Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is retiring.Maine Senator Republican Olympia Snowe has announced that she won’t seek reelection, citing gridlock and pure partisanship as the reason she is putting her seat in play.

I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and “my way or the highway” ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions. … [W]hat I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term. So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail. As I enter a new chapter, I see a vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern.

Christian Science Monitor writes that Maine is largely Democratic today, although Snowe was very popular. Obama won Maine by 17 points in 2008 and is expected to win again in November.

The Depressed Brain

UCLA researchers studying depression have observed that people suffering from depression have increased connections among most areas of their brain. A healthy brain must be able to regulate its connections to function properly.

Dr. Andrew Leuchter, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA explains: “The brain must be able to first synchronize, and then later desynchronize, different areas in order to react, regulate mood, learn and solve problems.”

The depressed brain maintains its ability form functional connections but loses it ability to turn off these connections, putting it in a permanent state of hyperactivity. via Science Daily

More DFR

Adweek focues on Pinterest: The New Facebook for Lifestyle Magazine. With its mostly female user base (68%) and focus on visuals, Pinterest is in play. Traffic is up 10-fold in the last six months, for the three-year-old Pinterest writes WSJ.

Comcast reports that Pinterest passed the 50,000 monthly visitors for the first time in May 2011. In January the site surpassed the 11-million mark.

Anne has been on Pinterest for one week and is very happy with our traffic response and followers generated. Much easier to operate than Tumblr, if you want separate concepts like Fashion & Style vs Values & Ideas, flipping from one board to the next is so easy.

Visit Anne on Pinterest.

Mother-Son Bond Is Tricky

Getty imagesCan we just be honest, asks Kate Stone Lombardi, talking about mother/son relationships.

For generations mothers have gotten one message: that keeping their sons close is wrong, possibly even dangerous. A mother who fosters a deep emotional bond with her son, we’ve been told, is setting him up to be weak and effeminate—an archetypal mama’s boy. He’ll never be independent or able to form healthy adult relationships. As the therapist and child-rearing guru Michael Gurian wrote in his 1994 book about mothers and sons, “a mother’s job…is very much to hold back the coming of manhood.” A well-adjusted, loving mother is one who gradually but surely pushes her son away, both emotionally and physically, in order to allow him to become a healthy man.

Society doesn’t worry about ‘masculinizing’ our girls. Why does a close mother/son bond make everyone so nervous? Read on at WSJ