Lifestyles — Mental Environment

• To Life.

  We will be forced in the coming months to find a balance between our civil rights and our need for security. I, for one, hope we err on the side of the former. The best way to protect an open society is to remain one.

• AOL and the Culturati

  “I’ve always thought of AOL as training wheels for the real Internet. But a lot of people consciously choose pre-digested media, and these people, perhaps a majority, they’ll get what they ask for.”

• Television: Opiate of the Masses

  The signs of addiction are all around us. The average American watches over four hours of television every day, and 49% of those continue to watch despite admitting to doing it excessively. These are the classic indicators of an addict in denial: addicts know they’re doing harm to themselves, but continue to use the drug regardless.

• We Are Slaves To Technology – Official

  New technology and sexy gadgets are making us less productive, more stressed and removing what little life we have left. Or so says a new survey by Priority Management.

• School Shootings and White Denial

  ...I’ll tell you what went wrong and it’s not TV, rap music, video games or a lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that white Americans decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other communities, and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of chaos which never remains isolated too long.

• The Kids Go Postal

  Why? Some claim it’s because the shooters are social misfits who never managed to “fit in.” Their dress, music, and beliefs-ranging from Satanism to anarchism to white supremacy-encouraged them to lash out at a society that rejected them. The solution, they say, is to spot kids with “potential problems,” based on their dress, musical tastes, or beliefs and “help” them.

• 90% of people don’t believe what they read on the Web

  Read the story anyway…

• The Books of the Damned

  The Internet, this immaterial and ethereal medium might yet spawn the first real media and a return to reality. It might yet liberate the prisoners of all the telenovellas, foreign and domestic. It might yet win.