Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter

At Amazon, Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children.

Quarter-Life Crisis

Here's Dana Perino, for Prager University:

Veterans Swim in Calming Waters (VIDEO)

A great story, from CBS Evening News:

'TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: It's Really a Thing...'

Heh.

At Instapundit, "'In her 35 years as a therapist, Arlene Drake has never heard so many clients talking about the same issue. Week after week, they complain of panic attacks and insomnia because of President Trump. They’re too anxious to concentrate at work. One woman’s fear turned into intense, physical pain'."

I think folks should just tune it out, live life. Read a book or something. Go to the movies. Go swimming. Have a glass of wine and talk to your kids. Sheesh. I teach politics for a living. I know there's lots more to life than stressing over the president.

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

Robert Stacy McCain is constantly citing and linking this book, first published in 1979, when I was a senior in high school.

It's still in print, apparently.

I have an old pulp-paperback copy, but get yours at Amazon.

Here, Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.

Ph.D. Student Allegedly Murders U.S.C. Professor Bosco Tjan, Co-Director of Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center

Absolutely horrific.

Seems like we get a story like this once a year at least. Remember UCLA had the murder-suicide shooting in June.

In any case, at LAT, "USC PhD student accused of fatally stabbing professor on campus."

The person suspected of stabbing a USC professor to death on campus yesterday is a 28-year-old PhD student https://t.co/2vQDossmyN pic.twitter.com/T1mvDycZrs

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

The USC psychology professor who was stabbed to death on campus joined the faculty in 2001. His name was Bosco Tjan. https://t.co/2vQDossmyN

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

What Teens Need Most from Their Parents

Well, they need a tremendous amount of attention and supervision.

I didn't realize how much until I wished I'd done more for my oldest son, who's having some early adulthood challenges now. (He'll be 21 in January.)

Yes, that's life, I know. But you always wish you'd done more to guide your kids, and provide a strong moral foundation.

It's weird when you think back on it, although my family's blessed that we're all together, doing well and healthy. You just think about it. Could you have done more? Have I been a good parent?

In any case, at WSJ:

The teenage years can be mystifying for parents. Sensible children turn scatter-brained or start having wild mood swings. Formerly level-headed adolescents ride in cars with dangerous drivers or take other foolish risks.

A flood of new research offers explanations for some of these mysteries. Brain imaging adds another kind of data that can help test hypotheses and corroborate teens’ own accounts of their behavior and emotions. Dozens of recent multiyear studies have traced adolescent development through time, rather than comparing sets of adolescents at a single point.

The new longitudinal research is changing scientists’ views on the role parents play in helping children navigate a volatile decade. Once seen as a time for parents to step back, adolescence is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to stay tuned in and emotionally connected. The research makes it possible to identify four important phases in the development of intellectual, social and emotional skills that most teens will experience at certain ages. Here is a guide to the latest findings...

Keep reading.

Professor William S. Klug Killed in UCLA Murder-Suicide (VIDEO)

Watch the report, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Victim In UCLA Murder-Suicide Was Engineering School Professor, Father and Husband."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Professor killed in UCLA murder-suicide was brilliant, kind and caring, colleagues say."

No word yet on the identity of the shooter. He was a student of Professor Klug's, apparently. There was some chatter on Twitter that he was disgruntled, but there's been no reporting on this outside of posts on social media. See Claudia Peschiutta, at KNX, for example, "#UCLAshooting: Student apparently despondent about his grades shot professor & then killed himself, according to law enf source. @KNX1070."

More, from Robert Stacy McCain, "Gosh, the media sure is taking its sweet time publishing the NAME of the student who killed that UCLA professor."

And Kurt Schlichter, "From the seeming lack of media interest in the UCLA shooter's identity I assume he's someone from a politically unuseful demographic."

Transgender Hoax Crime in Durham, North Carolina (VIDEO)

Well, it's N.C.

Couldn't be a coincidence, or anything, considering the Tar Heel State's in the news all the time.

At ABC11 WTVD Durham, "CITY OF DURHAM REFUTES TRANSGENDER WOMAN'S CLAIMS" (via Blazing Cat Fur):

On Saturday, ABC11 showed [gender dysphoric Alexis] Adams the surveillance video of her walking out of the women's restroom alone and not by security. Adams response was, "They're not in the shot."

ABC11 showed Adams a different camera angle-this time of her walking out of the transit center with a man that does not appear to be a security guard. Adams response was, "I can't. I guess you just had to be there to witness it. The security did escort-ask me to leave the premises. They may not have dragged me out of the bathroom but they were there."

Adams says she is sticking by her story, and that no one has influenced her to come forward.

What's not clear is if the janitor said something to Adams inside the restroom. The video only shows Adams going in the restroom alone and walking out alone.

The city is asking people to call police if they saw something to support Adams' allegation...

There's video at the link.

Beware of Crazy Women in the Social Media Age

At the Other McCain, "Beware of Sex in the Social Media Age (Because the Internet Is Forever)":

So here we have Rosie, telling the world that she lives in North East Bedfordshire, where she is suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and — oh, by the way — she has vaginismus and was (allegedly) raped by Jason Lee Weight in June 2014.

Yeah, let’s just put that on the Internet, and also publish photos of yourself topless, Rosie. Because what could possibly go wrong?

Here’s a word parents need to teach their kids: “Crazy.”

What part of “crazy” do I need to explain here? The Internet is forever, boys and girls. Go ask former Rep. Anthony Weiner what he was thinking before he started sending photos of his penis to women. My old buddy Andrew Breitbart turned that into the biggest political story of 2011, and you might have thought former Rep. Anthony Weiner would have learned his lesson, but no, he got caught again in 2013 having some kind of perverted Internet fling with a sleazy admirer named Sydney Leathers.

My teenage sons got an earful of warnings after that. While I was reporting the breaking developments in the second WeinerGate scandal, it dawned on me that kids (and obviously, too many adults who should know better) are simply not thinking before they hit the “send” button on their text messages and emails. They are not thinking about the possible consequences of clicking the “publish” button on their social media accounts. Nor are people thinking about what they are doing in the real world in an age where everybody’s cellphone has a video camera, where anything a guy does in his dating relationships may become the subject of an online rant by an angry ex-girlfriend, where a guy meets a girl at a party and has what seems to him a consensual hookup only to discover, nearly two years later, that she’s telling the world that he’s a rapist.

Rosie’s account of that night is a classic “he-said/she-said” situation. Her story of that (allegedly) “horrific” June 2014 encounter seems entirely plausible, and Jason Lee Weight’s (alleged) behavior is indefensible. Rosie says she filed a report with police “a long time after” this encounter, but a lack of evidence made prosecution impossible. Because I am not a prosecutor or a detective or any sort of “activist,” however, the question of Jason Lee Weight’s guilt or innocence is not actually relevant to my point. Discussing this allegation in terms of “rape culture” is above my pay grade. What I am trying to do here, as a professional journalist, is to convey the reality of what sex means in the social media age. And what I am also trying to do, as a father of six, the youngest three of whom are teenagers, is to explain to parents, teachers and other responsible adults why young people must be warned very strongly about these dangers.

This is not 1977, the year I graduated high school. This is not 1983, the year I graduated college. It’s not 1989, the year I got married. Heck, it’s not even 2008, the year I left The Washington Times and embarked on a career as a freelance correspondent and blogger. Social media has exploded during the past decade, technology has advanced to the point where rapists are livestreaming their rapes on the Internet, where mass murderers publish their “manifestos” online before they commit their deadly rampages. What does this mean for “casual sex”? To quote the recently departed Prince: “Party over. Oops! Out of time.”

Welcome to 2016, boys and girls. There is no such thing as “privacy.”

Keep reading.

Angry Protests Over Los Angeles Unified School District's Transgender Restroom Policy (VIDEO)

At KABC News 7 Los Angeles, "STUDENTS, PROTESTERS FIGHT OUTSIDE LA SCHOOL WITH GENDER-NEUTRAL BATHROOM."

Federal Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Transgender Student in Virginia Restroom Case

Like I've said, it's a transgender tipping point.

See Darleen Click, at Protein Wisdom, "Federal Court rules that biological sex is a myth":

Black is white; up is down; and ….

“You are a slow learner, Winston,” said O’Brien gently.

“How can I help it?” he blubbered. “How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.” (“1984” Orwell)

Former Red Sox Ace Curt Schilling Fired by ESPN for Transgender Comments on Facebook

Boy, talk about the transgender tipping point.

Moonbattery nails it, "Curt Schilling Commits More Thought Crime on Social Media."

The homosexual fascists were out for blood, at Outsports ("Outsports"?), via Memeorandum, "This is ESPN's Curt Schilling's disgusting view of transgender people."

More at NYT, via Memeorandum, "ESPN Fires Curt Schilling Over an Offensive Social Media Post."

Dr. Paul McHugh, Transgender is 'Mental Disorder'; Sex Change 'Biologically Impossible'

At CNS News, "Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;' Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’."

And following the links takes is to McHugh, at WSJ, "Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution":

The government and media alliance advancing the transgender cause has gone into overdrive in recent weeks. On May 30, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the "reassignment" surgery sought by the transgendered—those who say that they don't identify with their biological sex. Earlier last month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was "open" to lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Time magazine, seeing the trend, ran a cover story for its June 9 issue called "The Transgender Tipping Point: America's next civil rights frontier."

Yet policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight.

With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption "I'm ugly." These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling passions in their subjects' minds and tend to be accompanied by a solipsistic argument.

For the transgendered, this argument holds that one's feeling of "gender" is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one's mind, cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just society's tolerance of this "personal truth" but affirmation of it. Here rests the support for "transgender equality," the demands for government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access to all sex-based public roles and privileges.

With this argument, advocates for the transgendered have persuaded several states—including California, New Jersey and Massachusetts—to pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor. That government can intrude into parents' rights to seek help in guiding their children indicates how powerful these advocates have become.

How to respond? Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field. Many will recall how, in the 1990s, an accusation of parental sex abuse of children was deemed unquestionable by the solipsists of the "recovered memory" craze.

You won't hear it from those championing transgender equality, but controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned...

Keep reading.

Lolz: Our Culture of Wannabe Rock Stars Going Home to Mama's House, Sleeping on a Twin Bed

Watch, this great segment, with Megyn Kelly interviewing Dr. Phil.

It's pretty hilarious.

Here, "Dr. Phil: We've Created a Generation of Entitled, Narcissistic People."

What Caused the Civil War?

Well, the Stogie/Donald debates have fizzled out by now, and Stogie's announced that I'm his "enemy." But man, I've freakin' never seen someone go off the rails so rapidly.

My old friend turned into a loon and conspiracy whack job. Sad.

Anyways, the debate's never gonna be settled, obviously. But as it goes on, Marxists and radical libertarians will no doubt be growing tinfoil out of their ears.

Watch, at Prager University, "Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, settles the debate":

Target Stores to Move Away from Gender-Based Signs

So far, they're removing gender-based signs for the toy section and bedding. No word on the kids' clothing section, but it won't be long before kids' clothing is totally homogenized, heh.

At CNN, "Target to move away from gender-based signs."

Also at Twitchy, "‘Progressive BS’: Target’s plan to ‘phase out gender-based signs’ in stores earns eyerolls."

Ku Klux Klan Rallies for Confederate Flag in South Carolina (VIDEO)

Stogie keeps posting photos of Southern blacks hoisting the Confederate flag.

To each his own, I guess. Some blacks were down with slavery, feared being free men. That's the tradition they're upholding.

And remember, Stogie threatened to block me if I pressed him about why the Klan proudly boosts the Confederate banner. Cowardly.

Jury Finds Colorado Theater Shooter Guilty on 165 Counts

I wrote all about this case at the time.

No surprise about the verdicts.

At the Los Angeles Times, "James Holmes found guilty of murder; shooter in Colorado theater massacre killed 12 people":

The jury weighing the fate of Aurora, Colo., gunman James E. Holmes on Thursday found the 27-year-old former neuroscience graduate student guilty of murder and attempted murder in a trial that has grabbed international headlines.

The verdicts - guilty on all 165 counts - were announced on the second day of deliberations.

The courtroom was silent as Arapahoe County Judge Carlos Samour Jr. read the verdicts. Holmes stood motionless beside his attorneys as Samour read the names of the victims - the men, the women and the child who were murdered, and those who were injured.

Dozens of names rang out in a process that was strangely dry after the deep emotion of the three-month trial. As Samour read the names and the charges against Holmes, the only other sound was the rustle of pages as he made his way through the 165 charges.

"Verdict form Count 1, murder in the first degree after deliberation, Jonathan Blunk," he began. "We the jury find the defendant James Eagen Holmes guilty of murder in the first degree after deliberation."

Jurors left unanswered Part B of every count: "Did you find the defendant not guilty on this count solely based on the defense of insanity?" And they answered "yes" to Part C of each three-part count: "Did the defendant use, or possess and threaten the use of, a deadly weapon?"

The process took about an hour.

Legal experts following the trial were shocked by the jury’s speed.

“I am very surprised the jury is back with a verdict so soon, especially since the judge told the jury it had to work through each and every count,” said Rick Kornfeld, a former assistant U.S. attorney. “It’s hard to read the tea leaves regarding a short deliberation in a long trial, but it certainly means that the losing side was not in the game in the eyes of the jury in terms of the strength of their argument."

Holmes had faced 165 felony counts, including murder in the first degree, in the July 20, 2012, multiplex massacre, which left 12 people dead and 70 others wounded in one of the worst mass shootings on American soil.

The trial now enters the penalty phase. Samour told jurors that court will be in session again on Wednesday and admonished them not to talk about the case and to ignore all media reports in their five days off.

“You’ll have two options,” Samour told the jury after the verdicts were read, “life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Those are the only choices.”

That Holmes carefully planned the horrific attack, cased the suburban Denver movie theater, strapped on an assault rifle, a shotgun and a Glock pistol and blasted his way through a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" was never in doubt...

Doesn't look like he's getting any slack for his psychiatric illness. He was pretty messed up in the head, but hey, it's premeditated and the jury believes he retained moral reasoning, apparently.

Many Youth Say They Are 'Almost Constantly' Online. Is Internet Addiction a Concern?

Of course it's a concern.

Spend some time around teens and you'll see why. Internet addiction crowds out everything else, and it's not just teens.

At the New York Times, "Is Internet Addiction a Health Threat for Teenagers?"

And see previously, "Screen Addiction Takes Toll on Children."