Olivia was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and will graduate this spring with a BA in Cognitive Science from Yale University. In the past four years, she has conducted research on the cognitive abilities of capuchin monkeys, volunteered with an eye-health organization in Accra, Ghana, and edited the school's satirical tabloid. She has many marketable skills, and would be a tremendous asset to your business or organization. Email: [email protected]
by Olivia Scheck I can’t decide what to wear to next weekend’s “Rally to Restore Sanity,” the Jon Stewart march on Washington to take place the Saturday of Halloween weekend. I spent $30 plus shipping and handling on the foam I’ll use to make my life-size Olivia Scheck silly band costume, and I want to…
By Olivia Scheck In 2005, Yasmine Issa was a 24-year-old homemaker, raising twin toddlers in Yonkers, New York. Having just divorced, the newly single mom, with no college degree or professional training, was also in need of a job. So, like 2.8 million others, Issa enrolled at a for-profit postsecondary school – the kind that…
by Olivia Scheck I am embarrassed to say that before this weekend I had never visited Edge.org. I was first directed to the site on Friday by a post on 3QD, and I have remained there ever since, devouring responses to the 2010 Edge Annual Question, “How is the internet changing the way you think?”…
By Olivia Scheck Last week, while vacationing in San Francisco, I was introduced to a new and thoroughly modern form of evening entertainment. Instead of buying tickets to a concert, “getting sloshed” or simply enjoying each other's company, my hosts and I gathered around a computer to video chat with strangers. Using a website called…
by Olivia Scheck Saturday was the last game of the little league soccer season – trophy day. My friend Jordan had talked me into being his assistant coach for the league we’d both played in as kids. To be honest, it was a disappointing year. Practices were primarily spent rolling in mud, fighting over who…
by Olivia Scheck On June 25th, one day after Mark Sanford’s press conference in which he confessed to a year-long affair with a woman in Argentina, David Brooks published an apparently unrelated column titled “Human Nature Today.” Brooks’ column begins by identifying three “different views of human nature”: the economic view, the traditional Christian view,…
by Olivia Scheck When Hedwig and the Angry Inch creator John Cameron Mitchell began casting his follow up film, Shortbus, members of the gay dramarati flocked. Hoping to set himself apart from the crowd, Jonathan Caouette supplemented his headshot and resume with a gritty montage of dramatic clips, including a drag impersonation of his mother…
By Olivia Scheck Whatever role one believes emotions should play in moral judgment, new research demonstrates that the influence of these low-level passions is profound. In fact, a study published in Science earlier this month suggests that many moral judgments are mediated by the same emotional mechanism that is activated by rotten leftovers and dirty…
By Olivia Scheck When a person is prone to making claims that are clearly inconsistent with facts about the world, we say that he is crazy. His brain has gone haywire, and he is no longer responsive to reason. However, when the person making a plainly unrealistic claim is otherwise rational, this simplistic explanation may…
In November of 1970, a thirteen-year-old girl arrived, accompanied by her mother, at a California family aid office. The girl, who is known publicly by the name “Genie,” walked hunched with her hands raised in front of her like paws. According to Susan Curtiss, author of Genie: a Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day Wild Child,…