Donald Trump kicked off the 2020 election season with a campaign rally in Florida last night. These campaign rallies enable Trump to keep lines of communication–besides his Twitter account–open to his faithful; they rejuvenate his ego, one presumably battered by the endless ridicule heaped on him by his political opponents; they enable him to switch fromContinue reading “Trump Campaign Rallies And Presidential Imagery”
Category Archives: Psychology
On Being Advised To Not Take A ‘Girl’s Role’
Shortly after I began attending a boarding school in the ninth grade, I was approached by our ‘senior master’ and asked if: a) I could ‘act’ and b) if so, was I interested in trying out for the annual school play. I had done some acting in school and youth club plays in the sixthContinue reading “On Being Advised To Not Take A ‘Girl’s Role’”
American Exceptionalism And Political Violence
Adam Shatz offers some interesting thoughts on dreaming of political violence in the Age of Trump-Bannon: It’s notable how easily violent thoughts have come to those of us who have known only a single, and much contested, month of the Trump-Bannon era. American exceptionalism may be dead, but it lives on as a habit ofContinue reading “American Exceptionalism And Political Violence”
On Bad Memories And Moving On
A few weeks ago, while stumbling around on Facebook, I found an old ‘acquaintance’ of mine: a man who, over thirty years ago, went to the same boarding school as I did. I poked around further; his page was not guarded by his privacy settings from snoops like me. On it, I found a groupContinue reading “On Bad Memories And Moving On”
Perfect Strangers: Seeing And Hearing Ourselves
Here is a familiar phenomenon: we hear an audio recording of ourselves and are surprised and perplexed to find out we are listening to a stranger; we are used to hearing our voices from the ‘inside’; but when we hear a recording, we do so from the ‘outside.’ The timbre and tone of our voiceContinue reading “Perfect Strangers: Seeing And Hearing Ourselves”
The Republican Party And The Disavowal Of Donald Trump
In response to my post yesterday on the liberal ‘impeachment of Donald Trump’ fantasy, which rests on a fallacious delinking of Donald Trump from the Republican Party, Seth Brodsky writes (over at Facebook): I agree—passionately—that the desperate attempt to delink the GOP from Trump is…a fantasy. But I don’t think it’s a fantasy held onlyContinue reading “The Republican Party And The Disavowal Of Donald Trump”
The ‘True Image Of A Writer’ And Online Writing
Shortly after I first began writing on the ‘Net–way back in 1988–I noticed that there was, very often, a marked contrast between the online and offline personas of some of the writers I encountered online. (I am referring to a small subset of the writers I read online; these were folks who worked with meContinue reading “The ‘True Image Of A Writer’ And Online Writing”
The Joys Of Crying
I cry easily; so I cry a lot. Many, many things set me off: movies, songs, talking about my parents, a sportsman’s death, showing my daughter music videos of songs that I listened to as a teenager, Saturn V liftoffs, the misfortune of others in the world’s ‘disaster zones,’ witnessing random acts of kindness onContinue reading “The Joys Of Crying”
On Apologizing To Your Child
On Thursday morning, I inexplicably, irrationally, and ultimately, cruelly, lost my temper at my four-year old daughter; I wanted her to do X; she did not; I thought my request was reasonable; she didn’t think it was; and then, when on my demanding reasons for her decision and denial of my request, she could notContinue reading “On Apologizing To Your Child”
Fighting The Gorsuch Nomination Is A Lost Battle; Fight It Anyway
Rather predictably, news of the Gorsuch nomination to the US Supreme Court has been greeted by considerable head-scratching among Democratic Party–and associated progressive–circles: should we fight or should we roll over, keeping the proverbial powder dry for the next battle? ‘Pragmatism’ and ‘realism’ apparently bid us to not fight this already lost battle, to notContinue reading “Fighting The Gorsuch Nomination Is A Lost Battle; Fight It Anyway”
Samir Chopra 