Crucial Minutiae

Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure…

I interrupt this sappy song to bring you actual scientific evidence that friends are good for you. From The New York Times:

Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.

It’s nice to have your hunches legitimized. Just last week I was talking with some NYU students about how critical it is to find people who can love you unconditionally and give you honest feedback. Our writer’s group is one of the anchors for me in just that way–I know I can show them my writing and expect challenging feedback (such a rarity in this day and age!), and that when the difficult hour is said and done, they will still be invested in my work and my person. Thanks crew!

Seth Rogen’s new brodudeguy movie, Observe and Report, contains a date rape scene that I simply don’t find funny. See me yapping about it here:

Wired and the Nation picked the video up and the haters came out in comments (of the “Courtney is so ugly that…” variety), proving once again, that a girl can’t make an argument without having her own appearance be the center piece of the response. Ugh. (For the record, I know I’m fly.)

Mostly I see this as an issue of context. (more…)

Spurred by a column I wrote about the revolving door of activism going on in New Orleans, The American Prospect’s Brentin Mock rounded up a group of activists to comment on the pros and cons of so much altruistic attention on the big easy. An excerpt from Shercole King, an independent consultant and volunteer for Unified Nonprofits, a coalition of 501(3)(c) status organizations along the Gulf Coast, native of New Orleans:

[Outside volunteers] have been helpful with the small things, like painting and gardening. But for major projects where volunteers work at nonprofits, people just keep coming in, and we have to teach and reteach them. We could be using a lot of our local individuals to work on these projects. I know locals who would like to volunteer, but they can’t because we have to accommodate the outside volunteers who are coming in.

Thanks to Mock for taking the initiative to create this space for activists’ voices. It’s what a columnist lives for–to spark further investigation into the issues that matter.

All this talk of ye ole twitter has me thinking a lot about technology’s role in our lives. We no longer live in a time when information is a scare resource. Instead we have so much access to information–through communication technologies, 24/7 news, and the internet, in general, that our attention has become the new scarcity. It feels more important than ever to be clear about our values, the way we use our time, and have some self-control and mindfulness around our communication and news-gathering behaviors (especially as a self-employed writer).

I recently decided to come up with my own list of technological memes–rules for myself that would keep me focused, happy, and feeling empowered (not oppressed) by my interaction with technology:

1. No email until 11am unless absolutely necessary.
2. No email after 9pm.
3. Disable from wireless whenever possible.
4. Check Blackberry only while stationary and when necessary.
5. Check Facebook no more than twice a day.

Thus far I’m not completely successful obeying my own rules, but I feel better having an intention. Does anyone else have such a list? What are your rules?