As human beings, we often tend to overanalyze most of the events in our lives with our “complex brains,” as Spencer Johnson referred to the human brain in his book. Meanwhile, hamsters “keep it simple.” If there is no cheese in the area (Cheese Station) where they are or the cheese doesn’t taste good anymore for whatever reason, hamsters would start looking for it somewhere else, instead of trying to figure out whether that cheese will be delivered to their place again or start complaining about having no cheese for various reasons, as humans would do.

The message that the author aims at sending through “Who Moved My Cheese” is that if your current approach in life doesn’t give you the results that you want, then you should change your approach. Looking for your cheese is the metaphor that he uses in this book.

However, while that book promotes a “go-getter” approach and criticizes any form of whining, it is too simplistic about life, and doesn’t sufficiently address two approaches that are among the main reasons why we exist as a stable society – cost-benefit analysis and game theory. The book does not discuss the rational person theory either. All three lead to analyses that might talk us out of a certain decision

This book should serve the purpose of rethinking our own life, and what we could change in it in order to make it better but we should still remain at least somewhat cautious before we make up our mind.

The play is a pile of “moments” consisting mainly of the more than 200 interviews that Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project conducted in Laramie, Wyoming. It is written exactly like a play, of course, which brings a slightly different reading experience, especially if the reader watched that play at his university’s theater like I did two years ago.

The Laramie Project apparently turned into more than just a play. A lot of the theaters at high schools and universities in USA have their students play it, and if these high schools or universities require taking seminar classes regardless of a student’s major – one of these will include reflection papers on the book or the play performed at the local theater.

The play reveals how cruel and unusual homophobia could be. Hating someone just because they are homosexual is no different than hating someone just because they are Jew, Gypsy, Slav, of a different race, and so on. Did I hit on where it hurts – being compared to a Nazi? Apparently homophobia and nazism, to their extreme, have a striking resemblance. The more people like Russel Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney (Matt’s murderers) there are, the more likely it is that hate crimes against homosexuals will occur until we reach to a new set of nights of the long knives – this time in twenty-first century. I commend every school’s action of including The Laramie Project in their curriculum because even though it gets better it is not over yet – especially when so many homosexuals still commit suicide.

Meanwhile, The Laramie Project allows the reader or the spectator to view further than just the hate crime. People tend to create stereotypes after a certain event. In this case, that stereotype would be that the entire Laramie, and even the entire state of Wyoming, is homophobic. However, based on the interviews conducted, it appears that Laramie doesn’t deserve to fall under this stereotype. This video report seems to show that too – especially on its third minute.

She was born and raised in Russia during severe times – of political and economic instability, and a value system of common good which she would later criticize in her writings and speeches.

This documentary provokes some reflections about life in general – or in other words to rethink our value system, the definitions of selfishness and altruism, the role of government in our lives, and other related questions. According to her, altruism is bad and selfishness is good in that the former makes hard working people worse off, while the latter promotes growth of our society. Ayn Rand supports her views by portraying the Bolshevik and the Nazi regimes as ones based on altruism, and capitalism as one based on selfishness. Comparing the two totalitarian regimes on the one side and capitalism on the other side, the conclusion is that, contrary to what we have to a larger extent been taught at K-12 level and in college at some classes – self-interest, and not self-devotion, appears to be the better approach for our society – and by our society I mean the entire human society.

Ayn Rand can be seen on the documentary as having supported her argument by saying that whoever is altruist in essence wants to be the state – and that such people should never be elected in office implying that they would apparently be directing their country toward socialism, national socialism, communism, fascism and any totalitarian and altruistic order. I paraphrased her words.

One question immediately comes to mind when hearing these views – if selfishness is so much better than altruism, then why would we ever care to help a friend or a beloved one. Such kind of a question was asked to her in an interview, and Ayn Rand clarified that she does not disapprove of helping each other when we want to, but when we are willing to do that at our own expense – meaning when we sacrifice our happiness to make someone else happy.

While I largely (but not completely) agree with her on that, I was interested in understanding whether she draws any line in her philosophy when it comes to whom to help – something that I couldn’t detect when watching the documentary. In particular – I am entirely willing to sacrifice my happiness for the happiness of my relatives because these are the people I care about the most. And later in life I will be willing to sacrifice some of my happiness (for example, being compelled to quit a hobby) for the happiness of my wife and kids because when the family that I would hopefully be making is happy – I will be happier than living a carefree and comparatively easy life of a bachelor, which is a comparatively more selfish approach. Does this make me an ethical altruist whom Ayn Rand would be despising if she were alive? Do I want to be the state in case I become the head of a state? Making my family happy is what I predict will be defining me, and making my relatives happy is what always defines me. And, as I implied above, that may include making personal sacrifices.

There is also the question of truth having been raised by Ayn Rand – namely that there is only one truth to every question, that truth is never in the middle or that it’s debatable. This is a very interesting view that I am inclined to agree with on the premise that just because we cannot explain a certain situation doesn’t mean that there are no factors that we can’t see that have empirically had an impact on a certain outcome.

However, I disagree with her on taxation. Her negative views on taxation have been demonstrated by some scholars (not scholars of her works) to appear unrealistic. The quote on that link is what the documentary also shows that she said during an interview. However, Ayn Rand apparently disregards the free-rider problem in the case of public goods, even though there is also evidence in support of her philosophy. “Demonstrably need” doesn’t necessarily lead to disclosing (be it directly or indirectly) how much an individual is able and willing to pay for “the police, the armed forces, the law courts.” Depending on how much person A knows that person B is willing to pay on a certain good, person A might end up lying about his or her own willingness to pay – in that they would demonstrate lower willingness to pay than they actually would. This situation especially holds in a society based on selfishness which includes maximizing profits and minimizing costs. One of the reasons for the occurrence of the current economic crisis comes exactly from asymmetric information. And asymmetric information is likely to occur in every kind of society.

I am looking forward to getting more acquainted with what Ayn Rand’s stances are. She is truly a remarkable philosopher of our time.

Gloria Borger did a very good job at the beginning of the interview. She managed to get a clear answer from Congressman Paul on his stance on the issue of payroll tax cuts and the federal budget deficit by asking him questions about not just where cuts should be made but also about how members of the two parties behave thus leading to what Ron Paul referred to as a “gridlock.” That’s all that was needed as a response to this issue. Further asking him about it would not generate more information but will get U.S. Representative Paul to repeat himself at best which is a waste of air time on asking him other questions, and suggests a political agenda or bad journalism by focusing on one specific and narrow issue substantially more than on other issues.

However, Ms. Borger did a poor job asking Congressman Paul about the negative ads. “Would you be willing to stop running those ads?” and “Why?” after receiving a negative response were stupid questions because it was (and still is) very unlikely that Congressman Paul would give a different answer from the likes of “No” and “Because they represent the truth” respectively. Therefore, these two questions suggest that either Gloria Borger and CNN have an agenda to portray Ron Paul as a weak candidate, or/and both are bad journalist and enterprise respectively. A better question – one that voters and analyzers are more interested in knowing a candidate’s answer’s to – is “Why do you focus on negative ads so much, and not focus on ads about yourself?”

What I couldn’t help but notice was Ron Paul’s frustration at these two questions by saying that “if the media won’t [show the positions the other candidates have been on], I should do it.” In other words, he suggests that not only are his negative ads good for the primary race, but also that he is doing the job that journalists and media like Gloria Borger and CNN are supposed to do. Thus he gives the viewers the impression that there is no use of the mainstream media which the media are the least interested in being portrayed as – good for nothing. The question that I suggest would likely put the interviewee in a position to talk about themselves and not about the interviewer or their employers

On super PACs (Political Action Committees) and campaign expenditure, Gloria Borger did a good job. There are two sides of this debate. One of them argues that campaign expenditures should be limited so that poor contributors and voters who can’t afford to contribute, or can make nominal contributions, have more equal voice in government to their rich counterparts who have allegedly formed these super PACs. After all, it is easier to get a single $1 million contribution by talking with a millionaire, a small group of rich people, or a small group of people who represent them, than it is, for example, to try to convince 200,000 people, more than 99 percent of whom don’t know that candidate personally, to give a $5 contribution. On the other hand, opponents of campaign contribution limits are also right – that rich people should also be able to lobby their government the way they deem right, meaning by contributing as much as they think is worth contributing. The notion is that people should be free to spend their money as they want to spend it. Apparently Ron Paul supports the latter,as long as there are no financial incentives after the election, as he expressed that view on the interview. I give Ms. Borger credit for getting this information from Mr. Paul because nowadays the state of the economy and the affordability of health care are way more salient issues than the election process, and most journalists are focused on these in particular instead of a fundamental question in politics such as campaign contribution, which allegedly leads to bad policy making.

On foreign policy, Gloria Borger did a good job as well. While her claim that “someone in the back of the room… was asking a question about… would we be safe under a Ron Paul administration” might turn out to be a lie, she presented a good challenge to Congressman Paul – in what circumstance would a military force be used on Iran. After Mr. Paul’s answer – “If they attack us” – Ms. Borger showed great skills as a journalist by asking him about Israel, a U.S. ally, since it is very popular in the United States to believe that an attack on Israel is an attack on the United States or the U.S. national security, and by reminding him of 9/11 (“We were attacked.”) – thus revealing to the viewers more about Ron Paul’s stances on foreign policy and the U.S. involvement in it.

On the newsletters published under the “Ron Paul Report,” Ms. Borger did a terrible job as a journalist. This is the part of her interview with the Texas politician that I call bad journalism. It is legitimate to ask such a serious question – one that might be a turning point in an election. However, she asked the same questions several times – even after Ron Paul apparently expressed disapproval of CNN’s approach on that issue (“When are you gonna wear yourself out”) after having answered them more than once. Notice how Gloria Borger kept flipping two questions: one is about whether he ever read the newsletters and the other is suggesting that he made money off of them. This is a sign of bad journalism. It looks like she was either looking for sensational news on her own – which is usually part of journalists’ job – or she was instructed by CNN to keep asking the same questions until Congressman Paul loses it, so to speak. Notice also how Ron Paul started touching his jacket button in what appears to be his intention to unbutton it and try to get rid of the microphone that had served for the interview. Apparently this wasn’t noticed by Ms. Borger or at least didn’t impress her enough in case she was not interested in such an end to her interview. She kept asking the same questions over and over again even after Ron Paul answered them one more time. Such a behavior from a journalist suggests bias toward the interviewee or even pushing an agenda by the journalist or her employers – two features that journalism should not be about.

Therefore, my conclusion is that Gloria Borger’s interview with Congressman Paul was an act of bad journalism – particularly when asking him about his negative ads and the newsletters published under his name. What do you think?

Recently the Reuters AlertNet humanitarian news service was allowed by the North Korean government to enter the country and shoot a clip at farming province South Hwanghae. The footage is the most disturbing one on North Korea that I have ever seen. These babies are not only underweight but they have also caught various diseases apparently due to malnourishment. One can tell by the purple scars on roughly 20 percent of a baby’s face in the clip as well as the white stuff on the next baby’s face.

Even the doctor and farmer Pak Su-Dong don’t appear to be well fed if one takes a look at their physical appearance – particularly both individuals’ zygomatic bones’ higher level of exposure which is typical of a borderline underweight person at best. Some would even speculate that both individuals’ necks are too thin for either of them to be considered well fed.

The doctor blames malnourishment, diarrhea and digestive problems on the flooding which is not a surprising reaction for a country where any disagreement with the government is considered life in prison without the possibility of parole to you and your family at best (unless the dissident is sentenced to death) regardless of what the latter’s opinion is on a subject matter.

Malnourishment is a logical consequence from a rations’ system of between 200 (according to Reuters AlertNet’s clip) and 380 grams (according to the Voice of America) per person per day – merely about a third of the estimated needs to sustain decent health.

Considering that the North Korean government generally wants to show people the bright and utopian side of its country, it is reasonable to ask why they would let Reuters AlertNet, or any news agency, shoot these graphic images. I speculate that the reason why the North Korean government allowed this is to lobby the United Nations’ World Food Programme to provide aid to the country or at least get other countries to help it. The regime interprets the current situation as very dangerous for its future since Kim Jong-Il’s health is significantly deteriorating, and his successor Kim Jong-Un is too young (allegedly 27, 28 years old) to be trusted by the North Korean people whose culture is reportedly respectful toward the elderly, and would therefore be more likely to question whatever cult toward Kim Jong-Un’s personality that the propaganda machine is trying to get them to believe in. Even the North Korean army, the communist regime’s main support, is suffering from malnourishment which makes the prospects of the Kim dynasty vague.

Meanwhile, South Korea deems the North’s estimates of malnourishment exaggerated, while both the South and the United States – its allegedly greatest enemy – are unwilling to resume any food aid because they see such an act as no difference in the most isolated country other than strengthening the regime since it is highly likely that food aid will be diverted to party loyalists besides the two countries’ demands that the North makes progress on disarmament talks. Despite that, the U.S. were so kind as to donate food worth $900,000 in early September, as reported.

With all this in mind, holding everything else constant, I predict that Kim Jong-Un will not enjoy the same destiny as his grandfather and father did – spend all their lives as leaders of this country. Sooner or later during the Kim Jong-Un rule, the Whatever-They-Come-Up-With Leader, I expect the demise of this dynasty once and for all. What remains is to see whether I am right or wrong.

First of all, I initially had no idea what these protests were about. Talks about “corporate greed” and “the top 1 percent” seem irrelevant in the U.S. world of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would agree with the protesters if they meant the ways loans used to be given until recently but it looks like this was not well conveyed in these protests.

Second of all, I disagree with the protesters’ complaints about joblessness. Having a job is not a right but a privilege, and if one can’t find a certain job, one cannot blame it on Wall Street but has to look for another job or blame it on themselves. It doesn’t hurt to work something other than what one is specialized in, and situations like this happen in life. The Baltimore Sun article brings me to these thoughts. On page two 22-year old Josh Perry was quoted by the Baltimore Sun as expressing his frustration of not being able to find a job which forced him to live with his parents. The article doesn’t explain whether he was forced to leave his undergraduate studies for a while. However, I commend him for having worked a variety of jobs for the almost three years since he started his undergraduate degree, and since I have no information on what made him not work any of the jobs that he was quoted as mentioning so I can’t estimate why he is unemployed right now.

Third of all, Wall Street is not interested in high unemployment rate. The financial sector is interested in giving out business loans so that it collects more profit from the interest payments from businesses who use these loans to grow themselves thus hiring more and more people. The only frustration that I can understand is the one that has to do with the bailouts. The bailout decisions by the federal government created the image of the financial sector having government as its safe haven every time something goes wrong. And every time means every time means “we can do whatever we want to, the government is on our side no matter what happens” – something that we don’t observe with the so called 99 percent that the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters claim to be about. This is not fair and calls for reasonable action in the form of a reasonable public policy.

Fourth of all, take a look at the latter argument again. Charles Village jewelry maker Lani Miller “quit her job selling houses” because she hated it and started her own jewelry business. Warning! Warning! Warning! While Lani Miller quit her job because she considered it disgusting, I can’t understand what exactly she meant. How much does she think that an interest rate on a house has to be in order not to think of her now past job as disgusting? Interest is the cost of borrowing, and there is nothing wrong with it. For some people that cost will be higher, and lower for others depending on financial background. Also, if Ms. Miller can’t afford to pay for a bookkeeper and for a web designer – yet she scolds Wall Street for being unable to give out loans. Wall Street is times more complicated than her own business. There are constantly risks taken there, and the whole financial process demands a lot of calculations on risk taking and other situations there.

Those are some of the reasons why I am against the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

“Facebook has no clue what I am interested in,” “Facebook is awful,” “Facebook became too complicated” and “I stopped enjoying Facebook” were the lines along which some of my friends and other users have written as their statuses today.

This has almost always been the case with changes on that website. Facebook has changed its design several times since I opened up my account there, and almost every time there was a change there were frustration, disappointment, indignation and fury in the form of statuses and even groups that I was consistently invited into. And I have consistently turned all these invitations down, and will always do so.

Don’t take it personal, but you have to stop complaining about the new Facebook for several reasons.

First, thanks to Facebook you could find people that you haven’t met for years and learn how they are and what they do in case you want to know. And it’s free of charge unless you count the monthly internet bill which you pay anyway in order to learn what is going on around the world, write an email, and so on.

Second, thanks to Facebook you get more connected with the world. Some of the news articles and important events are posted on Facebook in addition to somewhere else so to a certain extent you end up benefiting from a diverse amount of information. And it’s free of charge!

Third, thanks to Facebook you have an opportunity to better market yourself. Use it wisely, and you might be able to find a job or to be preferred by your potential employer who looked for your name on that website. And it’s free of charge!

Fourth, thanks to Facebook you have an opportunity to find more people who have similar interests to yours. And it’s a lot easier than, for example, fifteen years ago when you had to have the enthusiasm to look for such people and find them in forums that few people know about. And did I mention that it’s free of charge?!

Fifth, the Facebook administrators are trying to make your experience more enjoyable even though they don’t see a penny out of your pocket.

Sixth, when was the last time you did not get used to a new Facebook and did not start to like its new features after you hated them at the beginning?! My point exactly!

In fact I am not sure what is so bad about the new Facebook. It is upgraded to such an extent probably because of its competition with Twitter where every new tweet by a profile that you are following is posted on your news timeline tab.

If you don’t like Facebook anymore, and you even started to hate it that much, there is still MySpace, and there are also Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking websites. Just don’t complain about a service that you use for free.

If your answer to all these questions is yes, then you should read The Bottom Billion by Oxford University Center for the Study of African Economies Director Paul Collier. In his book he also shared his findings and other researchers’ findings about how rebel organizations behave (as political scientist with economic background I deem behavior of a certain group very important in search for the truth behind a certain issue), as well as how and why poverty traps such as civil wars, low income, being landlocked and having bad neighbors prevents poor countries in Africa not only from reaching economic growth but also exacerbates their problems.

Mr. Collier even gave his proactive solutions to the issues in the societies of the bottom billion – something that I recently realized not every author does in their books (but merely complains about the issues presented instead which to me makes such books good for nothing). Enacting better international laws (charters, trade policies) and changing the notion of aid and realizing that it’s part of the problem and not part of the solution as a result of which politicians should be pressured into wasteful aids that go into the elite’s pockets (what ordinary people could do) are to name a few of his solutions.

The only thing that I did not like in The Bottom Billion is that it is completely void of any data. Paul Collier only explains data instead, which makes it hard for the reader to picture his empirical evidence on what causes poverty and prevents a society from the bottom billion from attaining decent standards of living. Nevertheless, there is a reference part at the very end of the book titled Research on Which This Book Is Based – a list of journals which the reader might take a look at at a local library or on the Internet if they are more interested.

This action by Julian Assange could potentially lead to either of two reactions in the economy of intelligence. One of them involves using code names in the cables in an effort to hide the sources’ identities. In order for this to happen, very few people with access to these cables are supposed to know what these code names stand for in order to discourage their spread. Thus, for example, two people knowing the real names of the sources is more likely to expose a possible repeated leak rather than twenty people with access to the truth about that code name.

The other reaction, which I think is more likely, is more inefficient conversation with the governments whose diplomatic cables have been exposed by WikiLeaks – mainly the U.S. Department of State and its embassies – and less diplomatic cables traded for more security for the sources. Information not deemed very important might even never reach the government to whom it may concern.

A legitimate question to ask is why Julian Assange is doing this? In my humble opinion, he is trying to twist arms due to greed – be it from a raise in the demand for his books or from governments paying him in order to protect their sources. His bargaining power is now stronger, and he therefore has more opportunities to raise. his income. That raise might come directly from the security buyer into his bank account or through mediator channels.

Whatever the scenario will be, I see Mr. Assange’s action as one that creates what I would call an intelligence tax – be it economic (money for him) or non-economic (a stricter selection of what information is worth being processed through cables).

Its title completely explains what you will find there – qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Every chapter is about a certain research method, and it also includes exercises (a “Trying It Out” part). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, together with The Craft of Political Research, are among the very few books from my undergraduate studies that I decided not to sell. Thus instead of searching for an abundance of articles on the internet on how to conduct a certain research on a specific social science, I already have these books at my disposal that will have answers to such questions.