Social-Creature

Image: Culture Wins Charlie Sheen is not crazy. Or, at least, he’s not crazy the way you think he is. Charlie Sheen may finally be admitting that he’s lost his mind — exclusively to Life&Style, of all places, if we are to believe it — but that’s something that would have already been a long, [...]

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You know those movies about characters trail-blazing the business of some terrible vice? They’re always set in a not-too-distant past, have trailers full of period-specific songs, and include the words “inspired by a true story” on the poster. There’s the initial meteoric rise to power and wealth, followed by a period of unbridled excess — [...]

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In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, a relatively new medium called the comic book unleashed a new kind of character into the consciousness of American youth. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster, this character possessed superhuman powers and a dedication to using those powers for the benefit of [...]

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Oh boy. This is not typically the kind of stuff I write about here, but it is something I feel quite strongly about, and, if nothing else, it makes for a case study in cross-cultural communication — not to mention some interesting neuroscience. Last week, as the New York Times reported, French President Nicolas Sarkozy [...]

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It first occurred to me as I was watching the trailer for Star Trek: First Contact, back in March. The cast seemed so typical of the racial and ethnic diversity reflected in the TV shows we’ve all been watching for years now, like Lost… and Heroes… It seemed completely natural for 2009, and yet what [...]

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A few months ago I’d written a post called How Not To Use Condoms, about the misstep of  Trojan’s “Evolve” campaign. Here, then, is Durex’s take on how to advertise condoms, courtesy of Fitzgerald & Co: And I’d actually been planning a more substantial entry to be the first post of 2009, but when I [...]

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“Our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.” President-Elect Barack Obama 516 Years since Columbus discovered America. 232 Years since the first democratic government was established in the United States of America. 143 Years since slavery was abolished. 138 Years since black people got [...]

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I know the Trojan “Evolve” Campaign has been going on for a while now, but just recently something occurred to me that I hadn’t quite realized about it before. The campaign started out last June, with the premiere of a commercial featuring women being hit on by a bar full of anthropomorphized pigs. It’s only [...]

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“There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.” – Robert Benchley This election process is driving me crazy. I wish we could just pick someone already, and get the fuck on with it. I mean, yes, I do hope a [...]

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Pop quiz: Do you favor variety, novelty, diversity, new ideas, travel? Or do you prefer sticking to things that are familiar, safe, and dependable? If you answered yes to the first question, then you are higher on a major personality trait called Openness To Experience (OTE). As psychologist Jonathan Haidt says in his TED talk, [...]

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