Barack Obama's election can be seen as the confluence of a charismatic candidate and a country in crisis. That's the conclusion of an astute analysis just published in The Leadership Quarterly, which also includes some strategic suggestions for the new president. In their paper, two California scholars — Michelle Bligh of the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University and Jeffrey Kohles of the College of Business Administration at California State University, San Marcos — dissect the election through the prism of charismatic leadership theory. ... Read More
Accepting the Pain
April 14, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
Fully accepting both the good and bad aspects of one's life — a key tenet of basic Buddhist doctrine — is a challenge for anyone. For a person in chronic pain, such a prescription may seem almost cruel. But people in that often-debilitating situation who manage to accept their condition — not only the pain itself, but also the other unpleasant or stressful realities they face — reap a wide variety of benefits, according to a newly published study. These patients "reported better emotional, physical and social functioning" than those who responded with fear or ... Read More
In Choosing Vehicles, Americans Not Hypocritical, But Pragmatic
April 10, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
According to conventional wisdom, Americans are environmental hypocrites. We express concern about pollution and climate change, but when it comes to the personal decision that arguably has the biggest impact on the environment — our choice of a personal vehicle — we consistently opt for gas-guzzling SUVs and light trucks. But new research suggests the notion that our behavior does not match our beliefs is not entirely accurate. According to a just-published study, the extent to which we understand and appreciate the environmental challenges we face significantly affects both our choice ... Read More
Suburban Poverty, Served Chicago Style
April 9, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
"The suburban dream often fades for poor families because old support systems are severed, and access to programs and services — day care, after-school programs, job training, drug treatment and counseling — are greatly hampered by shear distance." Those are the thoughts of Ed Goetz, a housing policy specialist at the University of Minnesota interviewed for David Villano's recent Miller-McCune.com piece, "The Slumming of Suburbia." A new report conducted for The Chicago Community Trust backs up the gist of that depressing scenario, at least in America's Second City and its ... Read More
Depressed, Pessimistic and Anxious Die Younger
April 8, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
"A pessimistic personality trait measured early in life (ages 20-39 years) was a particularly strong predictor of increased mortality," concludes the report, which has just been published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. "We found an increased risk of death for subjects with elevated scores on the scales for pessimistic, anxious and depressive personality traits considered separately, and for subjects with elevated composite neuroticism scores," the researchers report. Furthermore, those whose negative traits were more pronounced were still more likely to die than those with milder ... Read More
Is This Any Way to Treat Friends?
April 8, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
In "We Should Care This Much About Earmarks? Really?" he quoted Amy Steigerwalt, a professor of political science at Georgia State University who has also studied earmarks: "The thing I'm struck by is that everyone seems to be starting from the premise that all earmarks are bad. Like most things in the world, a simple black-and-white perception isn't true. There are certainly abuses ... but the reality is that earmarks are really the only mechanism that members can ensure that money goes to their districts in ways that are not part of larger bills."A fun piece in Tuesday's The Hill shows ... Read More
FBI Hits the Road for the Missing Missing
April 6, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The FBI has publicized a program it's had active for the past five years, a 'Highway Serial Killers Initiative,' with both its own release and a fascinating story by the Los Angeles Times' Scott Glover. The upshot is that there are a lot of unsolved murders out there, and many of them may be traced to people whose livelihoods revolve around long-distance driving, like truckers. As the FBI puts it in a surprisingly readable press release: "The victims in these cases are primarily women who are living high-risk, transient lifestyles, often involving substance abuse and prostitution. ... Read More
Grad Rates Higher For Black Athletes Than Black Students
April 6, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A study released Monday on the occasion of National Student-Athlete Day (or, as is more widely celebrated, the last day of the men's March Madness tournament), turns on its head a long-standing stereotype about black college athletes and the schools that recruit them. Since the integration of major college athletic programs two generations ago, universities have been accused of using black athletes to win titles and build lucrative brands — with nary a degree exchanged in the process. But today, it turns out, athletic departments are doing a better job of graduating black students than ... Read More
Veni, Vidi, Polluti: The Long Arm of Pollution
April 3, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
An isolated salt marsh on the coast of contemporary Iceland is the last place most people would think of looking for Roman-era air pollution. But traces of atmospheric lead pollution found in the sedimentary cores of an Iceland salt marsh, most likely originated from first- and second-century C.E. Roman mining and metal-working operations, a new study reports. The research, which appeared in the April 1 issue of the journal Science of the Total Environment, indicates that the lead most likely found its way aloft from what is now Somerset in Britain. William Marshall, a research ... Read More
Baseball’s Best Teams Are … 2009 Edition
April 1, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Baseball fans on the East Coast have an exciting season to look forward to, with division championship races going down to the wire. That's the prediction of mathematician and Mets fan Bruce Bukiet, who has just released his forecast for the 2009 Major League Baseball season. If Bukiet’s model proves accurate, the Western Division races should be far less interesting, with the two Southern California teams — the Angels and Dodgers — easily winning in their respective leagues. The National League Central Division also looks uncompetitive, with the Chicago Cubs finishing far ahead of ... Read More
