Thursday morning roundup

Here's the thing about working while driving: you're doing neither well. Isn't it better to fully concentrate on your work, as well as fully concentrate on the road? I've multitasked all my life, too: I can pull it off, but I have to acknowledge that the studies are right: you do things better when you singularly focus on them. Again, though, the bigger issue is that you have a responsibility to not harm other people on the road.

So, expectations of constant productivity--even amid evidence that multitasking decreases productivity--are making us ADD. Are e-books and such doing the same? I found this question telling:

“There is no question that these new media are going to be superb at engaging and interesting the reader,” said Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development at Tufts University and author of “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.” But, she added, “Can you any longer read Henry James or George Eliot? Do you have the patience?”

Her choice of writers was interesting, because Henry James is so readable. I understand the added value of video with how-to books (and I could certainly use those for home repair stuff), but with literature?

Is China, sixty years later, becoming post-ideological?

I grabbed the comics on my way out the door on Sunday--have been meaning to post this from Doonesbury.

Sean Hannity's best line ever: "Farmers... don't want a government handout." Perhaps, but the farm lobby must be out of touch with its constituency.

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