PTSD, bum grant and the idler's glossary.

Nothing sensational.

You might have heard about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- it could be that many cases of PTSD might not be mental distress, but brain damage:

Thomas Fox, a researcher and physiologist with the Centre Hyperbare de L'Ile, in Pincourt, Que., believes some of the soldiers diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could benefit from treatment for "blast induced" injuries to the brain...Fox said a growing body of research shows tiny bubbles can form in the body due to overpressure when soldiers are exposed to heavy gunfight or the detonation of powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs.) Those bubbles can eventually make their way to the head and brain.
-Edmonton Sun

And, The Arts Council has taken what some would call a bum decision:

Sue Williams, of Swansea, Wales has been awarded a grant of $33,000 to create plaster casts of women's buttocks in a bid to get to the bottom of cultural attitudes about female fannies.

She is studying the "racial fetishism" of the backside in African and European societies.

HERMENAUT is another site you want to bookmark if you are an idle sort of person, i.e., when you get around to doing that.

beggar: "Beg" is one of those words which isn't derived from anything; it has always meant exactly what it means. (This usually indicates a word of great force.) Any person who won't work, and who lives by asking complete strangers for aid, is either lazy, mentally ill, or a saint. Don't assume you can tell the difference. See: BUM, CADGER, SCROUNGER, SPONGER.

daydreamer: This escapist activity is fine for slackers, but idlers must resist it! As Simone Weil noted, although the imagination can be a powerful tool for liberation, the daydreamer ["dream" is from an Indo-European word meaning "deception"] may be tempted into "filling up the void with compensatory illusions." On a less philosophical level, the painter Delacroix insisted that the imagination "remained impotent and sterile if it was not served by a resourceful skill which could follow it in its restless and tyrannical whims." Don't daydream, then: Dream, and follow your dreams, instead. See: ABSENTMINDED, DREAMER, FORGETFUL.

detached: Religiously speaking, detachment is not so much a form of aloofness or disengagement as it is a loving embrace of, and renewed fascination with the world—from a position of critical, even ironic distance. As counseled in The Bhagavad-Gita, the religiously detached person renounces the fruits of his actions without renouncing action itself. See: ACEDIA, APATHETIC, INDIFFERENT, NONCHALANT, WAITING FOR GODOT.

I love this.