Category: thought

There is no safe level of tanning. All tans are radiation burns. Base tanning is still skin damage. And the use of tanning booths is a shocking example of intentionally damaging one’s skin for the sake of fashion. Imagine if bruises were suddenly to become fashionable. Would you go to a bruising salon to have yourself pummeled?

Despite the dire title, there is important and potential life saving information contained herein. Please read and share with your loved ones. Also:

If your skin color is naturally dark, that’s not an automatic pass for skin cancer, either. Cover up!

As a person of color, I can confirm this is true. I have to wear sunscreen just like you colorless folks.

For many, it’s among the largest investments we’ll make, on par, even, with the money we spend on a house or tuck away for retirement. But while it’s easy to track our stock portfolios as they tank along with the market, our outlay for health care is less obvious. Employers pay some, and so do individuals, and taxpayers. And some even hides behind the deficit. As such, few of us see the full picture. But to make sense of the proposals for reform, getting a grasp of the cost is critical.

While this piece was written before the final legislation, it is still the smartest piece I have read on the problem of why people do not have the same sense of urgency government does about this issue and why, in the end, what we got was a watered down bill that helps virtually nothing.

So here’s the challenge: starting next Monday, I’d like you to read one book a week for one month. Choose your first book and follow-up text right now. Go on. I’ll pop the kettle on while you do it. Don’t do it for me, though. Do it for you.

A great challenge that, if you are like me, seems daunting on the face of it. It is made less daunting by Nick correctly pointing out that one can get through a 350 page book in a week by reading 50 pages a day.

That said, my biggest challenge is that I need a tremendous amount of focus to read anything long form (it is just the way my brain works). For me, solitude is the only real solution (seems interruptions can’t help themselves from finding me) and I get such solitude so rarely. Therefore, I do not even try. 

While it may seem presumptuous, proposing — diplomatically — a specific date to a busy person is welcome. “How does 11AM on Tuesday, September 17 work for you?” with proper lead time and an alternate. This specificity is wonderfully refreshing and leaves the door open for an alternate suggestion, or simply a single-word email response:

“Perfect.”

As a busy person, who is married to an even busier person, I can personally vouch for this approach. When people ask us when we are likely to be available, we always say the best time to propose is either right now (because that’s and easy yes or no question) or a date/time 3 weeks from now (because we are often booked two weeks ahead).

One morning when he was 15, Takeshi shut the door to his bedroom, and for the next four years he did not come out. He didn’t go to school. He didn’t have a job. He didn’t have friends. Month after month, he spent 23 hours a day in a room no bigger than a king-size mattress, where he ate dumplings, rice and other leftovers that his mother had cooked, watched TV game shows and listened to Radiohead and Nirvana. “Anything,” he said, “that was dark and sounded desperate.”

Fascinating story about the problem of “hikikomori” – Japanese youth, mostly male, who feel compelled to shut themselves away in their rooms for years. One solution: A therapy program that includes “rental sisters” – Young women who’s sole job it is to coax them back into society.