This and That- Apparently Smart People Have Intimacy Issues

I was thumbing through the current issue of "Psychology Today" this afternoon in a public library when this article caught my attention. The headline read something like: "Why Smart People Have Less Sex."

I did not take any notes from the article, but my assumption is that if a guy is reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in its entirety, well yes, it might well take precendent over other things.

The article did mention (I believe) that if men make more money, they are more likely to have more sex. I did not see any mention in the article of how income levels affected women's sex lives.

But, I found out tonight, that this matter has been discussed for a while. In a Sept. 2008, a blogger from Palo Alto, Calif., where Stanford- a smart school-is siad that a recent test had found that teenagers with low iqs in the 100 range were up to five times more likely to be sexually actually than teens with high iqs in the 1200-1300 range.

The blogger later mentioned that only 56 percent of undergrads at Priceton University were having sex while only 65 percent of MIT grads had found time to make love and presumably kick butt on their final exams.

All of this could be argued though I suppose, as everything these days seems to be argued irregardless if it is from the ACLU or the Tea Party (editorial comment: we prefer the ACLU). And, there is the case of Karen Owen, a Duke University student who made a Powerpoint presentation on her thesis in 2010 about her college romps which included having sex with 13 male Blue Devils athletes, most of whom were reportedly lacrosse players. Maybe, those guys weren't reading Tolstoy.

Quote of the Week: Leo Tolstoy

I may not share my fellow Turkish-American Elif Batuman's love for Russian literature. Batuman, whom I've never met, is a respected nonfiction writer who has published many articles in "The New Yorker" and she wrote a brilliant 2010 memoir "The Possessed." While much of that book talks about long, famous Russian novels, Batuman also talks about spending time in Uzbekistan where she spent a considerable long time engrossing the fascinating, yet very remote country.

Of course, one of the novels that Batuman was examining was the epic 1869 work "War and Peace" from Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) which is 1,225 pages.

Here is Tolstoy's quote:

"Historians are life deaf people who go on answering questions that no one asks them."

SIDEBAR: When I saw the headline in "The Huffington Post" that "Man Survives 96 Minutes Without a Pulse," I thought they might be refering to Dick Cheney, but the man is in fact an unmplyed chef named Howard Snitzer from Goodhue, Minnesota.

SIDEBAR TWO: Earlier tonight, we had a chance to listen to the show "Progressive Torch and Twang," an alternative country/folk/Americana music show from Impact89-FM, the college station from Michigan State via the Internet. The show is extremely entertaining and amusing. Among the highlights on tonight's show was a song from Eddie Spaghetti, an alt country singer from Seattle, who sang a tune called "Jesus Never Lived on Mars." We can't imagine that one would ever hear it on a country music station in Lynchburg, Va.!

Turkish Soccer Results....

It has been a busy hectic week, and it's only Monday?!

Anyway, it is for this very reason, that we are putting off some other blog entry projects until a day when life is as slow as it on a Sunday afternoon in War, West Virginia, in the far southwestern part of the state which is perhaps a good place to go (aside from an asylum or a prison) if you want to read all 1,225 pages of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in its entirety!

So, with that in mind, let's turn to sport as they say on the BBC, and here are the results from weekend action in the Turkish Premiere League. I should note that my late father came from Turkey, and since his favorite team was GalataSaray, I know he would want me to jeer those who root for their arch rival Fenerbahce, but alas those fill-in-the-blank Yellow Canaries** won as well!:


Kayseri 1 Eskisehir 1

Istanbul BB 1 Antalya 1

Gaziantep 1 Manisa 0

Ankara Genclerbrligi 2 Konya 1

Trabzon 2 Bucaspor 1

GalataSaray 3 Kasimpasha 1

Fenerbahce 1 Karabukspor 0

Sivas 1 Ankaragucu 1

It should be noted that the game between the BursaSpor Crocodiles* (yes, we don't think there are any crocs in Turkey, not even at the Ankara Zoo!) and the Besiktash Black Eagles was cancelled. We presume, given the fervent passion of the fans on both sides, it was for security reasons. Elif Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American I've never met, wrote an excellent, haunting piece about Besiktash fans for "The New Yorker" several issues ago. Amazingly enough, Che Guevara is one of the fans' icons! Since many of the most fervent soccer fans in Turkey are a bit right-wing, this came as quite a surprise to me!

And, as a gesture of ethnic political goodwill, which will of course do absolutely nothing to ease tensions between us Turks and our Armenian friends, I will mention that the three teams atop the Armenian Premiere League are Ulisses, Gandzasar and Pyunik.

As I jokingly tell my friends who have neither ethnic background, if a Turk and an Armenian happen to come across each other at a Buddhist temple during a mutual tourist visit to Bhutan, yes they would probably go at it!

But, as far as the dispute we have with our Greek comrades over who has the better yogurt and feta cheese, well, of course, it is us Turks! Of course, I'm overlooking the fact that an Egyptian friend of mine said that Bulgarians were actually better at making these products than either of us.


*-There is actually a notorious man-eating crocodile named Gustave in the central African country of Burundi; I wonder how that country's tourism department gets around that!

**- Yes, Turkish soccer teams have nickanmes which are almost as strange as some minor league baseball teams--my favorite nickname is the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers who are based in Appleton, Wisc., where there might be six people of Turkish and Armenian heritage combined!