A Thought on Mental Illness
Freedom to be insane is an illusory freedom, a cruel hoax perpetrated on those who cannot think clearly by those who will not think clearly.
-E. Fuller Torrey
Similar Posts
On Reading Rick Atkinson's The Day of Battle
ByadminI don’t read much war history. I’m fascinated by what causes humans to end up in a state of war, but not so interested in the bloody details of how they fight their battles. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed The Day of Battle, a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson. The book covers the war…
Advertising Bad Food to Good Kids
ByadminWhatever you think about the proper role of the government in nudging adult Americans into healthier habits, you ought to be open to the idea that we, as a society, should be doing something to reduce obesity among children. As I wrote about in Free Market Madness, once people become obese, biology conspires against them…
The True Cost Of Low Drug Prices
ByadminIndia is not, yet, a wealthy country. Nevertheless its people experience many of the same expensive-to-treat illnesses as wealthier populations in the U.S. and Europe. Therefore the country has made a series of policy decisions designed to lower the cost of medical treatments. For example, until 2005, it offered no – I repeat, no –…
How Healthy Food Could Make You Fat
ByadminHave you ever eaten a healthy meal, maybe some brown rice and stir-fried veggies, and found yourself ready for another meal just a short while later? Or, more often couldn’t overcome a hankering for a satisfying dessert to top off (and undermine the healthiness of) that meal? As it turns out, this lack of satiety…
One of My Favorite Paragraphs from Being Mortal
ByadminAtul Gawande has received appropriate praise for his new book. Read it if you haven’t. Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite paragraphs from the book, to whet your appetites: Even as our bones and teeth soften, the rest of our body hardens. Blood vessels, joints, the muscle and valves of the heart, and even…
Great Writing from Chip Brown in the New York Times Magazine
ByadminBack in early February, Brown authored an article on the North Dakota oil boom. It is a great piece of reporting. Also, a fine bit of writing, as captured by this sentence: In a way, of course, this kind of frontier is as much a state of mind as an actual place, a melancholy mood…