Understand Chicago

As in, all you need to know to.

Two people were arrested over the weekend in what the Duluth Police Department said was the largest heroin seizure in the history of the department. . .

The search also resulted in the arrests of two suspects: a 39-year-old man and a 36-year-old man. At the time of the arrest, the 36-year-old man was out on bail for a first-degree murder charge in Chicago.


Revolving Door

The article is behind the paywall but the title tells you everything you need to know:

Rahm Emanuel, Ex-Chicago Mayor, Is Going to Wall Street

He is joining Centerview, a boutique investment bank, as a counselor to large firms

Geographical Differences

European academics are invariably impossible to reach. The keep their email addresses so secret that it’s ridiculous.

All academics should make sure they are instantly reachable by email. If they fear spam, they should pressure their university to get a reliable spam control system.

It’s incredible how many opportunities people miss because they make themselves impossible to find. The US academics are very easy to reach, so publication opportunities or prizes find them a lot more. And then people bitch how unfair it is. But what am I supposed to do if I can’t contact you to invite you to my event, contest, organization, or edited volume?

Anxiety and Depression Among the Young

Rates of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents were far lower during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the turbulent 1960s and early ’70s than they are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with the way young people view the world than with the way the world actually is.

This is true and very important. Folks, in my teenage years I witnessed a societal collapse. I can’t even tell you how it was because it’s hard to imagine at a distance. Everybody’s parents lost their jobs. And by everybody I mean exactly that. Everything changed, brusquely and traumatically. People had to reimagine everything about their lives. The governmental structures collapsed. Criminality soared. It was hardcore.

However, there was nothing among teenagers and college students like the outlandish levels of anxiety and depression that I see here, among young people who, compared to us, are really and truly fortunate beyond belief.

The explanation in the linked article that this is caused by people becoming more materialistic is stupid. You honestly don’t get more materialistic than we were at the close of the Soviet era. The praise for “unschooling” is ridiculous, too. We were a product of the Soviet schools, which were repressive and disciplinarian to the degree you can’t imagine. Yet no teenager was medicated for anxiety and depression because the concept didn’t exist. Nobody was prostrate, bedridden or unable to function like I see in huge numbers among my students.

I see a soaring number of young people in college who are so anxious and depressed they can’t function. I make accommodations but it gets to the point where there will be nobody to teach because too many people are out of commission. Something is not OK, and there doesn’t even seem to be meaningful research to explain it.