On November 16th the New York Times carried an article about people who are allowed to bring a dog with them on a flight, provided they are certified by a mental health professional as needing the pet for “emotional support”. Under Federal anti-discrimination law the airline has to allot a free seat to the pet, …
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Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your cost soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get rolled I the dirt once or …
Audience members who can’t sit through a film without checking their mobile phones every five minutes are the bane of cinemagoers the world over. But now an American cinema chain is riding to the rescue. AMC, which owns 400 screens in North America, has announced plans to convert the back rows of cinemas into “texting …
In their book “Engineering Happiness”, economists Rakesh Sarin and Manel Baucells talk about the “fundamental question of wellbeing: reality minus expectations. Raise expectations beyond reality’s capacity to realise them and misery follows. The reverse also applies: you can make people happier by delivering bad news, then withdrawing it. The idea is that you advertise a …
Why is it that everything is either legendary or historic in America? Take a certain musician, who is legendary for his attachment to decadence, drugs and dark sexuality. When he dies he merits ten minutes at the end of the nightly TV news. Wait ten years and he becomes historic. No matter whether a neighborhood …
