The happiness gap(Bitterness be thy name...(Rosa Brooks))

LA Times ^ | 2/17/06 | Rosa Brooks

[ThePoliticalDookie]

Rosa Brooks: The happiness gap IT'S BEEN A rough couple of weeks. Hamas won the Palestinian elections; protests over cartoons representing the prophet Muhammad raged around the world; more Americans and Iraqis were killed by suicide bombers; new Abu Ghraib photos were released; and, here at home, the vice president got violent.

But despite the trying times, we Americans are managing to keep our spirits up. This week, the Pew Research Center released a report on happiness in the United States. Of the Americans surveyed, 34% informed researchers that they were "very happy," while another 50% reported that they were "pretty happy." That's a happiness record in which our nation can take pride.

[ThePoliticalDookie]

She (Rosa) has a twisted perspective that calls to mind an inversion of nietzche. The liberal perspective really is something of a malignancy...

[governsleastgovernsbest]

The vice president got violent.

What a low, cheap shot.

[SmithL]

Meanwhile, poor people and black people tend, like Democrats, to be party poopers.

Meanwhile, poor people and black people tend, like to be Democrats, to so they must be party poopers.

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There, I fixed it.

[GSlob]

That's OK: even malignancy has its uses, if only as a study object in medical research. And pathologically happy people present their own set of problems. Everything in moderation.

[ansel12]

"Lucas and Diener suggest, for instance, that less happy people might do better than happy-go-lucky types when it comes to jobs such as "monitoring a nuclear power plant." Or reconstructing Iraq, or leading the Free World."


people with those jobs are already in the $100,000 incomelevel.

[ThePoliticalDookie]

Notice how she aggregates "black people" which belies a transition in the political dynamic. The social conservative nature of african-americans along with the inability of the democrats to perform politically makes the republican party a more viable option than at any time in the recent past. The tension is evident with every success of a black republican as it is accompanied by venomous derision from the left.