Josh Visser, over at CTV takes a perceptive look at the media attention surrounding Michael Jacksons death and  The false narrative phenomenon

The media in particular, and society at large, seemed to develop a mass amnesia — the last 18 years of lacklustre musical output, the criminal allegations and civil judgments, and the just plain weirdness was forgotten.

History today tends to favor the dead. Sad stories are written, passed about, virally media builds a momentum and creates a reality.

Why do we rewrite our histories in death? We do it for our gone-too-young celebrities and politicians, but we also do it for the regular people in our lives — choosing to remember only the good — rather than an accurate portrait of a person.

There was only one Michael Jackson — there wasn’t a brilliant entertainer who existed until 1987 and then his freakish clone who dabbled in plastic surgery, and spent some his time showing, at best, incredibly poor judgment around children.

Link to read the complete article

People are routinely asked by doctors about their family history of medical problems such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. But up until now, this has not been the case for mental illnesses.

New findings by an international group including University of Otago researchers make a strong case for changing current practice. They report that a short question-and-answer session about a person’s relatives and their symptoms of depression, anxiety, or substance abuse is enough to predict not only whether the interviewee is at greater risk for developing each disorder, but also how severe that future illness is likely to be. [continue reading…]

The estimated one-third of adults who suffer from insomnia could soon find effective treatment without ever leaving their homes.Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System have developed a unique Internet-based intervention, based on well-established face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, that has shown remarkable results in improving patients’ sleep. [continue reading…]