I Know Nothing, Lady Bracknell

Decided to do a quick lookup of what exactly is "affect". They use the term frequently on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, usually when appraising a suspect's guilt. "He has very low affect." What I found on affect and mood was very enlightening. I feel smarter already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology)

Affect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion.[1] Affect is a key part of the process of an organism's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect" (APA 2006). The affective domain represents one of the three divisions described in modern psychology: the cognitive, the conative, and the affective. Classically, these divisions have also been referred to as the "ABC of psychology", in that case using the terms "affect", "behavior", and "cognition". In certain views, the conative may be considered as a part of the affective,[2] or the affective as a part of the cognitive.[3]

Mood, like emotion, is an affective state. However, an emotion tends to have a clear focus (i.e., a self-evident cause), while mood tends to be more unfocused and diffused. Mood, according to Batson, Shaw, and Oleson (1992), involves tone and intensity and a structured set of beliefs about general expectations of a future experience of pleasure or pain, or of positive or negative affect in the future. Unlike instant reactions that produce affect or emotion, and that change with expectations of future pleasure or pain, moods, being diffused and unfocused, and thus harder to cope with, can last for days, weeks, months, or even years (Schucman, 1975). Moods are hypothetical constructs depicting an individual's emotional state. Researchers typically infer the existence of moods from a variety of behavioral referents (Blechman, 1990).

Hmmm. If a mood is a hypothetical construct, like reality is a social construct, then are moods even real? I went to look at views on this and found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism

Social constructionism proposes that the notions of "real" and "unreal" are themselves social constructs, so that the question of whether anything is "real" is just a matter of social convention.

The smartness I gained, I think I just lost. I may even have gotten dumber. Flowers for Algernon.

Short Review of Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read her earlier work, Nickel and Dimed, and really loved it. It moved me. This book was good, but not as jarring. A lot of this I already know. Still, Barbara Ehrenreich is one heck of a writer. The writing to me resonated more than the subject matter, although don't get me wrong, the subject matter is a call to action. Really enjoyed this, as one writer who appreciates not just the story, but the style of delivering it.

View all my reviews

Death and Taxes

A friend of mine posted the following on her Facebook wall:

Each time the USA Olympians win a medal of any level - I hear "$$Cha Ching $$" Thank you, Democrats for taxing those who worked hard and sacrificed their lives and all of their financial abilites to achieve their goals. Taxing medals...yet one more example of ridiculousness. REMOVE NANCY PELOSI ...she supports it.

As expected, there was a flurry of anti-tax and anti-democrat sentiment.  But I had a different take on it.

I'm sorry, I can't work up any outrage on this.  They are competing in events they are passionate about.  As a Chess player, I know that any Chess tournaments or matches I compete in, the winnings, if there are any, are subject to taxation. As a writer, sales of anything I get published are subject to taxation. I don't see why this is a big deal.  This is pretty much how they make their living, so why shouldn't it be taxed, just like the rest of us plumbers, doctors, teachers etc.  There are two things that are inevitable, right? Death and taxes, so it can't get worked up over this.   

But your post made me think, did Obama get taxed for his Nobel Peace prize?  I looked it up.  Turns out that Nobel prize winners are taxed, just like Olympic medalists.  Here's an article I found from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2010/10/14/irs-is-taxing-my-nobel-prize/ 

"Most of us will never win a Nobel Prize, but if we do, it comes with a tax bill.  Our old friend the IRS gets a cut of the roughly $1.4 million USD ($10 million Swedish kronor) cash prize.  The 2010 winners may not be complaining, but some may be surprised.  See Life After Winning a Nobel Prize.  Martin Chalfie, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, lamenting that since the Reagan era when the tax code was changed, the IRS collects tax on prizes just like any other income.  
President Obama cleverly avoided tax on his Nobel Peace Prize last year—and got great press—by regifting it."

But note that the article shows that the people responsible for this state of affairs is not the Democrats. The change to the tax code happened in 1986 under the REAGAN administration.  Even so, I can't get worked up over this.  You are laying the blame at the feet of the Democrats and Pelosi, when this is clearly something that was been in effect for decades and was implemented by the Patron Saint of Conservatives, Ronald Reagan.  I hate throwing the cold water of fact on hot flames of emotional rhetoric, but I think this is overblown.

I'm curious to see how others will repsond.