% increase in productivity.
Bancroft, a popular author, claims that "soft-spoken, gentle, and supportive" men are actually emotionally manipulative abusers of women. Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that an author who spreads destructive, evidence-free psychobabble is also an anti-vaxxer.
Well, it's official. Scientific American, the once-reputable publication, will publish absolutely anything. Just like The Huffington Post or InfoWars.
Have the internet and social media created a climate where Americans believe anything is possible? With headlines citing now as the age of conspiracy, is it really true? In a word, no.
The Office of National Statistics in Great Britain reports that the number of suicides last year surged nearly 12% over those in 2017. Contrary to popular myth, suicides are preventable. The reason? Suicide is often a spur-of-the-moment decision. Therefore, if that impulse can be interrupted there's a good chance a life can be saved.
Mass homicides are horrific tragedies. Society must do whatever's possible to understand them fully, so as to prevent them. But people also need to separate the data from the myths and the social, political and moral narratives that often form around crime.
What explains disparate public health threats such as senseless gun violence and anti-vaxxerism? The answer may come from Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who said that the West had become too focused on personal rights at the expense of duty to one's neighbor.
I must be getting old because I don't know who some of these young whippersnappers are anymore. Apparently, a Canadian singer named Grimes (who happens to be dating Elon Musk) is somebody I need to pay attention to. And as is often the case with celebrities, it's not for a good reason. 
For the uninitiated, "Bringing Up Bébé" was an international bestseller written by Pamela Druckerman, an American living in Paris. She quickly noticed how French children behaved very differently from her own. So, she started researching French culture and discovered an entirely different parenting philosophy. Unlike parenting fads that come and go, this book will always be relevant.
We aren't the sort of organization that likes to say "We told you so." (Okay, that was a lie. We totally are.) Secular doomsday prophet Paul Ehrlich has been proven wrong (again), and ACSH has been proven correct (again).