I Call Your Attention...

I call your attention to the following all from the Sunday New York Times:...

Learning to cope with a mind's taunting voices... by Benedict Carey addresses the controversial changing focus of mental health care to a model of self-treatment and discipline.

The New York Times' Sunday Dialogue: How to Fix Government. Bruce Neuman proposes:

We need to get some of the tricks and gimmicks out of government. The Senate should constrain the use of the filibuster. We should also consider lengthening the terms of House members from two to four years to reduce re-election pressures in the face of important policy decisions. The Electoral College should be abandoned, leaving the president to be elected by a simple majority. And further work must be done to reform the financing of elections and the influence of lobbying by special interests.


Peter Sims on Daring to Stumble on the Road to Discovery in today's New York Times:

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman said that when he graduated from college, he was able to go find a job, but that our children were going to have to invent a job... The same often holds true in the workplace. Perfection is rewarded, while making mistakes is penalized. It’s no wonder that “failure” has taken on a deeply personal meaning, something to be avoided at nearly all cost... The skills we’re taught work well for familiar situations, yet we’re trained to perfect our ideas and use the past to predict the future with linear plans in a nonlinear world. As such, we need a completely new mind-set. Linear thinking is a death knell for creativity... Even the most successful stand-up comedians, like Chris Rock, try thousands of new ideas in front of small club audiences in order to develop a one-hour act... The same holds true for leaders, managers and collaborators. They must to be willing to learn from mistakes. Affordable risks should be encouraged, and small failures celebrated — these are the mark of learning organizations. Otherwise, risk aversion will lead to stagnation and decline... In a time when valued skills and occupations shift constantly, we must be able to discover interests, opportunities and careers by experimenting. Or by reinventing ourselves altogether.


Maureen Dowd's column today Downgrade Blues:

Barack Obama blazed like Luke Skywalker in 2008, but he never learned to channel the Force. And now the Tea Party has run off with his light saber... The dissonance of his promise and his reality is jarring... When he had power, he didn’t use it. He wanted to be a “transformational” president like Ronald Reagan, but failed to understand that Reagan’s strategic shows of strength allowed him to keep the whip hand without raising his voice... And now, just when the high school principal in the Oval has been browbeating Congress to help create jobs, he is once more distracted from that task as he tries to save his own... He goes to fund-raisers to tell people to stick with him, but he seems to be trying to reassure himself... “I have to admit,” the president said in Chicago, “I didn’t know how steep the climb was going to be.”

And Drew Westen writes in What Happened to Obama?:

"There was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it"... He failed to grab the narrative, to take his place at an important historic moment...We are afflicted with a president who does not seem to know what he believes."