'Tis the season for denial...

Everyone has denial. For students, that denial can be cyclical as more work builds up during the semester. This would seem to be the perfect time, then, for me to read The New York Times' article on recent studies suggesting a certain amount of denial is actually healthy. (The perfect time, that is, if I want to persist in my blind denial.) The article sets forth historical conceptions of denial from Freud to today briefly at the beginning before examining a number of recent studies. Some of the studies are described clearly, but others are not, making it difficult to understand the circumstances of the experiment. The studies are alternated with anecdotes, and the article closes nicely by circling back to the shopaholic in denial mentioned in the lede.

Looking out my window at the snow a moment ago, I thought how nice it was to be getting into winter and the holiday season. Then I turned to The Boston Globe homepage to see an article on overbooked holiday flights that cannot possibly deal with wrinkles in the system caused by weather. Let's just say this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for not having to get on a plane. The article is standard fare for the holidays. Complaining about air travel in the news is seasonal: it begins with the summer -- or possibly around the time of public school spring vacations, if the year seems especially foreboding -- and pops up again like clockwork in November in December. The Globe article does one thing differently, though: besides whining about long lines and lost luggage, it reports on American Airlines' plan to streamline the travel process by buying up extra seats for passengers who might miss connecting flights and bringing in additional staff.

An article in The Washington Post also seems to suggest a sense of denial pervading Lebanese lawmakers. Parliament members have been shuttered away in a hotel to keep them from risk of assassination before they choose a successor to the current president, whose term ends November 24. The Parliament members know that the Syrians aim to assassinate them for anti-Syrian activities, particularly those conducted by a group known by the name "March 14." The article might have included information, then, regarding the choice to seclude the politicians in the hotel, away from their families--it seems this is the last desperate option, but the article does not offer any concrete comments to support this common sense deduction.