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An author of ‘50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology’ discusses some of his favorite misconceptions.

Opposites attract….We use very little of our brainpower….the full moon makes you do crazy things….American culture teems with commonly accepted pop-psych beliefs. Read this article from U.S.News & World Report that discusses 5 of those myths. (READ IT HERE)

Does the full moon make you crazy?

HAMMOND, La. (Oct. 15) – A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

(Read the full article from the Associated Press here then return to this page to comment – FULL ARTICLE)

Article from the Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Joseph Hairston enlisted in the Army in 1940 as an 18-year-old and still remembers the cold stares and disgusted gazes of his white commanding officers.

Hairston, 87, served in the 599th Field Artillery Battalion and became one of the Army’s first black commissioned officers. He deployed to Italy in 1944 and, like other black soldiers, ate, slept and trained separately from white soldiers. Even so, Hairston remained in the Army and went on to serve in Korea. He retired after 20 years. “I believe in my country,” Hairston said. “As bad as the past has been, there’s nowhere else I want to be.” (more…)

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
Sun Oct 11, 3:58 am ET

MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly “running out” on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it’s not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.”

It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood’s “2012” opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the “Curious? Ask an Astronomer” Web site, says people are scared.

“It’s too bad that we’re getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they’re too young to die,” Martin said. “We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn’t live to see them grow up.” (more…)

October 8, 2009 4:49 a.m Associated Press

LEBANON, Pa. – A soccer mom who gained national attention when she openly carried a loaded gun to her 5-year-old daughter’s game was shot dead Wednesday along with her husband in what appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said.

Meleanie Hain and Scott Hain were pronounced dead Wednesday night at their home in Lebanon, a small city about 80 miles west of Philadelphia.

The couple’s three children were home at the time but weren’t hurt, police said. They were taken to stay with friends and relatives.

Meleanie Hain, 31, and Scott Hain, 33, had been having marital problems for about a week, neighbor Mark Long said. Scott Hain had left the couple’s home on Tuesday, and Meleanie Hain didn’t know where he was, but he returned Wednesday, Long said.

Autopsies on the Hains were to be conducted today, coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum said.

Meleanie Hain made headlines after she attended a children’s soccer game in a park on Sept. 11, 2008, with a handgun in plain view holstered on her hip, upsetting other parents.

The county sheriff, Michael DeLeo, revoked her gun-carrying permit nine days later.

Hain successfully appealed the permit revocation, although the judge who restored the permit questioned her judgment and said she had “scared the devil” out of other people at the game.

Hain sued DeLeo in federal court, alleging that he violated her constitutional rights and prosecuted her maliciously when he took the permit away. She said that because of his actions her baby-sitting service had suffered, her children had been harassed and she had been ostracized by her neighbors in Lebanon, which has about 25,000 residents.

DeLeo said at Hain’s appeal that he revoked her permit after fielding the parents’ complaints. He said he based his decision on a state law that prohibits certain gun permits from being given to anyone whose character and reputation make him or her a danger to public safety.

After Hain sued DeLeo, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which says it tries to reform the gun industry through sensible regulations, offered to defend him for free.

“It is a case that calls out for common sense,” Brady Center attorney Daniel Vice said then. “It’s ridiculous to bring a gun to a child’s soccer game.”

A court hearing on Hain’s $1 million lawsuit was postponed in May after an attorney in the case was involved in a traffic accident.

I just made an investment in stylish new patio furniture. What do think?

By ALICE PARK 2009 Fri Oct 2, 4:50 am ET  From: TIME Magazine

What parent hasn’t used candy to pacify a cranky child or head off a brewing tantrum? When reasoning, threats and time-outs fail, a sugary treat often does the trick. But while that chocolate-covered balm may be highly effective in the short term, say British scientists, it may be setting youngsters up for problem behavior later. According to a new study, kids who eat too many treats at a young age risk becoming violent in adulthood.

The research was led by Simon Moore, a senior lecturer in Violence and Society Research at Cardiff University in the U.K., who specializes in the study of vulnerable youngsters. Moore had been investigating the factors that lead children to commit serious crimes, when, during the course of his work, he discovered that “kids with the worst problems tend to be impulsive risk takers, and that these kids had terrible diets – breakfast was a Coke and a bag of chips,” he says. (more…)