psychology dector

According to journalist James O’Shea in his new book, The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers , there is no shortage of bad guys in the epic story of the decline of newspapers. This is especially true in the case of the Los Angeles Times , a paper once edited by O’Shea. His is a fascinating, riveting tale, especially for those of us alarmed by the disintegration and rapid decline of print journalism . These days, newspapers are becoming relics of yesteryear, archaic artifacts for the culture museum, a disturbing development for journalists and readers who once created and consumed the insightful, in-depth reporting found on those ink-stained pages of newsprint. In his book, O’Shea is self-effacing, attempting to be clear-eyed and forthcoming about his own role in the L.A. Times disaster. But make no mistake; he had a major part in the trials and tribulations of the paper during those days, and The Deal From Hell is his rationalization and d...

Check out these kids from Roy Romer Middle School in North Hollywood, California.

Every evil leaves a sorrow in the memory except the supreme evil, death, and this destroys memory itself together with life.” Leonardo Da Vinci Do we really need another book about Leonardo Da Vinci ? Here’s a guy we cannot categorize. Was he an artist? Painter or sketcher? Was he a designer of machines, of flying contraptions that bear a passing resemblance to a helicopter or hang-glider? If so, did he ever actually build a working model of any of his designs? Was he an anatomist, and more importantly, did he break medicine’s strict code of ethical behavior by stealing bodies upon which to do postmortem experiments in hidden laboratories late at night? Is he the ultimate Renaissance man, or someone with an epic case of Attention Deficit Disorder? How do we evaluate Leonardo Da Vinci? It is because of these questions and the endlessly fascinating person of Leonardo that we, in fact, do need another book about him. German science writer Stefan Klein does a good job in his latest book,...

I have spent some time in this early summer thinking about evil. The days are gently warm, the air is pure, and the landscape lush. It seems like Satan and the nature of evil would be better suited to late summer when the heat is a furnace blast, the mountains around Los Angeles are dried to a crisp and a raging inferno seems imminent, making us believe that the end of times is near. I checked out a number of books from the library to do some background reading on the subject. Of particular interest was John Demos’ book, The Enemy Within: 2000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World (2008). Demos has made a study out of the history of early America, and considers witchcraft an integral part of that history. In this book, he traces the rise of witchery in Europe and its journey to America with the Puritans. He also discusses some modern witch-hunts. The book covers quite a broad scope, a swath of human evil and devious behavior all in four sections: Europe, Early America, Salem, and...

Unlike the Getty Center in the Sepulveda pass, the Getty Villa in Malibu requires some pre-planning for admission. Parking reservations are required, and can be made online. This was easy enough, even the day before the time we wished to visit. However, there were other issues. One must arrive at the villa while traveling northbound on Pacific Coast Highway. No turns permitted from southbound lanes. And don’t be more than ten minutes late or the reservations expire. So there we were with our internet tickets making the turn into the driveway across from Malibu beach. I noticed two workmen in orange vests, but as they seemed to be adjusting traffic cones, I decided to continue on to the guard shack further up the hill. One of the cone guys yelled at me, so I quickly braked. “You need to stop here, buddy,” he said. I stared at him a beat while he continued to fumble with the cone. “Okay, go on up to the guard booth.” I was not sure why he required me to stop. The museum is technically...

On the very first page of Islands of Books (1951), Lawrence Clark Powell sets up his thesis: “There is a power in certain books to evoke the time and the place of their first reading, when by merely giving a glimpse of their backs they take us backwards to that time of discovery which now seems magically inevitable.” He is speaking here of staring at his book shelves and reading the spines of the books therein, and this acts as a fuse to light up his memory. In this cloth-bound, old book, Powell celebrates reading. He talks about his bicycle trips to the library and filling his bag with books he hasn’t read, and then pedaling home to spend the evening in bed with his finds, eating chocolate and satiating his boundless appetite for the written word. Heaven. He also writes of his library writer’s room as an adult, nine feet by nine feet, lined with books, the voices that comfort and inform him on his journey through life. This is a delightful book about books and the power of reading t...

I could not help thinking about H.L. Mencken this past weekend while listening to the boobs and dunces on cable news proclaiming the end of the world . No doubt that is what he would have called them: boobs and dunces. Mencken was a journalist and cultural critic from Baltimore, and he never tired of finding innovative ways to denigrate the idiocy displayed by Americans. This weekend, I dipped into the middle volume of his three book autobiography, Newspaper Days 1899-1906 , and came out the other side adding him to my list of influential writers I feel I know but have never met. My first encounter with Mencken’s voice was through the character of Hornbeck, the cynical reporter in the play , Inherit The Wind , who was modeled after the distinguished newspaper man. From that moment on, I have been a dedicated reader of his work. However, this was my first foray into his autobiography. I found his writing here infinitely readable, although the times and people of which he writes are l...