March 09, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Il fait bon dormir
These are the symptoms of sleep deprivation :
If someone is suffering chronic loss of sleep these important functions soon become impaired, overall health is usually affected as is a person’s memory and mood. They become a hazard to themselves and others.
In fact, sleep deprivation is said to mimic Attention Deficit Disorder:
The surprising news is that partial, or low-level, sleep deprivation has a bigger effect on behavior than either the short or long-term complete sleep deprivation experienced by residents (Sleep, May 1996). Until recently, the effects of partial sleep deprivation have been seriously underestimated.We know, based on common sense, that inadequate sleep makes kids more moody, more impulsive, and less able to concentrate. We've known for more than 20 years that sleep deprivation makes it difficult to learn (Journal of Experimental Psychology, Mar 1975).
Recent research has verified that chronic poor sleep results in daytime tiredness, difficulties with focused attention, low threshold to express negative emotion (irritability and easy frustration), and difficulty modulating impulses and emotions (Seminars in Pediatric Neurology, Mar 1996). These are the same symptoms that can earn kids the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, popularly known as ADD).
From today's New York Times Magazine:
France's foreign minister is the Energizer bunny of diplomacy, a hyperactive force who sleeps no more than four and a half hours a night, enjoys waking up aides to discuss matters of state, runs marathons by day and writes poetry by night...While Mr. de Villepin, 49, runs at high speed, it is sometimes difficult to know where he going. Even some of his closest aides call him brilliant or a bit crazy or both, and some diplomats have taken to calling him "Zorro."
Asked in a television interview in January about his perpetual motion, he replied: "It is crucial because the urgency is there. The urgency of great international questions. Terrorism. Proliferation. The rise of fundamentalism. The multiplicity of crises which have an impact on the lives of all of us. Today, you can't put a veil over your face."
If Mr. de Villepin has a vision, it is to revive the greatness of France — a romantic view he articulated in his book, "The Hundred Days," the first published volume of a biography of Napoleon that tells the story of the emperor's return from exile, his triumphant march across France and his final defeat at Waterloo.
Describing Napoleon's philosophy as "Victory or death, but glory whatever happens," Mr. de Villepin added, "There is not a day that goes by without me feeling the imperious need to remember so as not to yield in the face of indifference, laughter or gibes" in order to "advance further in the name of a French ambition."
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at March 9, 2003 05:25 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Mr. de Villepin is a clown. He also truly represents the France that many Americans pretend doesn't exist. Anyone like this gentleman who praises Napoleon is a moral degenerate. The French dictator did enormous harm to the world.
I have long argued that France is a despicable nation. It gladdens me considerably to see that so many others now agree with my point of view. Does France have a chance to save itself. Yes, but only if its citizens publicly rebuke the French Revolution. I personally, however, would not hold my breath waiting for this to happen.
Posted by: David Thomson on March 9, 2003 06:55 PMDavid Thomson, I trust you have read Jonathan Fenby's France on the Brink before saying that, i.e., so that you at least exposed your point of view to a perspective that doesn't resort to cheap broad-brush charicatures.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 9, 2003 07:56 PMI'll save value judgments about Villepin's character for another time (though they match my political outlook).
Villepin is obviously a blazing eStP. He'll be in perpetual motion until he's either infirmed in retirement or thrown into jail.
I took your advice and just ordered a used copy for $2.25 of Jonathan Fenby's France on the Brink from Amazon.com. By the way, are you aware of postmodernist Catherine Millet's recent book?:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802117163/qid=1047263386/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-5758915-5267160
I cynically suspect that Millet more truly represents French intellectual thinking.
Posted by: David Thomson on March 9, 2003 09:34 PMThomas Edison claimed not to sleep at all, but people spied on him and found out that he cheated by napping for 2-3 hours a night. He was not a pleasant guy. His research strategy was probably as close to the pure empirical needle-in-the-haystack method as anyone's ever has been. My guess is that a lot of his success derived from his assistants (Tesla??)
Posted by: zizka on March 10, 2003 12:43 AMLOL, I'll...uhm...keep that in mind :) Although atm I'm still trying to make time for a thorough reading of Pollack's The Threatening Storm. So far I've only skimmed portions, bah, surrounded by so many books right now...the middle of May cannot come soon enough. Or too soon, not sure which.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 10, 2003 03:08 AMHe wants his hundred days march and Waterloo? Well, why didn't he just say so. We'd be happy to oblige!
Posted by: Joe Katzman on March 10, 2003 11:23 AMTo complete the picture, GWBush reportedly gets plenty of sleep (early to bed and early to rise), as did Reagan, while Clinton -- in an interview before leaving office -- stated that most of his mistakes had been made while he was operating on too little sleep.
But we can overgeneralize. A recent article noted that Margaret Thatcher, like Chruchill before her, operated on very little sleep and plenty of whiskey.
Posted by: Baseball Crank on March 10, 2003 01:34 PMDe Villepin is (1) crazy and (2) in love with the United States. Our answer is obvious, as I note in this post:
http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/March2003_1.html#jrm758
Does de Villepin remind anyone else of the chief bureaucrat in the movie Brazil?
Posted by: Aaron Haspel on March 10, 2003 03:10 PMZizka,
Yes, a lot of Edison's company successes were other people's work but it was because of Edison that the work occurred. In addition to his own inventions one of his greatest contributions is laying down the foundations of modern R&D operations that made the 20th Century such a whirlwind of advancement.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on March 11, 2003 12:19 AMI should have said it differently. What I really wanted to say, but didn't really, was that while Edison was nuts by most standards, and not very nice either, he did accomplish a lot.
Foucault: "Insanity is the absence of work". Something like that.
Posted by: zizka on March 11, 2003 10:19 PMAn aside that I find interesting:
Sleep deprivation is compared to ADD.
Children in the US are being diagnosed with ADD in record numbers in an age where children have TVs and computers and game systems in their rooms and parents are often working late or are afraid to discipline or are negligent.
Makes sense to me.
Posted by: . on March 12, 2003 07:17 PMDespite the De, Villemin, once you would cut into his skin he would bleed like those of us lacking the "De". He expresses very well the ambiguities of a country that removed its King's head and tried to destroy all the aristocrats, then anointed a despot as Emperor and now is run by a bureaucratic elite whose members get ahead faster if they can sport a "De" France is run by bureaucrats stamped in the mold of the "grandes Ecoles". They tell the politicos what to do. By and large, they hate the US.
Posted by: Dr. R. Menguy on September 29, 2003 03:16 PMAre all these brilliant insights derived from events that took place 200 years ago? Mon dieu! It's a good thing that you hold the US to a different standard, because we would have to constantly refer to 19th century slavery in order to judge how worthy a nation America is in the present day...
Posted by: Daens on October 18, 2003 02:52 PMComments are Closed.