Web Skews Sex Education, Psychiatrist Warns: ‘A rising tide of Internet pornography is creating a growing public health

problem in sex education, a psychiatrist said on Tuesday.

“I’m very concerned about children,” Donna Woods of the University of Michigan said, adding that

easily accessed pornography was portraying sex as a public event, disconnected from human

commitment. …”There is going to be a be a big public health issue … explaining (to children) what sex is and

isn’t,” Woods told a session at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.’

I’m trying to point you to something on the net about the Seymour Hersh investigation of “Drug Czar” Gen. Barry McCaffrey’s command during the Persian Gulf War, but the search engines are not coming up with anything. Renowned investigative reporter Hersh started out to dig up dirt on McCaffrey’s war on drugs but a former colleague told him to look instead at McCaffrey’s role in Desert Storm. It appears that there were at least three incidents during which American forces under McCaffrey’s command fired on disarmed or surrendering Iraqi troops; two of the incidents appear to have been after the ceasefire. Hersh interviewed more than 200 enlisted men and officers in reaching his conclusions about the inappropriateness of attacks that McCaffrey ordered; the general ends up appearing to have been consumed with bloodlust. Overwhelming Force, a long piece reporting on this, will appear in next week’s New Yorker. I heard both Hersh and McCaffrey interviewed last night on NPR’s All Things Considered; of course McCaffrey denies the allegations, to my mind evasively and unconvincingly. Update: Here’s the text of Hersh’s article.

Another reason to cool your jets.

“X-Files” Back…with Duchovny. Fox announces that X-philes won’t be bereft; E! Online claims to have scooped everyone to the fact that Duchovny will be back for at least “a handful of episodes”; but the real news is that producer Chris Carter will have a spinoff revolving around The Lone Gunmen ready for Fox’s midseason schedule!

‘The artist formerly known as “The artist formerly known as Prince”‘ “Forget the symbol, erase the acronym. The artist formerly known as Prince

announced Tuesday that he will be, now and forever, known again as Prince.”

You Can Run, But Not Fast Enough: “A British man who has been imprisoned, shot at and robbed during a 3-1/2-year quest to become the first person

to run round the world decided on Monday to abandon plans to traverse Colombia.

‘There were tanks. Everyone seemed to be in uniform and carrying a machine gun,’ he told Reuters by telephone from Maracaibo in

western Venezuela. ‘It’s too dangerous. It’s just not worth it.'”

Ecological disaster in the Los Alamos fire? “The basic question in the Los Alamos fire is whether and

to what extent depleted uranium strewn about the Los

Alamos National Laboratory site has been sucked up

into the plume by the fire. In addition, whether the

following materials—also known to be on the site—are

in the smoke plume: lead, beryllium, arsenic,

thorium, uranium, plutonium, PCBs, barium, high

explosives.

Other questions: are the firefighters themselves

being monitored for contamination. There is no real

protection for fire fighters working in such a

volatile situation. And is the government monitoring

fall out from plume as it passes across Colorado,

Oklahoma and Texas?” With a number of links to sites covering various aspects of the fire.

A Dallas Morning News investigative report concludes that there’s been more than a decade of whittling away at the fundamental right to a trial by jury. “More and more matters once decided by juries are being

handled by judges or private arbitrators or are being banned

from the courtroom entirely. ‘The American jury is in serious

trouble,’ says Valerie Hans, a

University of Delaware

psychology professor and

recognized authority on the role

of juries in the national culture.” Trends include limiting the amount of civil jury monetary awards; the removal of entire areas of decision-making from juries; corporations that require customers to surrender their right to jury trial in future disputes as a condition of doing business; and an increase in judicial reversals of jury findings, a right judges have but have historically used only sparingly. Attacks on rule by jury arise from fears that modern lawsuits are too complex for the lay public to understand; that juries are too easily manipulated by lawyers; and that jurors are too prone to find for the “little guy” against a corporation.

“the dog trots freely in the street and sees reality …

drunks in doorways and moons on trees”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Boston Globe film critic Michael Blowen proposes a national film registry to protect certain movies we love from being remade.

Younger authors assess Martin Amis, enfant terrible of English letters whom nearly all of them love to hate. I’m not too proud to admit I love and devour his work. Amis’ “much-hyped” autobiography is imminent.

Enjoy the Show. Test Will Follow. Awhile ago I logged the arrival of the play Copenhagen, about Werner Heisenberg. And several days ago I logged an essay about the literary abuses of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Now the New York Times does man-on-the-street interviews with theater patrons to see what they understand of the physics behind the play. As suggested the other day, without understanding quantum physics, Heisenberg uncertainty becomes just a metaphor, and an overused one at that. If all you’re saying is that the observer affects the process observed, why try so hard?

One reader of this blog wrote to say that this discussion of the uncertainty principle reminds him of a pet peeve he has about the frequent use of “one-dimensional” in literary criticism. From his understanding of geometry, he’s sure the writers mean to say two-dimensional, as in lacking depth. That one doesn’t bother me as much as the misuse of the uncertainty principle does, because to speak of “dimensions” isn’t necessarily using (misusing) a geometric metaphor; the word has a commonsense meaning as well. A character, or a plotline, may well be only one-dimensional in that common sense of the word, e.g. reduced to only one conflict.

I haven’t been much interested in city planning and I know next to nothing about architecture, but this essay was fascinating and worthwhile (I did grow up in New York, though…) New

York to Architecture: Drop Dead! “A new proposal to overhaul the city’s

zoning laws is now forcing New Yorkers to confront these

fundamental questions. Titled the Uniform Bulk Program, the

proposal amounts to the architectural manifesto of the Giuliani

administration — a major statement on the most famous skyline

in the universe.” Three major provisions — a height limit on new buildings, a requirement that buildings extend out to the street (effectively reversing the mandate in previous zoning regulations that plazas and parks be included in development plans as a “trade” for height), and the establishment of a review board under the control of a political appointee — will “turn the city planning chairman into the design czar of New York, with sweeping powers to define the cityscape for years to come.” When does government regulation of architecture become akin to trampling on constitutionally guaranteed free expression?

The Entman-Rojecki Index of Race and the Media

“To introduce their new book

The Black Image in the

White Mind: Media and

Race in America, Robert

M. Entman and Andrew

Rojecki present some of

the statistical evidence of

how the mass media treat

racial differences.” For example:

1. While Black actors are now more numerous in

film, it’s an open question as to how well they’re

being represented. In the top movies of 1996:

Black female movie characters shown using vulgar

profanity: 89%.

White female movie characters shown using vulgar

profanity: 17%.

Black female movie characters shown being physically

violent: 56%.

White female movie characters shown being physically

violent: 11%.

Black female movie characters shown being restrained:

55%.

White female movie characters shown being restrained:

6%.

Maggot Therapy (Larva Therapy) Project Home Page. From a UC Irvine assistant professor of medicine and pathology who offers mail order maggots to start your own project.

My Pickle..er..oops, I mean My Guestbook. Most fun guestbook I’ve ever run across.

Some people will be very disappointed by this: Vatican Discloses ‘Third Secret’ of Fatima. Shortly after this week’s beatification of two of the child witnesses to the 1917 apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, a representative of the Pope disclosed that the so-called third secret is interpreted as a reference to the 1981 assassination attempt against the Pope. While the first two alleged predictions of the Virgin were made public (they are interpreted as referring to the course of the World Wars and the rise and fall of Communism), the third was sent in a sealed envelope to the Vatican and remained a secret since the apparition. Theories about what it prophesized have been rife, and the basis of all sorts of arcane conspiracy scenarios involving the Vatican. A very popular notion is that it spoke of a deep rift in the Roman Catholic Church and rival papacies, which some believe exist today. Fatima fanatics have resorted to desperate acts at times to attempt to compel the Vatican to reveal the third secret, and the prophetic significance of the Fatima apparition has far outstripped the devotional importance of the shrine, e.g. in its becoming an ideological touchstone for anti-Communist fervency during the cold war. It remains to be seen if third secret devotees accept the Vatican announcement or see it as a conspiratorial cover-up. Others may be let down.

Couldn’t some of the hackers out there make this happen more often?

South Carolina Legislature Ponders Bill Requiring Student Politeness

“People who lose their language ability because of brain damage

develop an extraordinary gift for spotting liars, scientists have

discovered.

Stroke victims who have suffered damage to the brain’s language

centres learn how to detect the subtle facial expressions that can

indicate when a person is lying. Tests on a group of aphasics –

people who cannot converse after brain damage – showed they could

detect liars nearly threequarters of the time, compared with a 50:50

success rate for undamaged people. One aphasic who had recently

suffered brain damage performed no better than healthy subjects,

indicating that the ability is learnt through experience.” [Nature via The Independent]

New Scientist: Killing off an archetype “Is our perception of infanticide all wrong? Step-parents are no more likely than biological parents to

murder their children, according to Swedish researchers. This

flies in the face of Canadian findings from over a decade ago,

which indicated that having a step-parent is the single

greatest risk factor for being maltreated as a child.”

“Go ahead. Make my day.”

‘(Clint) Eastwood, whose Mission Ranch Hotel in Carmel,

Calif., has been sued for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, is striking back

with a Washington lobbying campaign for new legislation to

modify the law. “I figure I won’t back down because of all these

people … who can’t defend themselves,” says the 69-year-old

Mr. Eastwood. Well, “I can, and they will be seeing me for a

long, long time.” ‘ [Wall Street Journal]

Defendant promises to keep his nose clean

Some say macabre tour in Salem, Massachusetts, goes too far

“People say tourism is the answer here,” Councilor Regina Flynn told The Salem Evening News. “On the other hand, it’s what kind of tourism do

you want?” This city which capitalizes heavily on its infamous witch trial history goes just nuts with gloom and grue, especially around Halloween, but is denying a license to a proposal to give tourists tours by hearse of gory landmarks including the sites of some recent murders.

Lego Links up with Spielberg: he lends his name to Lego Studios’ new digital movie-making kit for kids, and will judge the results. Kids build “stories” with Lego movie sets and bricks, film them with an included movie camera, dump the film into their USB port, and use a movie editing suite to do stop-action animation, add sound effects and dialog, and make credits and titles. Completed films are uploaded to a chld’s personal page at a Lego Studios website for possible nomination for a “junior Oscar.”

Alternative therapy at state expense: Study looks at Medicaid coverage of nonconventional care for children: A study by a University of Michigan family practitioner shows that 3/4 of the states reimburse for some alternative medical treatments given to children covered by their Medicaid programs. “The percentage of states that have agreed to pay for such services ranges from 74 percent for chiropractic down to 11

percent for naturopathy. Several states allow children to see an alternative practitioner as their primary care physician, or to

see alternative providers under Medicaid’s preventive screening, immunization, vision, dental and hearing program. Terrence Steyer, M.D., a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and lecturer in the U-M Departments of Family Medicine and

Internal Medicine, conducted the survey of 46 state Medicaid programs to get a sense of how far the current trend toward

alternative medicine had extended into state-funded pediatric care…. Alternative medicine is usually defined as care not generally taught at American medical schools nor provided at U.S.

hospitals. It spans the spectrum from vitamins and herbal supplements to acupuncture and hypnosis.”

Cannes Do or Die?

The first lady of film festivals ain’t no Sundance. Or is it that film festivals ain’t what they used to be? Or is it that film ain’t what it used to be?

Prosecutorial and journalistic difficulties in “shaken baby” cases: “Shaken baby cases are amongst the most difficult to prosecute.

There are usually no witnesses to the crime, the determination

of time of death must often be based on statements made by

potential suspects, and the conviction frequently rests on the

persuasiveness of dueling expert witnesses.

Media coverage of these cases also rarely illuminates the key

question: How much doubt do experts have about the diagnosis

and timing of death? In coverage of the court room, defense and

prosecution experts are given equal weight – but journalists

rarely go to outside sources to determine which position

represents the medical mainstream.

As a result, public opinion can be swayed by arguments that are

considered specious by most experts.” [Newswatch]

Physicist Group Says Missile Defense Tests Fall ´Far Short´. Apart from politically-based misgivings about an anti-missile defense system, there’s the unanswered question of its technical feasibility.

The world’s largest professional association of physicists says the Pentagon’s test program is an inadequate basis for an informed decision about whether the proposed weapon can actually shoot down enemy warheads. Interception tests do not take into account at all the offensive countermeasures an attacker would take to overwhelm or confuse a missile defense system. President Clinton plans to decide after the next round of testing in June whether the $60 billion program should be given the green light. The American Physical Society’s statement is available at the group’s website. The Pentagon, of course, rejects the group’s criticism.

And China has weighed in on the proposed weapon. Its “chief arms negotiator said today that the American proposal to build an antimissile defensive shield posed an unacceptable threat to China’s security and could force Beijing to significantly expand its own nuclear forces in response.” [New York Times]

The editor of Newswatch explores the journalistic invocations of Heisenberg uncertainty.

“one of those very rare technology changes that bring really interesting

potential in several dimensions”: a unanimous May 11 decision by the FCC opens the way to the use of ultrawide band wireless technology that makes leaps in data transmission rates and also relieves pressure on the crowded wireless spectrum by operating in frequency ranges already occupied without causing interference. “The technology allows a range of science fiction-like applications. Initially, the services were created as radar tools, which can see

through walls when traditional radar is blocked. That could allow such things as devices allowing firefighters to see who or what is in

burning buildings or helping rescue workers find earthquake victims trapped underneath rubble.

It also acts as a positioning device far more accurate than ordinary global positioning services. Time Domain has signed a deal with

a golf company that plans to use the technology to give golfers exact measurements from tee to hole. That

application could be used to keep track of children in crowds or find lost pets”

“I only wish I lived there there because I could put it on my

headed notepaper.”

Nature Makes the Man.

“Two studies published on Friday confirm that sex-reassignment surgery for boys born with deformed sex organs is misguided and possibly cruel.

The studies of 25 genetically male children raised as girls because of genital deformities showed all of them

retained strong male characteristics, despite hormone and other treatments. Most reassigned themselves to

be males when they got older, the researchers at Johns Hopkins University said.” But anyone who’s tried to raise a boy in a more gender-neutral way has already known that maleness is “built in”!

Keep cell phones out of reach of nematodes as well as children, new study warns.

“Ginzu” school of journalism

To our great societal shame IMHO, a new study shows that medical bills accounted for

40% of bankruptcy filings

last year. About 500,000 Americans filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999 largely because of heavy medical expenses, according to the study,

which is to be published next month in a finance journal, Norton’s Bankruptcy Adviser.

Mirrors Help Deter Suicide Leaps? Rising numbers of Japanese suicides (attributable to the economic downturn in what many consider one of the world’s most stressful societies) are a headache for Japanese railway companies, since leaping in front of trains is a favored way to go. ‘East Japan Railway Co, which reported 212 suicides at its stations last year, will set up large, adult-sized mirrors opposite platforms

hoping this will deter potential leapers.

“Specialists say it makes it difficult for a person to jump if they think someone is looking, say from the opposite platforms,” said a

spokesman for JR East.

“We hope the mirrors will serve a similar effect,” he said. “When a train stops after someone has jumped, we get many angry complaints from other passengers,” he said.’

A letter to the British Medical Journal warns that natural remedies can be harmful.

Certainly a few

treatments such as kava (Piper methysticum), which is rich in coumarins which interfere with warfarin, have been mentioned in the BMJ

in the past year.

In our practice we have seen a case of severe dyspepsia caused by zinc, which had been bought by mail after hair analysis by mail, being

taken at six times the recommended daily allowance; a patient with blood pressure that was difficult to control because of ginseng; a

patient with severe headaches on waking caused by evening primrose oil; and a patient with myopathy caused by creatine, to mention

only a few. These conditions necessitated an endoscopy, a medical referral, and a computed axial tomography scan, as well as numerous

blood tests. The aetiology was only ascertained by direct questioning. All cases resolved when the patients stopped taking the substance.

We suspect that these cases represent the tip of the iceberg.

Caution should be exercised in condoning the use of any supplement or herbal preparation without checking with a pharmacist or reliable

source. Many herbal remedies are dangerous to patients with epilepsy or diabetes and to those taking warfarin; they also have the

propensity to cause illness in those who are otherwise healthy and not taking drugs.

By coincidence, just today, I discovered that the troubling cognitive dysfunction I’ve seen in a hospitalized patient of mine is probably attributable not to her psychiatric condition, nor her serious medical conditions, but to poisoning with dietary supplements she had been taking unbeknownst to her doctors.

Another letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal proposes a peer-reviewed, not-for-profit, global medical knowledge database.

Realistically it is practical for a clinician to question, search, select, acquire the paper(s) and appraise them, and act only three or four

times a year. Importantly, the knowledge acquired remains inaccessible to any other professional. If we could share these appraisals on a

web based (and CD Rom) database we could avoid a massive duplication of effort. We could also make access to the knowledge much

faster.

The global medical knowledge database will match each clinical query as closely as possible with both answered and unanswered

questions. If there is an answer the software will display it automatically, in the form of a critically appraised topic. If the question is

unanswered the doctor will be able to see whether someone is trying to answer it (and could offer to help). If the question is not on the

database then the doctor will be prompted to post it.

I know that I, in the course of my medical practice, do several dozen literature searches a year to answer clinical dilemmas I face. The gathered citations remain on a hard drive of a machine at the hospital, and my synthesis and conclusions remain in my head. Occasionally I summarize them for a small community of medical peers on a mailing list in my subspecialty. But, I agree, it would be powerful and not that much extra work for each of us to make the results of these queries accessible to one another worldwide.

I’m honored to have been noticed by at least a couple of my favorite weblogs today. Both Jorn Barger’s Robot Wisdom and Chuck Taggart’s Looka pointed to “Follow Me Here…” As you know if you’ve been reading awhile, I’ve always wondered if anyone’s out there. It’ll be interesting watching my own reaction to knowing I’m writing for more of an audience. To start with, no more blatant plagiarism from other weblogs [grin], ‘cuz you might notice! One immediate reaction I have — if they like me, it means they value content over style (the apparent polarities in the perennial weblog aesthetic debate).

New security flaw in Internet Explorer for Windows: cookies stored by IE are readable anywhere. IE for the Mac does not appear to be affected, and Netscape is unaffected. I use Netscape, but I’m already being inconvenienced by some sites (e.g. Blogger) disabling their “remember me” features which work via storing cookies. Now I have to log back into Blogger anytime I want to work on my log. The workaround in IE for Windows is to disable Javascript, says Peacefire.

Chernobyl’s effects linger on. “Levels of radioactivity from the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 remain unexpectedly high in some parts of northern Europe, researchers

have found.

They say restrictions on some foods in both the United Kingdom and the former Soviet Union will have to remain in place for up to 50

years.

They found that the environment is not cleaning itself as fast as previously thought, and that radioactivity can be released to the soil

again after it has been absorbed.”

Battlefield Earth: Film Dogged by Links to Scientology Founder: “Controversy has swirled around the film because it is based

on the 1982 novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the

Church of Scientology, and because the film was the pet

project of Mr. Travolta, who has made no secret of his

dedication to Scientology. Could this be a sneaky attempt to

lure unsuspecting moviegoers into Scientology?” [New York Times]

Battlefield Earth: Earth Capitulates in 9 Minutes to Mean Entrepreneurs From Space. “It may be a bit

early to make such

judgments, but

Battlefield Earth may well turn out to be the worst movie

of this century.” [New York Times review by the discerning Elvis Mitchell]

Non-partisan group urges caution on death penalty

A newly formed group including both supporters and opponents of the death penalty, the National Committee to

Prevent Wrongful Executions, is encouraging restraint in the use of the death penalty and urging other states to consider adopting an Illinois-style moratorium on executions.

Schizophrenic Yale law professor won’t stand trial in fiancée’s slaying. This is indeed a very tragic one, but unfortunately discouraging relapses are not uncommon in dealing with major mental illness: He was once celebrated for succeeding as a Yale Law School graduate and faculty member despite his schizophrenia, but at some point he stopped taking his medication and began to deteriorate. His fiancee stayed home from work that day to try and help, but the prospect of a crisis intervention apparently drove him to murder her, thinking she was ‘”a nonhuman impostor” conspiring to

hospitalize him for torture, experimentation and death’, according to psychiatric reports. Even the prosecution’s psychiatric expert conceded the merits of his insanity plea. [Nando Times]

Microsoft asks Slashdot to remove posts revealing copyrighted material. After Microsoft reportedly reneged on a commitment to publish its proprietary extensions to the open source Kerberos security technology (which authenticates logins to Unix systems), a public message on Slashdot by some open source types including one of the co-developers of the Kerberos standard accused Microsoft of abusing the protocol and preventing the interoperability of its “branded” systems with other Unix systems. They published Microsoft’s data specification as well as ways to circumvent its control….Later in the day, Slashdot went down as a result of a distributed denial-of-service attack.

Stay away from the seals: Seals pose influenza threat. For the first time, an animal reservoir of the influenza B virus has been discovered. After an ailing seal found on the Dutch coast was diagnosed with the flu in 1999, up to 2% of seals in the area were found to be infected. Animal reservoirs of viruses that infect humans pose a potentially devastating threat because they (a) allow viruses to resurface after hiatuses when human resistance has faded, and (b) also allow viruses to mutate into more virulent strains unimpeded. (Mutation into a more deadly strain in a human population would usually, in contrast, be self-limiting, because the infection would kill its hosts so rapidly that it could not spread far; notice how many of the terrifying recently-emergent diseases appear to have jumped from animal reservoirs.) The ‘A’ type of the influenza virus is harbored in birds and mammals (“swine flu”) and the cyclical emergence of new virulent A strains has been responsible for serious flu epidemics worldwide. In contrast, the influenza B virus was thought to be exclusively human. Stored seal blood samples showed no signs of infection prior to 1995 but, since that date, 2% of the samples showed evidence of the virus. The viral “footprint” for all infected seals indicates a 1995 strain. Scientists speculate that someone coughed or sneezed in the face of a stranded seal encountered on a beach somewhere in 1995 and the virus made the jump to the new species. [BBC]

Cruelty to detainees and prisoners is becoming institutionalized

across the USA, Amnesty International said today, on the eve of the US

Government’s first appearance before the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva.

“Since the United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994, its increasingly punitive approach towards offenders

has continued to lead to practices which facilitate torture or other forms of ill-treatment prohibited under international law.”

Bill got away with it, and now Rudy seems to be making out like a bandit as well. Slate runs down the new rules for adultery in politics.

Nike Cuts Off Funds for 3 Universities (Michigan, Oregon and Brown) which have recently joined The Workers’ Rights Consortium, which attempts to persuade colleges to be more aggressive in monitoring pay and working conditions in overseas “sweatshops” including Nike’s factories. Millions of dollars for outfitting athletic teams and renovating sports facilities at the three schools have been withdrawn. Nike supports a different organization, the Fair Labor Association, which claims to monitor overseas working conditions but involves industry representatives in policy making and, unlike the WRC, does not support a “fair living wage” standard and does not advocate unannounced spot checks of factories.

The dinosaurs fighting the War on Drugs are at it again. House Bill Would Ban Drug Instructions. “Free speech advocates say proposed anti-drug legislation that would make it a crime to dispense

information on controlled substances, could send innocent people to jail and have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

The bill, known as the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, is aimed at combating the spread of the powerful stimulant by boosting

the number of Drug Enforcement agents investigating methamphetamine cases, providing more training for agents and stiffening the

penalties for distribution.

The bill also bans the distribution of information relating to the manufacture of controlled substances, which opponents say could open

the door for the prosecution of innocent people.”

Annals of the Age of Depravity: Drug Smugglers Hide Stash in Girl’s Corpse. “Drug smugglers stuffed their stash in the corpse of a young girl whom they had apparently killed, in a foiled attempt

to bring narcotics into the Gulf Arab region, a senior UAE policeman was quoted Tuesday as saying…An airport official became suspicious when he tried to play with the apparently sleeping child…”

Yahoo! News – No place like home.

“An electronic tagging system for domestic appliances that will deter thieves has been developed by British

Telecom’s research labs at Martlesham in Suffolk. The system stops your appliances from working if they are plugged

into someone else’s mains supply.” [New Scientist]

‘Love Bug’ Virus Said Accidental: ‘a Filipino computer student said

today he may have accidentally released the “Love Bug” virus that crippled computer e-mail systems

worldwide.

The student, Onel A. de Guzman, who had been missing for several days, would not say whether he had

written the “ILOVEYOU” virus. De Guzman said he was unsure whether he had sent the virus into cyberspace.

But asked whether he might accidentally have done so, de Guzman replied, “It

is possible.”‘ (And if you believe this, I have a bridge I want to sell you cheap.)

Scientist Urges Curbs on Children’s Use of Mobiles. “LONDON (Reuters) – Children should be discouraged from using mobile telephones because of potential health risks, the chief of a

British government-commissioned inquiry into the phones’ safety said on Thursday.”

Village Voice: a special section on the right-wing web, including James Ridgeway’s essay on how to follow conservatives on the web; Ward Harkavy urging the left to catch up with the rapid web penetration of the far right; Meg Murphy on “fighting back online”; and Russ Kick on “finding documents the Man wants to hide”.

Richard Smith, an Internet consultant based in Brookline, Mass., says “I fell out of my chair” when he heard what Britain was planning to do. [Christian Science Monitor

It’s about time [thanks, Abby].

Holocaust Victims Claims Rejected: European insurers continue to improperly fail to honor

claims filed by Holocaust survivors or the heirs of those who perished under Nazi oppression. An International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, established to resolve allegations of insurance company malfeasance on the issue by appealing unjust rejections, is overwhelmed. The commission has no enforcement power and participation in it is voluntary. Numerous other insurance companies have declined to participate in it at all.

Some U.S. insurance regulators said they were shocked by the high rate of rejections because the initial claims were submitted by the

commission on behalf of individuals considered to have particularly strong cases. Insurance companies appear to have less compunction about rejecting claims now that a separate humanitarian fund has been endowed. The extent of insurance company contributions to the fund has yet to be established.

Talking dirty [Salon]: “Could it be that our laudable cleanliness has something to do

with the increase in immune disorders? Epidemiologists,

immunologists, bacteriologists and parasitologists from

England to Iowa think this may be the case. According to

what’s called the “hygiene hypothesis,” our immune systems,

which evolved in environments where we couldn’t escape

disease, microorganisms of every description and just plain

dirt, don’t always develop normally if they don’t meet these

things during our childhood development.” Recently, I noticed restauranteur Terence Conran saying the same thing about the public health regulations for eating establishments.

Discovery of pigment and paint-grinding accoutrements shows that Stone Age proto-humans were painting before they were human. “British archaeologists have found evidence suggesting

humans were producing art 350,000 to 400,000 years ago.

It is the earliest indication of humanity’s artistic nature and

suggests the activity was linked with evolution that turned

pre-anatomically modern humans into Homo sapiens.”

For you public radio listeners interested in ins and outs: PRI sues to stop “Marketplace” sale. Minnesota Public Radio, which founded Public Radio International, has started to compete with its offspring in producing, and PRI fears it may now do so with distribution as well.

“Shut up!” says veteran film critic. John Simon, New York magazine reviewer, could not stand these children enjoying themselves at a recent performance of “The Music Man”.

“It was disturbing as all hell. Finally, after 30 or 40

minutes I leaned forward and said, ‘Madam, could

you please try and control your brats?’

“She said, ‘I will try and control them, but they’re not

brats.’ Well, for the purposes of a theater audience,

they certainly were brats.” [New York Post via Jorn Barger]

A Ryerson University (Toronto) conference will tackle the issue of Hollywood’s anti-intellectualism and glorification of stupidity. Is it the filmmakers’ populism, an insulting appraisal of the American viewing audience, or realistic dumbing-down? Or is it that thoughtfulness and the life of the mind are just much harder to portray on film than their converse?

Things Creationists Hate. A list of the truths they have to ignore to avoid cognitive dissonance with their cherished creationist beliefs.

Nick Park, creator of the Wallace & Grommit shorts, is working on his first feature length film, Chicken Run. Park describes it as “The Great Escape with chickens.” Alas, W & G are nowhere to be found in Chicken Run.

Bookmark and click daily: The Rainforest Site is a sister site to the Hunger Site. Each click-through on this page (which you can do once a day) causes corporate sponsors to donate the cost of 19.2 square feet of rainforest to The Nature Coservancy, which has a massive program to buy up acreage in the world’s shrinking rainforests to preserve and protect them.

Red Rock Eater Digest: a primer on global internet finance. ‘Who pays for the Internet? “The answer is either really long or

really short depending on what you’re trying to say,” says Scott

Bradner, a leading Internet expert at Harvard University. The

Internet does not have a set economic model, so there’s no standard

way network providers are remunerated for the resources they use.

End of story.

The longer answer is more complicated…’

A New Kind of Storytelling: The New Arrival is a short immersive film debuting at Cannes on May 10. “This is certainly a film of a different stripe: The viewer sees the world from the vantage

point of a worn-out TV set being shipped off to an old-age home to join 8-track tapes and

other retired technologies. Using a Be Here add-on to Real Player, the viewer can pan the

car transporting the TV, the well-wishers welcoming the TV to the home, and so on.” [Wired]

Buzz pix are M.I.A. at Cannes, “…plenty of screenings to keep buyers bleary-eyed, but not enough to stop complaints that there’s nothing big to pick up.”

Man Smuggles Dead Father-In-Law on Bus. Upon arising in his Glasgow hotel room, he found that his father-in-law, who had accompanied him to Scotland for a rugby match, had died overnight. Damned if I don’t get to use the other half of that return fare to England, he might’ve said.

Putting Their Stamp on the World: Canadians can now buy personalized postage stamps with the photo of their choice front and center. Twenty five of the 46-cent stamps cost around $25 Canadian.

A report in the Journal of Virology offers strong indications that the hepatitis B virus originated in apes or monkeys.

British Film Institute top 100 British films of all time. As a fan of British film, I’ve seen well over half of them.

Innocents in Web of Philippine Terror The New York Times reminds us of the ongoing hostage situation in Mindanao. More than fifty people have been held for up to six weeks by Islamic separatist rebels; several have been killed by their captors as government troops encroached. Hostages include more than a dozen schoolchildren. The crisis gives us a glimpse into an incredible “lawless world of pirates, smugglers

and warlords, where kidnapping for ransom is a business and

religious wars are fought by throwing bombs into markets

and churches.”

A Political Scientist Renews His Alarm at the Erosion of Community Ties: Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam decries the rise of “bowling alone” (the title of his new book) and other signs of the lack of connectedness in modern American life:

“Henry Ward Beecher’s advice a century ago to ‘multiply

picnics’ is not entirely ridiculous today. We should do this,

ironically, not because it will be good for America — though

it will be — but because it will be good for us.” [New York Times]

Epidemiological study finds link between in-home pesticide exposure and increased risks of Parkinson’s Disease.

So much for house arrest with electronic monitoring bracelets.

Here’s the schedule for the Physicians for Social Responsibility National Conference 2000, taking place now in Arlington VA. This agency founded in the ’70’s was a unifying vehicle for health professionals’ raising public concerns about nuclear issues, under the powerful histrionic charisma of Australian physician Helen Caldicott. An offshoot organization, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize several years later. I was proud to collaborate with Caldicott and other inspiring physician activists when I was a medical student, started the PSR chapter at my school and organized a major conference in New Haven CT on the effects of the nuclear arms race on children in the early ’80’s. I was floored, and glad, to come across evidence that the organization still exists and thrives, with an apparently broadened agenda — environmental health, nuclear security and violence prevention.

NewsWatch criticizes 60 Minutes II’s “media circus” on MDMA (Ecstasy). Many bloggers’ comments about the show were along the lines of how MDMA scares them, and it should. But the broadcast was rife with inaccuracy and sensationalism.

Greenpeace says the joint statement by the five nuclear weapons states to attempt to allay the concerns of non-nuclear states is “a lame attempt to excuse the inexcusable.” Lasst week’s conference by signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) on progress toward halting the nuclear threat reminded the nuclear weapons states that the NNPT obligated them to take meaningful steps toward disarmament. Even with the stockpile reductions by the US and Russia since the “end of the Cold War”, arsenals are massively larger than when the 1970 treaty was enacted. Had you stopped being concerned about disarmament issues?

An Australian team has extracted DNA from the remains of a Tasmanian Tiger, extinct for 60 years, and reports that a resurrection is possible. [Wired]

The NRA is chomping at the bit to have George W. in the White House, and Handgun Control wants you to know it. “…A report…released

last year based on information from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)…

indicated that there may be a large number of dangerous, convicted felons in illegal

possession of firearms in Texas. These felons are at large and have not been prosecuted,

despite their having provided the state of Texas with their names, addresses, color photos,

fingerprints and certification of their proficiency in the use of handguns when they applied for

a license to carry a concealed handgun. The report shows that, despite Governor Bush’s

calls for tough enforcement of existing gun laws and more prosecutions of gun crimes, it is

the governor’s own support for the carrying of concealed weapons that has conclusively

demonstrated that Texan felons can continue to own guns.”

Expect Legislative Attacks on Environmental Protection This Summer:

“The nation’s leading conservation groups warned today that

damaging congressional attacks on the environment are expected to proliferate this summer

as Congress rushes to adjourn before the November elections.

The groups expect that most anti-environmental riders will be added to “must pass”

appropriations bills that Congress has to enact in order to avoid a government shutdown.” [Common Dreams]

American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards 2000 Winners. I don’t know about you, but these are not the magazines I read.

The Sierra Club is raising the hue and cry about a Dept. of Agriculture plan that would essentially sell out the Everglades to the sugar industry.

The humbling of human conceit before the terrible majesty of raw nature always awes me. We need taking down a notch like that. The Perfect Storm was a good summer read a couple of years ago, and it looks to be a good summer movie. The author, Sebastian Junger, reacts to them making a film of his book. [New York Times]

Happy Cinco de Mayo. And don’t forget the grand conjunction of the planets for which doomsayers have been waiting with dread. “All seven classical solar system bodies span their smallest

geocentric arc in ecliptic longitude — 25° 53′ — at 8:08 UT on May 5. This moment is the culmination of the celestial massings. The

sun is near the center of the massing, so all that will be visible will be Mars and the crescent moon, both 16° east of the sun in the

evening sky, and perhaps Venus, 10° west of the sun in the morning sky.”

See colorful Mayan market towns in Guatemala, get exposed to quaint indigenous beliefs…and die.

House Republican Whip Tom DeLay probably thinks you are part of a ‘Cultural Coup D’etat’ against American values.

My son would go for this!

Do you remember where you were thirty years ago today when you heard about the Kent State murders?

Recreational Use of Ritalin Feared. I hate to mention this, but people have been using Ritalin recreationally for at least forty years.

Salon reviews Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish”, which denounces high-tech culture as pitiless, egotistical and (ugghh!) libertarian. Does it matter that squabbles prevented it from coming to press until five years after it was written? Time warp: “She’s especially talented at sketching

caricatures and does so throughout

“Cyberselfish,” where we meet a host of

cypherpunks and nerverts (nerds who

indulge in unusual sex), ravers and gilders,

entrepreneurial newts and programming

flamingos. Her sketches are true enough that

you nod and think, yeah, I know the type.

Indeed, at its best, “Cyberselfish” reads like

the “Radical Chic” of mid-1990s San

Francisco.”

Two interesting observations from Jason Levine’s blog Q Daily News. First:

Last night, I had dinner with a friend who lived in Germany

before the Wall came down, and she said that there was an

almost-absolute policy in West Germany for what to do when

a parent tried to bring his or her kids across the Wall and

were killed in the process — if the children had a surviving

parent in East Germany, they were returned to that parent.

In the reasoning of the West German government, the

differences in freedom between East and West did not justify

separating children from their parents.

And:

ABC is back now on New York cable. Interestingly, when I

checked, I caught about five minutes of Oprah, when she had

Janet Reno on. I was thinking that Reno’s Parkinson’s is

getting more and more noticeable (she had a clear tremor),

and just then, Oprah recommended that Reno take a little

time off, and “maybe not shake so much.” I was floored —

has anyone ever told Oprah to stop eating so damn much in

an interview? What an insensitive boob.

A Chicago Tribune article dissects the effects of China’s draconian one-child policy. Apparently, it is being phased out because of the burden of the new generation caring for aging parents without siblings. Mathematically, if the policy continued for another generation, there would simply not be enough adults to care for their elders. My own curiosity is about the effects on the national psyche of essentially an entire population growing up without knowing the experience of brotherhood/sisterhood.

Other blogs always point with astonishment to sites like this. But, given my psychiatric work, I find them merely poignant and prosaic.

An otherwise uninteresting blog pointed me to this item on how Microsoft perverts our kids’ understanding of the world. Knowledge Base article says they are “researching this problem and will post new information…as it becomes available.”

… And by the Way, a Tsunami May Hit D.C. by Timothy Noah I blogged below the original reports about the tsunami risk. Here is a column on Washington’s vulnerability. “The Geology article doesn’t actually

address the possibility that Strom Thurmond, or some other

slow-moving senator, might drown in the basement cafeteria

of the Hart building, but let’s face it: The Capitol stands not

too far from the banks of the Potomac River, as do the swank

salons of Georgetown, the John F. Kennedy Center for the

Performing Arts, the Republican political consulting firms that

line the streets of Old Town Alexandria, and the airport

recently renamed Reagan National.” Because the risk of the undersea landslide that could trigger the tidal wave may be related to global climate change, it would serve Trent Lott right if he drowned in the Washington subway, Noah notes.