Heads-up for 26 November 2010

Shrink Rap Radio
A Buddhist Perspective on Psychotherapy with Mark Epstein, MD
Mark Epstein, M.D., is a psychiatrist and author of Psychotherapy Without The Self: A Buddhist Perspective (Yale University Press, 2007), Going to Pieces: Without Falling Apart (Broadway Books, 1999), and Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective (Basic Books, 1995). Dr. Epstein is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Medical School. He is a psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University. Dr. Epstein has been a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review since it was founded in 1991. He writes for Yoga Journal, O, The Oprah Magazine, Buddhadharma, Body and Soul and other periodicals. Additionally Mark Epstein is the author of well-respected books that deal with the difficult and counter-intuitive Eastern teachings of non-self, a concept which has sometimes proved so alien to the western mind as to be out of reach for many western Buddhists. As a student of Vipassana meditation, he teaches periodically with Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman at Tibet House in New York and lectures to therapists around the country on the relationship of Buddhist and western approaches to psychotherapy.
(review, feed)

Distillations
Space Science
Space, the Final Frontier! Mention the chemistry of space and you’re likely to hear bad jokes about Tang or the behavior of liquids in zero gravity. But it turns out that there’s an entire field—astrochemistry—dedicated to understanding the chemistry of the universe. Chemical Agent: Panspermia.
(review, feed)

The Economist
Climate change and development
Adil Najam of Boston University on the danger of kicking the can down the road at Cancun
(review, feed)

London School of Economics: Public lectures and events
Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us
The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many-- even some of those charged with cleaning up the mess. John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future. John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia.
(review, feed)