Tag Archives: mental hygiene

“public interventions”

Posted on July 18, 2026 by Robert Basil

From Alex Cooke at Fstoppers: Walk past a certain bus stop near Meta’s London headquarters and you see a glossy campaign shot: Kylie Jenner in a pair of the company’s smart glasses. Step to the side and the poster becomes … Continue reading →

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Apropos

Posted on April 24, 2026 by Robert Basil

Clarissa is not alone. On X writer Tyler A. Harper darkly assesses university administrators’ embrace of AI. “A lot of the push for AI (therapists! health care professionals! tutors!) is predicated on a tacit acceptance that the broken institutions cannot … Continue reading →

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Share Yourself

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Robert Basil

On a recent train trip I listened to a young computer whiz give a remarkably agile and lucid explanation to his aunt of AI’s probable future role in his industry. Seated two seats behind him, I was too rapt to … Continue reading →

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More on Sacks

Posted on January 10, 2026 by Robert Basil

Lawrence Weschler wrote And How Are You, Dr. Sacks: A Biographical Memoir of Oliver Sacks. I remember it being a very fine book. I was wondering how Weschler would address the revelations published in Rachel Aviv’s New Yorker piece. I … Continue reading →

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Oliver Sacks

Posted on December 16, 2025 by Robert Basil

I remember the bookstore in Buffalo where I found “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” in 1985. I finished the book before I went to bed. Starting the next day, I relied on the work of Oliver … Continue reading →

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The speaking body

Posted on July 3, 2024 by Robert Basil

There has always been an oral-communication component in my upper-level business communications classes. I used to justify this to my students this way: In my own professional life, no matter how beautifully clear and researched the documents my clients pay … Continue reading →

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Learning but slowly

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Robert Basil

Apropos the use of AI in academia, a student asked me, “We want to work more quickly in the workplace, but do we really want to LEARN more quickly? Is that even possible?” To the latter question, I would say … Continue reading →

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Yelling at your editor

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Robert Basil

In earlier writing here on mentorship, I noted that you do not have to actually like your mentors to have a fruitful relationship with them. In one post, “Mentorship without Friendship,” I wrote: “A mentor sees in her or his … Continue reading →

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“Pre-Planned Feelings”

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Robert Basil

We have discussed our friend Clarissa‘s opinions on American academia and other topics in the past. She is an Hispanic Studies professor at a midwestern public university whose blog is always vividly written (and is contentious by design, I would … Continue reading →

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This can go a long way

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Robert Basil

This semester I asked a student of mine who’s in my university’s HR program whether human resources professionals needed to actually like people. (I wish I remember why I asked!) She told me nobody had ever asked her that question … Continue reading →

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