The benefits of mediocrity: “Straight-A students are more likely to develop bipolar disorder than their more mediocre peers, at least in Sweden, according to a new study of more than 700,000 former high-school students. Within 15 years of sitting their final high-school exams, aged 15 and 16, at least 280 of the students were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After taking into account their parents’ income and education-factors that are known to affect exam scores-the highest-achieving students were more than three times more likely to suffer from the mental illness than their average peers.” Also? The worst performing students were the most prone to developing schizophrenia. Probably best to just be dull.

Apparently a bunch of musicians have re-recorded “We Are The World” to benefit Haiti? I had a ton of thoughts about this last night, particularly about the original recording of “We Are The World,” and how its lyrics seem so the product of a very different era in which we were supremely confident in our strength as a nation, probably because we didn’t realize that we were completely eradicating our manufacturing base and putting ourselves on the remarkably destructive course which has brought us to where we are today. (A related thought: Doesn’t the phrase “the war against the middle class” contain within itself the false suggestion that there has not been an even more brutal “war against the poor”?) But anyway, who the hell wants to hear my disorganized hippie thoughts? Instead, I will give you the benefits of my aged but not yet completely destroyed memory: This “SNL” skit, which came out right around the time of “We Are The World” 1.0, may amuse you, even if many of its cultural references leave you baffled.

The Ragbag, which you should totally be following or RSSing or whatever, introduces us to the world of nasology, “a belief founded on long continued personal observation that there is more in a Nose than most owners of that appendage are generally aware.” Here’s a description of one particular type of proboscis that is near and dear to my face.

The Jewish, or Hawk, Nose is very convex, and preserves its convexity, like a bow, throughout the whole length from the eyes to the tip. It is thin and sharp.

It indicates considerable Shrewdness in worldly matters ; and deep insight into character, and facility of turning that insight to profitable accountThis is a good, useful, practical Nose, very able to carry its owner successfully through the world, that is as success is now-a-days measured, by weight of purse; nevertheless it will not elevate him to any very exalted pitch of intellectuality.

It is called the Jewish Nose in conformity with long-established nomenclature, and is, perhaps, more frequent among the Jews than among most other nations resident in Europe. It is, however, a fallacy to suppose that the peculiar physiognomy called Jewish is confined to the Jews, or even exclusively characteristic of them…. We have said that it is a good, useful, practical Nose, i. e. a good money-getting Nose, a good commercial Nose, and perhaps the latter term would be an apt secondary designation for it. Hence, those nations which have been most largely gifted with it, have been always celebrated for their commercial success.

Man, if I had a nickel for every inch of nose… well, Choire would be writing this thing by himself.

In the wake of President Obama’s appearance at the House Republican conference last week, a “politically diverse group of bloggers, commentators, techies and politicos” have organized “an online campaign, Demand Question Time, urging President Barack Obama and GOP congressional leaders to hold regular, televised conversations like the extraordinary exchange in Baltimore on Friday.”

What are they demanding?

[W]e call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It’s a good idea unless you’ve seen how Question Times actually work in parliamentary democracies, where members of the governing parties ask self-serving softballs (e.g., “Do you agree with me that the American worker is the hardest worker in the world?”) designed to run out the clock, while the opposition party tosses up as many cheap shots as it can in hopes that something will stick. And even were the process to be modified so that it was simply the President and Republicans, what does it benefit the President to reward the opposition with a continuing platform from which they can repeatedly voice their disagreements without offering credible, concrete alternatives? I mean, doesn’t he already do that enough with the Senate’s Democratic caucus? Nobody wants to watch that.

A 17-year-old high school student in Texas, “charged with improper photography after nearly 150 close-up photos of females’ bodies were found on his cell phone,” told an assistant principal that he took the pictures “because sex education was lacking at the school.” [Via]

Has Science figured out the reason for attention-deficit disorder?

Until now, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was related to alterations in the brain affecting attention and cognitive processes. Spanish researchers at Universitat Autňnoma de Barcelona and the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital for the first time have discovered anomalies in the brain’s reward system related to the neural circuits of motivation and gratification. In children with ADHD, the degree of motivation when carrying out an activity is related to the immediacy with which the objectives of the activity are met. This would explain why their attention and hyperactivity levels differ depending on the tasks being carried out.

So if I read this correctly, ADHD is actually just KIDS BEING KIDS. Makes sense to me! Now if you’ll excuse me I need to take another Adderall.

“I used to rail against the layers of packaging for DVDs and CDs-that hard-to-break-into clear wrapping and those extra strips of white tape over the edges, to prevent theft.”
-That’s Graydon Carter, keepin’ it real (if syntactically complicated!) in the March Vanity Fair editor’s letter.

About two years ago, on a sluggish L into Manhattan, the train stopped suddenly somewhere under the East River, flinging forward anyone who hadn’t been gripping seat or strap. I watched as a white gentleman-neo-nerdy and a bit old for his skinny jeans-reached much too late for the pole to his left. He stumbled hard into a black guy about 15 years his junior and one foot taller, causing the black guy to drop his soda. Immediately, everyone fell silent and stared, as if the spilled Dr. Pepper were a Baselitz he’d been delivering as a gift.

The white guy tried to apologize, but the black guy wasn’t having any of it. “You stupid motherfucker,” he shouted, lifting and spreading his shoulders like a cobra does its hood. “Why don’t you watch what the fuck you’re doing?” “I’m so sorry, real- The black guy cut him off: “Shut the fuck up!” The older man did what he was told. He turned away, defeated, brown sugar-water staining his Chucks, and stared out the window, through which he could now see the bright, mildewy 1st Avenue stop.

I’m sure many New Yorkers have witnessed similar altercations (these things happen when you put eight million people in a city that should fit half that), and when they do, I’m sure most think, “I am so glad that’s not me being screamed at by the huge black guy.” Instead, that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about how similar I looked to the angry black kid: tall, slender, black fitted baseball hat, black jeans, black hoodie, black North Face jacket, black face.

It’s a tendency I’ve never been able to shake. When a young black man acts crazily in my presence, I can’t help but feel that, secretly, everyone is not only judging him, but also me, for looking like him. I imagine a field of grenades, a couple of which are painted red. When one of the red ones explodes, a smart person moves away from the other red one. I now look at black people screaming at white people-or Asian people or Puerto Ricans or at each other-and think, “You’re making it worse for the rest of us. You’re making it worst for the rest of us. You’re making it worse for the rest of us.”

It’s mainly this reason that I’ve gradually begun to hate mainstream hip hop. I hate the idea that someone somewhere might go from watching MTV, which has never batted an eyelash about the societal consequences of videos in which black men literally throw money at women in bikinis, to staring at me and saying, “I bet he loves getting buzzed on cough syrup and would need to be subtitled in his documentary, even though he’s speaking English.” I’m ashamed of the glorified drug dealing. I’m ashamed of the glorified violence. I can’t stand the idea of becoming a ridiculous, thuggish punchline by proxy.

So this phenomenon emerging amongst young Pakistani flower sellers pains me quite deeply. Apparently, it’s now cool for enterprising street children in Karachi to rap this little verse, no doubt learned by rote: “Buy one flower/take a flower/gimme 10 rupees/wassup my nigger/yeah nigger/once you go black you never go back/motherfucker.”

I’m sure the only thing the kids comprehend about what they’re saying is that it causes white Westerners to laugh and give them money (which is to the boys’ credit, because I’m three times their age and still can’t tell you a joke in Urdu). But someone had to export these phrases. Someone knew what they meant. And though a 9-year-old Pakistani boy belting out Toby Keith would be just as strangely humorous to Americans as one spitting a confrontational rap, they’re not singing Toby Keith. They’re shouting “nigger.”

I look at these boys and I think of that day on the train. I envision a man, perhaps the one providing these children with their colorful, cheap wares, teaching them that rap music-something as inextricably linked to urban black masculinity as the dozens-is more of a stand-up routine than an art form (Lonely Island and the Grammy judges seem to agree). What’s worse is, anymore, I’m not sure that they’re all that wrong.

Cord Jefferson is a writer-editor living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in National Geographic, GOOD, The Root and on MTV.

Add this to your controversial breast cancer prevention files. There are plenty of arguments for and against the boobification of the campaign against the disease, but this local news video prompts more questions than it answers. Specifically, what’s the deal with that plane in the preceding story?

So at the end of the day yesterday, CIA honcho Leon Panetta, and Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that al Qaeda was basically ready to roll. Or are they? Let’s take a look at what they said, so that we can be more and or less frightened.

• Panetta: “The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”

1. “Is not so much.” So it is “some much”?

2. What exactly is “like” 9/11?

3. What are these methods?

4. Oftentimes?

• And, from their report, however: “First, we have been warning since 9/11 that al-Qa’ida, al-Qa’ida-associated groups, and al- Qa’ida inspired terrorists remain committed to striking the United States and US interests. What is different is that we have names and faces to go with that warning.”

1. So… it’s difficult to detect? But now you have names and faces?

• And also, how does this go with the AP report? They say: “The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including ‘clean’ recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said.”

1. So… you do not have names and faces.

• Blair: “Al Qaeda maintains its intent to attack the homeland-preferably with a large-scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the U.S. economy or both.”

1. So, yes, a large-scale operation then? Not “not so much”?

2. I like the idea of casting al Qaeda as an organization with “preferences.” It’s like they have a white board and some really boring meetings. “Well, we’d prefer to cripple the U.S. economy this year, but we’ll also think outside the box on just seriously annoying a large group of people.”

• From the report: “Targets that have been the focus of more than one al-Qa’ida plot include aviation, financial institutions in New York City, and government targets in Washington, D.C. Other targets al- Qa’ida has considered include the Metro system in Washington D.C., bridges, gas infrastructure, reservoirs, residential complexes, and public venues for large gatherings.”

1. SUPERBOWL????

• Blair: “Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication.” And: something-something “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”

1. ???

2. You mean like in Live Free or Die Hard???

Looks like the answer is, at least in part, to bypass the quote cherry-picking media, and learn for yourself. Here is their report. [PDF file]