Harvard study on video games and kids

They discovered that children who played violent video games – those rated Mature or above – were just relieving stress.  Some children did exhibit some playful fighting after playing games, but this was similar to what children have always done after watching action or Karate-type movies.

51% of male children who played 15 hours or more of violent games per week were involved in fights in the past year compared to 28% who played regular video games.  For girls, 40% of the violent game players were in fights compared to 14% of the non-violent players.  Despite the figures, Kutner and Olson say this is just a correlation and that the fighting was probably due to an underlying psychological problem that children had before playing the video game.

Perhaps the most startling finding is that boys that don’t play any video games at all are now considered to be socially inept.  A danger sign for boys is “not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence,” says Kutner and Olsen.

Mind your own

At the dental clinic, we have a lot of patients that run the gamit of psychological problems to medically compromised patients.  Anyway, after i dismiss my pt, my friend asks me with a smile, "hey, i saw your patient, was that a he/she?(meaning transgender)"

...

Immature question and is none of his business 

I simply said no and left it at that. 

A couple of my patients have been abused and ridiculed and suffer tremendously because of it.  I've become defensive with them and i've begun to really like managing difficult patients.  I enjoy being austere with the aggressive demanding ones and i really like being compassionate to my pts with history of abuse and trauma.

Anyway, it's just lame cause even though we've become good at not verbally teasing the socially unique, we still ostracize them with our cringes, stares, and snickers.

Picture of the day

Sonoma 3/1/08

Suicide claims two men who shared one heart

Published Saturday, April 5, 2008

After Terry Cottle killed himself more than 12 years ago, his heart beat on in former Hilton Head Island resident Sonny Graham.

Grateful for the transplant that saved his life, Graham wrote to thank the Cottle family. Through that correspondence, he met Cheryl Cottle, his donor's widow. Then the unexpected happened -- they fell in love and married.

Earlier this week, the unexpected happened again, when Graham's life ended the same way Terry Cottle's did.

On Tuesday, Graham took his own life at his home in Vidalia, Ga. He was 69.

The University of Tennessee study tested 82 newly-wed couples for facial attractiveness and the quality of their marriage.

Their results, in the Journal of Family Psychology, suggested most men who married attractive women were happy to bask in the glory of their partner's beauty.

But Professor Jim McNulty reported: "Men who were more attractive than their partner demonstrated a tendency to offer less emotional and practical support to their wives."

He said "evolutionary perspectives" offered an explanation.

"Attractive men have available to them more short-term mating opportunities.

"This may make them less satisfied and less committed to the marital relationship."

Strathclyde University psychologist Alastair Ross said many men enjoyed the prestige of having a beautiful wife.

"Men are rated as more likeable and friendly when they have a wife who is very attractive," he added."

hah.  auspicious sign!!!