Yule Heibel's Library tagged atlantic_monthly →  View Popular, Search in Google

Fascinating article in many respects, including in how Skinner's work has been perceived.
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In 1965, when Julie Vargas was a student in a graduate psychology class, her professor introduced the topic of B. F. Skinner, the Harvard psychologist who, in the late 1930s, had developed a theory of “operant conditioning.” After the professor explained the evidently distasteful, outmoded process that became more popularly known as behavior modification, Vargas’s classmates began discussing the common knowledge that Skinner had used the harsh techniques on his daughter, leaving her mentally disturbed and institutionalized. Vargas raised her hand and stated that Skinner in fact had had two daughters, and that both were living perfectly normal lives. “I didn’t see any need to embarrass them by mentioning that I was one of those daughters,” she says.
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atlantic_monthly selfdiscipline quantified_self obesity bf_skinner behavioralism apps loseit fitbit

Another examination of whether/ how the internet is scattering our focus. And then there's Eytan Kobre's response to this question, "It's also that you're dressing the same way your 18th century ancestors did, which implies that you're rejecting the modern world":
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There may be elements of truth to that. But the irony is that hipsters all dress a certain way, and the whole point is to dress entirely different from everyone else. Orthodox Jews actually have the courage to dress the same way as 500,000 of their brethren. They're the ones who challenge people by asking, "Are you deep enough to look beyond my garb and relate to me as a thinking individual?" In contrast, the hipster buys into the most external of indicators: that which is immediately apparent to the eye.
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eytan_kobre atlantic_monthly internet socialcritique

This is fantastically interesting, especially in light of the recent fiascos around Mike Daisey and Malcolm Gladwell, both of whom seem to think that disrespecting journalism and factuality is somehow ok.
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The book is a reprint of an essay about a suicide in Las Vegas that D'Agata submitted to the Believer along with text from the wildly extended and heated argument that then ensued between him and Fingal, his fact checker at the magazine. Things started off poorly. The now-infamous first sentence alone was riddled with errors. Here's just one of them: D'Agata writes that there were "34 licensed strip clubs" in Vegas at the time of the suicide. Fingal's research suggests there were only 31, and he asks D'Agata how he got 34. "Because the rhythm of '34' works better in that sentence than the rhythm of '31,'" D'Agata replies, as if this were a fiction workshop. Things degenerate from there.
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atlantic_monthly fact_checking david_zweig journalism

Amazing. This should be a useful tool in urban food self-sufficiency.
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When the new site gets up and running, Backhaus estimates that Podponics will turn out 40-50 tons of green per year, though with the newly available real estate, they expect to experiment with other crops, which may vary the total weight output. While they could continue to expand many times over within the bounds of their current location, they have designs on a different kind of expansion model.

"Our ultimate vision is to get 80-100 pods next to the Publix distribution center in Florida or the Walmart distribution center," says Backhaus, "so that we can harvest right there in the morning and plug it directly into their supply chain. We're mainlining fresh produce into the regional distribution network."

They are also talking with potential partners in the UAE and Germany, who are dealing with various resource limitations that make this model look appealing. For now, this is a Georgia business serving other Georgia businesses. And while you probably won't spot these shipping containers while visiting Atlanta, you're likely to spot Podponics lettuce on any number of local menus.
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agriculture urban_agriculture food_security atlantic_monthly farming container_housing

The paragraph below clips a more serious note, but read this article for its sardonic wit, too. It's one hell of a ride, totally recommended.
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One could further argue that all of these menopausal women, in fact, represent a major evolutionary shift. Owing to women’s greatly lengthened lifespan (from about 40 in 1900 to 80 in 2000 in the U.S.), even the notion of what a woman’s so-called normal state is can be questioned: Northrup notes that before this time in history, most women never reached menopause—they died before it could arrive. If, in an 80-year life span, a female is fertile for about 25 years (let’s call it ages 15 to 40), it is not menopause that triggers the mind-altering and hormone-altering variation; the hormonal “disturbance” is actually fertility. Fertility is The Change. It is during fertility that a female loses herself, and enters that cloud overly rich in estrogen. And of course, simply chronologically speaking, over the whole span of her life, the self-abnegation that fertility induces is not the norm—the more standard state of selfishness is.

Which is to say, if it comes at the right time, menopause is wisdom.
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sandra_tsing_loh christiane_northrup menopause atlantic_monthly women feminism

Brilliant analysis of class in America today, using Paul Fussell's 1980s work as springboard, and touching on Maslow, Bill Bishop, and Richard Florida along the way.
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It’s not just that Romantic Selfhood—Walter Pater’s notion of burning with a “hard, gemlike flame,” which is the true emotional underpinning of bohemia—has become commodified. Fairly harmless is the $4 venti soy latte purchased amid Starbucks’s track lighting, Nina Simone crooning, and a story about Costa Rican beans that have sailed around the world just to see YOU! It’s that Selfhood has its own berth now in the psychiatrist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” a generational shift presaged by American sociologists who, as early as the 1970s, posited that, while hungry people are concerned about survival, those who grow up in abundance will hunger for self-expression. In the relatively affluent post–Cold War era, the search for self-expression has evolved into a desire to not have that self-expression challenged, which in turn necessitates living among people who think and feel just as you do. It’s why so many bohemians flee gritty Los Angeles for verdant Portland, where left-leaning citizens pride themselves on their uniform, monotonously progressive culture—the Zipcars, the organic gardens, the funky graphic-novel stores, and the thriving alternative-music scene. (In the meantime, I’ve also noticed that Portland is much whiter than Los Angeles, disconcertingly white.)
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class_distinctions paul_fussell richard_florida bill_bishop sandra_tsing_loh atlantic_monthly lifestyle

James Fallows makes a compelling case. Refreshing to read amidst the currently fashionable jeremiads.
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As the one truly universal nation, the United States continually refreshes its connections with the rest of the world—through languages, family, education, business—in a way no other nation does, or will. The countries that are comparably open—Canada, Australia—aren’t nearly as large; those whose economies are comparably large—Japan, unified Europe, eventually China or India—aren’t nearly as open. The simplest measure of whether a culture is dominant is whether outsiders want to be part of it. At the height of the British Empire, colonial subjects from the Raj to Malaya to the Caribbean modeled themselves in part on Englishmen: Nehru and Lee Kuan Yew went to Cambridge, Gandhi, to University College, London. Ho Chi Minh wrote in French for magazines in Paris. These days the world is full of businesspeople, bureaucrats, and scientists who have trained in the United States.
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San Francisco led the list, followed by Vancouver, New York City, Seattle and Denver. The cities with the lowest rankings were mostly in the old rust belt. The bottom five were Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Cleveland, St. Louis and (in dead last) Detroit.
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cities atlantic_monthly alexis_madrigal green_strategies

OMG...
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At the end of the season, the league finds a way to “honor each child” with a trophy. “They’re kind of euphemistic,” the coach said of the awards, “but they’re effective.” The Spirit Award went to “the troublemaker who always talks and doesn’t pay attention, so we spun it into his being very ‘spirited,’” he said.
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atlantic_monthly therapy narcissism child_rearing psychology parenting education children

It's very interesting when you fall into one end of this demographic, ...while your own children fall into the other. Interesting times...
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Students now finishing their schooling--the class of 2011--are confronting a youth unemployment rate above 17 percent. The problem is compounding itself as those collecting high school or college degrees jostle for jobs with recent graduates still lacking steady work. "The biggest problem they face is, they are still competing with the class of 2010, 2009, and 2008," says Matthew Segal, cofounder of Our Time, an advocacy group for young people.

At the other end, millions of graying baby boomers--the class of 1967--are working longer than they intended because the financial meltdown vaporized the value of their homes and 401(k) plans. For every member of the millennial generation frustrated that she can't start a career, there may be a baby boomer frustrated that he can't end one.
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atlantic_monthly workforce unemployment socialcritique

Completely agree with Benjamin Hemric's critical comment (below), about Benjamin Schwarz's article (which in turn is a review of books by Sharon Zukin and Michael Sorkin and their collective take on Jane Jacobs.
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While I agree that there is much to criticize in Michael Sorkin's and Sharon Zukin's lamentations about gentrification, it's very disheartening to see that in his article, writer Benjamin Schwarz seems to accept the very same myths about Jane Jacobs that Sorkin and Zukin appear to subscribe to. I think that if one looks at what Jane Jacobs ACTUALLY WROTE (rather than accepting at face value what people "say" she wrote) one will quickly see the differences between Jacobs and Sorkin and Zukin -- and also see why Sorkin's and Zukin's critiques are so misguided.

It seems to me that the following, in order of appearance in the article, are the pernicious myths that Mr. Schwarz has, sadly, incorporated into his article:

1) Myth incorporating statement #1: "She [Jacobs] largely formed her conclusions in "Death and Life . ." . . by closely reading the neighborhood life around her house on Hudson Street . . . "

The name of Jacobs' first and most famous book is "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," NOT, "The Death and Life of Greater Greenwich Village." In it, Jacobs writes about many sections of New York City (e.g., East Harlem, W57th St., Rockefeller Center, Yorkville, etc.), AND about parts of a lot of other American cities too (e.g., the North End of Boston; Rittenhouse Square, Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the four Center City parks of Philadelphia; Back of the Yards, Chicago, etc.).

For a number of years prior to writing "Death and Life . . . ," Jacobs was a writer for a prestigious, glossy, national publication, "Architectural Forum," and she visited, researched (e.g., explored and interviewed government officials, etc.), and wrote about cities all over the country. Furthermore she herself credited experiences in Philadelphia and, especially East Harlem, with really opening her eyes to the

atlantic_monthly benjamin_schwarz benjamin_hemric cities nyc urbanism jjacobs gentrification

Found via Richard Florida's "Creative Class" blog, Leinberger's article builds in part on a story that was reported in The Charlotte Observer a while back. With foreclosures on the rise and houses being abandoned, the absence of any sort of on-site amenities acts like an accelerant toward slum-hood.

atlantic_monthly chris_leinberger planning redevelopment slums sprawl suburbs