Here’s at least one defeat handed to Dubya by the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Blocks Texas Execution. ‘The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Thursday night’s execution of a convicted killer

said to be so mentally retarded he spends his days coloring with

crayons and still believes in Santa Claus.

The high court said it wanted more time to decide whether to

hear arguments that Johnny Paul Penry’s mental deficiency was

not properly explained to the jury…. Penry, 44, was to become 38th Texas inmate to be executed

this year – the highest number by any state since the U.S.

Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. It

was the third execution scheduled in as many nights in Texas.

Penry’s case was at the center of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court

decision on executing the retarded, and his impending

execution drew protests from around the world. The European

Union (news – web sites), anti-death penalty groups, the

American Bar Association and advocates for the retarded urged

Texas not to execute to him.’

Eli Lilly Gets Extension on Prozac Patent

Adventures Through Inner Space. “Let’s say you’re a buttoned-down organic-chemistry jockey at Merck. One day

you tweak a molecule ripped off from a Peruvian native medicine, and you wind

up with a powerfully psychoactive compound. Instead of squelching anxiety,

instilling a reliable boner, or giving young minds that magic amphetamine edge,

the drug helps you touch the hem of God — or at least something a lot like the

hem of God. At times it hurtles you into a blazing hieroglyphic phantasmagoria

more sublime and gorgeously bizarre than anything on the demo reels of

Hollywood FX shops. On other occasions it leads you to the lip of a fundamental

insight into the dance of form and emptiness. And though later attempts to

communicate your insight founder on the shoals of coherence, the experience

still leaves you centered and convinced that ordinary life is fed by deeper springs.” An enthused paean by Erik Davis (Techgnosis) to resurgent psychedelic research these days. Feed via AlterNet

No Bark, Strong Bite: The Drug War and Elections 2000. Six of eight ballot initiatives to reform drug enforcement passed: sentencing reform in California; asset forfeiture reform in Oregon and Utah; and medical marijuana provisions in Nevada and Colorado. Legalization of marijuana in Alaska went down, as did a combination sentencing reform and asset forfeiture reform bill in my state of Massachusetts (which had unfortunate wording that would have allowed drug dealers as well as those arrested for simple possession to avoid criminal conviction and incarceration by choosing a treatment option).

The Ultimate Cereal Guide for Geeks. “Hard-working computer geeks know nothing delivers bursts of

instant energy with such caloric efficiency better than

sweetened cereal. Joab Jackson gives his review of the best

and worst cereals ever to grace the late-night lips of

malnourished programmers.” He follows the lead of Neal Stephenson, who sang the praises of Cap’n Crunch in the Cryptonomicon — rating five other cereals (have you noticed how many kinds there are out there on the market shelves these days??), he finds none stack up to the Cap’n. Baltimore City Paper via Alter.Net

Americans Uneasy About ‘Designer’ Kids. “A poll of 1,015 Americans reveals that although most feel it is

okay for parents to choose to have a child who can “give cells”

to a sick sibling, they largely oppose allowing parents to choose

to have an attractive or gifted child. Most also feel parents

should not choose whether to have a boy or girl.”

Managed Care Patients Denied Heart Attack Care. “Researchers have confirmed what critics of

managed care health plans long have suspected: heart attack

victims insured by such programs are less likely to get the

treatment they need.” Reuters

“His new translator

tells you what you

need to know about

the philosopher —

and why you need

to know it”: Being Martin Heidegger. “Why is there something instead of

nothing,” asked philosopher Martin Heidegger, and he

asked it again and again throughout his life. But,

considering his at times nearly incomprehensible response to

his own question and his affiliation with the Nazis during

the 1930s, there are more than a few who have since

plaintively wished, “Why couldn’t there be nothing instead

of Heidegger?” Salon

Piecing Together Alzheimer’s: December 2000. “The stunningly complex biochemical puzzle that underlies

this crippling disease remains incomplete, but parts that

seemed unrelated just a decade ago are now fitting into

place.” Scientific American

Are we Dumbing Down? The Guardian‘s special supplements dedicated to the issue over the past

three Saturdays. “Commentators romped through several decades of intellectual

history, television, cinema, exams, the press and literature.” If the issue concerns you, the cornucopia here includes:

Is America bad for us? How is it possible to maintain cultural difference in a

world run by US corporations?

Why today’s protesters have to be smarter The wising-up of dissent. Making

yourself heard is harder than ever

The death of custom ‘The remnants of what was at least in part an urban culture

“of the people” are being destroyed.’ Richard Hoggart, 1957. That was then. How do things stand now, in the era of Kentucky Fried Chicken and

Rupert Murdoch?

Dubious divisions What does the dumb debate mean for groups that are often

excluded from ‘high art’ yet dominate the landscape of popular culture?

The whole whack: for better or worse, we have unzipped the

very idea of what culture actually is.

From sages to celebrities What does it mean when we stop listening to

intellectuals and pay heed to pop stars?

Sex: The decline of modesty.

Violence: Thug culture is becoming the norm for the mass of young British men, with its roots in films and classroom failure.

Pop: Being dumb may be the essence of pop music,but there are

many varieties of dumb. Still, things are pretty bad.

Books: Pulp fiction: commercial realities are reducing the

chances of truly innovative novels seeing the light of day.

The problem with poetry is that you have to read it.

Art or product? It may be pointless to say Hollywood is dumb, but vitality and variety are under threat.

Zones of pure play: Why video games are good for you.

The highs and lows of film: It’s too simple to argue that the movies dumb down

over time. High and low coexist in different periods, sometimes within

individual films – a cultural history of cinema

from Sunset Boulevard to The Phantom Menace.

Going, going . . . Moaning about cultural decline is as old as the hills;

the long history behind the current dumbing down crisis.

The Bluffer’s Guide to Culture Buffs Having problems getting to grips with all

this hi-lo stuff? We are. Here’s a handy guide to the experts

Classical music Can we only listen to music in bite-sized chunks these days?

Food How come we have wider food experience than our

parents but less food knowledge?

Sport From local hero to pay-per-view demi-god:the money

culture that has turned sportsmen into superstars.

An A-Z of cultural terms What is culture anyhow? A bunch of artworks? An

activity? A habit? A product? A battlefield? A corpse? This A-Z of cultural

terms might help you find out…

The invention of popular culture. We had to create high

culture before we could have low culture.

Architecture: We have squandered the legacy of modernism and destroyed the notion of public duty

Had enough already? Then all too likely you’re part of the attention-deficit

generation.

Review of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation by Robert Provine. ‘What a weird trick has been played

on our linguistic species to express itself with such stupid “ha ha ha” sounds. Why

don’t we leave it at a cool “that was funny”?

These questions are old, going back to philosophers who have puzzled over why one

of humanity’s finest achievements–its sense of humor–is expressed in such an

animal-like fashion. There can be no doubt that laughter is an inborn characteristic.’ We share laughter with the apes; it appears to be associated with a playful attitude, and is distinct from smiling, which encodes affection and appeasement instead. Laughter is not as much as we think a response to a joke; naturalistic studies show that people laugh more frequently in response to situations that are far from humorous. Laughter’s purpose seems to be to solidify social relations by signalling mutual liking and well-being. A group of people laughing together — more often men than women, BTW — broadcast solidarity and togetherness often at the expense of the outsider. “Provine expands on this theme with the observation

that women laugh more in response to men’s remarks than the reverse. The asymmetry between the sexes starts early in

life, between boys and girls, and seems to be cross-cultural. The man as laugh-getter also turned up in an analysis of

personal ads, in which Provine found that women generally sought partners with a sense of humor, which male

advertisers claimed to have in great measure.” Scientific American

The Wait for an E-book Format. Everyone admits that e-books are the wave of the future, but we’re not even close to establishing standards that’ll allow any e-book to be read on any device. Publishers Weekly

Emperor Without Clothes Dept.: Literary criticism in the Disneyland cloisters; a year at Yale for a British PhD student in literature:

“I write the sentence down in my notebook, like everyone else in the seminar. The ode must traverse

the problem of solipsism before it can approach

participating in the unity which is no longer

accessible. When I have pieced it together, I realise

he is talking nonsense. I am struck by the thought

that literary criticism – at least as it is practised here

– is a hoax. And the universities that offer it, and the

professors who in America earn large salaries

teaching it, are fraudulent, wittingly or not.”

Gang-Bangers: A Deadly U.S. Export. The gang members we deport back to their countries of origin have it all over the homeboys. Time

If you are happy and you know it clap your hands.

Bush Team Prepares ‘Scorched-Earth’ Plan. “The battle to win 270 votes in the electoral college has taken on a unique calculus. Florida remains crucial, but the close outcomes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon are critical in what one Republican operative called a “scorched-earth strategy” GOP officials hope to avoid implementing.

The strategy is to challenge Gore’s close wins in Iowa, Wisconsin and, perhaps, Oregon. If successful in Wisconsin with 11 electoral votes and either Oregon or Iowa, with 7 each, Bush could then, under this scenario, still win in the electoral college without Florida’s 25 votes.

That depends on keeping New Mexico in the Bush column. If New Mexico flips back to Gore, Bush would have to overturn the outcome in all three other states–Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon–to make up for the loss of Florida.” Washington Post

Forget Florida—Flip the Electors! by Matthew Miller, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. He’s basically saying that tit-for-tat litigation airs dirty laundry about the U.S. electoral system that would be better off not known. He prefers Gore take the (constitutional) high ground for the country’s sake. “Would a handful of Republican electors switch and vote for

Gore? I don’t know, but as a Gore supporter I’d rather risk

his losing this way than see the nation implode on its current

path. Even 271 party hacks could not help but feel the weight

of history in ways that would lead most to go beyond partisan

interest to consult their consciences.” Of course, there isn’t a ghost of a chance of this happening (unless Gore promises a handful of these hacks ambassadorships or something); I’m answering my own question I asked on election night. And it’s not self-evident at all that this is a “crisis”, or that the nation will “implode” at all if it continues down its current path. Slate

BuzzWhack: The Buzzword Compliant Dictionary. “dedicated to demystifying buzzwords.” One of the features on this site I particularly enjoy is the Whack of the Week, in which they highlight a press release or web site that’s incomprehensible. Here‘s one:

PictureTel Corporation is focused on reinventing the rules for intuitive, content-rich remote communication, including the

launch of evolutionary PC-based integrated collaboration systems. We are harnessing the power of the broadband

revolution to deliver a range of IP-based, interactive communication solutions and will continue to accelerate solution

development and innovation to enable new models for communication and productivity.

(buzz.whack.er: n. A person who receives some degree of pleasure in bursting the bubbles of the pompous.)

What did Aum Shinrikyo have in mind? Excerpt from Ian Hacking’s thoughtful essay in a recent London Review of Books about Underground, Haruki Murakami’s new book on the sect’s 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Underground. Thinking about this “terrorist act” is fascinating and important, and thinking about Murakami writing about it is a concept in itself!

Battle Plans: a friend of mine sent me this — a call to action from J.J.Johnson, a spokesperson for the radical right, who feels he’s watching a coup d’etat by Clinton forces determined to steal the election from its rightful winner and stay in power unjustly. He lays out the plans for “freedom fighters” to oppose it. Scary stuff; read on and wonder, with me, how many people will feel similarly, and how many will listen to them. My friend said: ” If Gore wins

through a recount, the militia movement will grow radically, but mostly

they will gripe. If Gore wins through a court decision, then God help us

all – these guys will make McVeigh’s hit look like a practice run.”

The Sage of Fortune Cookies. “A quest to discover why the ubiquitous little messages so rarely predict the future anymore leads through a

byzantine world of secrecy and suspicion to an unlikely oracle.” LATimes (requires free registration)

13 Myths About the Results of the 2000 Election “Propaganda is flying left and right.

To combat this barrage, we present a point by point analysis of

some key myths in the media today, substantiated with footnotes.

Please read, copy, and forward to friends, relatives and colleagues!” Red Rock Eater Digest

Who Should Concede? “Politicians and pundits are eager for Vice President Gore to quickly

concede the presidential election to Gov. Bush and bring closure to

Election 2000.

A key argument is that Republican candidates who came close in the past —

especially Richard Nixon in 1960 and Gerald Ford in 1976 — gracefully

accepted defeat for the “good of the country” and Gore, a Democrat, now

should do the same.

Though this argument is gaining momentum, it is based on bogus history.

The real history is that Republicans since Nixon have played extraordinary

hardball and have only conceded when they were faced with clear defeat in

the popular vote. Ford was behind by 1.7 million ballots in 1976.

Indeed, it has been the Democrats who have routinely turned the other

cheek and kept quiet when they discovered evidence of GOP dirty tricks

aimed at rigging the outcome of presidential elections. These cases go

back to Nixon’s runs in 1960 and 1968 and are as recent as the 1992

match-up between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.” Consortiumnews

Hidden Data Transmission Using Electromagnetic Emanations. ‘Your computer produces electromagnetic “emanations” that in some

cases contain enough information to reconstruct, for example, the image

on the screen. These emanations can sometimes be detected at a distance,

even across the street, and this fact has given rise both to legitimate

computer security research and to urban myths. One of the urban myths,

which takes various forms, is that Microsoft has secretly used emanations

from personal computers to look for pirated software. (This is)

a message about this myth from probably the foremost authority on the

subject.’ Red Rock Eater Digest

Brain Repair Companies Sharpen Their Drills. “A local anesthetic, a small drill-hole in the

skull and a syringe full of new cells may one day be all it takes to

repair brain damage.” Regenerating damaged tissue with neural stem cells offers promise to reverse the deficits of stroke, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s etc. Tissue transplanted from aborted fetuses has been used successfully in reversing the worst symptoms of a handful of Parkinson’s Disease patients, but the ethical problems caused by depending on fetal stem cells has led to a quest for other sources, including “immortalized” human cell lines, nonhuman mammalian sources and, recently, cadavers. Companies are lining up to commercialize the approach once it is clear it is safe and effective. Here’s a primer on stem cells from the National Institutes of Health; and information from the American Association for the Advancement of Science on stem cell research and applications.

Right nostrils provide clues to brain

illnesses. “People’s right nostrils are better at evaluating strange new

smells, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, say Swedish

scientists.

While familiar smells appear to be sniffed equally by both

nostrils, it is the right that takes the lead when the nose is

challenged by a new odour.

The research has implications for the diagnosis of

neurological disorders because it suggests that only one side

of the brain is involved in processing unfamiliar smells.

By testing patients’ reactions to different scents, doctors might

be able to diagnose which side of the brain has a problem,

the researchers said…” Independent

Just can’t get enough A German researcher who found that heart rate and cortisol concentrations surge when habitual gamblers place money bets but not when playing for points claims this proves gambling is “addictive” in the physiological sense. New Scientist highlights the controversy over this claim given many scientists’ refusal to accept that a behavior can be physiologically addictive, that “you can’t have an addiction unless you take a substance.”

If the findings of the scientific paper (in the journal Biological Psychiatry) are well-described here, the assertion that it “proves gambling is addictive” is absurd. All that appears to be shown is that, when people do something pleasurable, they demonstrate some of the physiological changes associated with pleasure or gratification. In essence, the research proves that such a behavior is “addictive” only in the way we use that term in lay conversation, to mean merely something we enjoy doing alot. The more precise notion of addictiveness involves (a) physiological tolerance (as the person continues to use the substance, it takes higher and higher doses to have the same effect); (b) physiological dependency (when denied the substance at the expected interval, a physiological withdrawal reaction ensues); and (c) the drug-seeking activity is preoccupying and dominates the person’s behavior pattern.

Assertions such as the following, from the article, are risible: “…Such findings might reduce the

culpability of people who have committed crimes. If lawyers

can attribute their clients’ crimes to physiological cravings

rather than acts of free will, they may receive lighter

sentences. ” Even though all craving of pleasurable activity has a physiological basis, by no stretch of the imagination does it diminish someone’s free will by any notion of autonomy and choice I’m aware of in the behavioral sciences! New Scientist

Now you tell me — is this a related item or not? Contract bridge enhances the immune system, according to a preliminary study

by researchers at UC Berkeley. EurekAlert!

Along the same lines as what Iceland has done (see below), but on a bigger scale, Estonia sells its gene pool.

(The) Estonian people, in case you didn’t know, are just perfect. Quite

steady, as they have been settling in their present location for at

least 5,000 years, but not too isolated from the rest of the world.

Their family trees can normally be traced back into the 17th

century. More than a third of the people old enough to take a

degree have done so, and the life expectancy is 70 years.

Most importantly, they have willingly accepted the deal. Opinion

polls suggest that more than 90% of the 1.445 million Estonians

are ready to part with 50ml of their blood and a detailed account

of their medical history. A law regulating the details of the

procedure is expected to pass parliament without problems.

What seems to have won over the Estonian politicians was the

hope of becoming world leaders in something for the first time.

Guardian

“We love our small friends — we value their lives.” The Rat & Mouse Gazette.

Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect

Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect

Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect

Improbable but no longer unthinkable solutions to the Presidential election impasse.

Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect

AIDS-related virus spreads through kissing. “A form

of the herpes virus that causes an

AIDS-related skin cancer appears to

spread through kissing. Herpes virus 8 was discovered six years

ago and causes a skin cancer called

Kaposi’s sarcoma. In the United States,

the cancer occurs almost exclusively in

people with AIDS.” Researchers from the University of Washington have demonstrated that gay men infected with herpes 8 shed the virus far more often and at much higher concentrations in saliva than in anal or genital secretions. The implication, that oral-to-oral contact can be the route of transmission, needs further research confirmation. The obvious public health concern is that kissing is largely ignored in “safe sex” protocols. Transmission via the oral route makes sense when you realize the similarity between herpes 8 and the Epstein Barr virus, another herpes virus whose oral spread causes mononucleosis (“the kissing disease”) and which has been implicated in a malignancy of its own, Burkitt’s lymphoma. AP

His parents despaired of ever curing his rare phobia until they appealed for help in the local newspaper. A hypnotherapist came to the aid of this 8-year-old Gloucestershire (UK) boy and cured him of his fear of ketchup.

“Researchers in Iceland claimed yesterday to have pinpointed a gene for schizophrenia, stirring hope and anxiety among millions

of sufferers of what has been called ‘the worst disease affecting

mankind’.

The discovery is one of the first fruits of the controversial effort

by Icelandic entrepreneur Kari Stefansson’s firm deCODE to use

the medical records of the entire nation to ferret out disease

genes.’ You will recall that deCODE has given the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche the rights to commercial exploitation of its findings in return for financial backing. deCODE is applying for patent rights to the discovery and, for the moment, there is no scientific publication forthcoming; neither Roche nor deCODE is willing to even say on what chromosome the genetic locus resides. While it is implausible that one genetic defect can cause all the manifestations of this disease, it is well established that there is a heritable component. This discovery might lead to an understanding of just what the inherited vulnerability is, to ways of identifying vulnerable individuals before they develop symptoms, and perhaps to new drug strategies for treatment or even prevention. Guardian

Surf like a Bushman. Foraging theory, developed to understand animal hunting behavior and the strategies of hunter-gatherer humans, can be used to understand modern data foraging on the web. Two Xerox PARC researchers have been doing field studies of information-hunting-and-gathering and applying their observations about optimal foraging theory to search engine design. New Scientist This analogy between food and information appears to be a fruitful one for web designers as well — so eat your fill here!

A reason why some women can wrap men around their little

fingers has been suggested by a language expert: they use five

different tones when communicating verbally and men can

understand only three.

“Men only have 10 per cent of women’s speaking ability,” says

Alan

Pease, author of the book Why Men Don’t Listen and Women

Can’t Read Maps. ‘He says that women use 60 to

80 per cent of their brains to communicate, which is why they

excel in the area. Such verbal dexterity means that they are better

placed than ever to compete for new “knowledge economy” jobs.’ The Times of London

Wag the Human. Review of Stephen Budiansky’s The Truth About Dogs. Did we domesticate the dog or vice versa? ”If biologists weren’t victim to the

same blindness that afflicts us all, they probably wouldn’t

hesitate to classify dogs as social parasites.” The reviewer has a sentimental complaint that “when Budiansky deconstructs the

so-called love and loyalty that dogs have for their owners,

he reduces it all to selfish biology.” New York Times And Britannica.com has this interesting review article considering the range of animal intellect and emotion from the vantage point of several recent books. We do seem to be seeing a reawakening of interest in ethology, a generation after Conrad Lorenz. “Through

evolutionary theory, genetics, neurophysiology, and

experimental procedures, many scientists are providing

strong evidence that animals feel and think in ways akin

to humans.” The controversial Peter Singer perhaps takes this furthest. His Great Ape Project seeks to “include the nonhuman great apes within the community of equals by

granting them the basic moral and legal protection that only human beings currently enjoy, … to work for the removal of the

nonhuman great apes from the category of property, and for their immediate inclusion within the

category of persons.

Our long-term goal is a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes.”

Are We All Aliens? The new case for panspermia.

Alcoholic by Nature: The attraction of ethanol may have evolutionary origins in the selective advantage it conferred on our frugivorous primate ancestors. But it appears to be an evolutionary trait gone wrong. Biologist Robert Dudley of the University of Texas speculates on this. The Times of London I was reminded of the thinking of Andrew Weil several decades ago in The Marriage of the Sun and Moon. Proposing that the attraction of mind-altering substances is innate, he said that the natural psychoactives our ancestors used were healthier than modern purified and extracted ones. The impurities acted to self-limit consumption to manageable amounts, because one would get sick from ingesting too much. Consider the contrast between chewing a coca leaf and freebasing cocaine. (Here‘s a less-than-laudatory 1998 essay on Weil’s reasoning by the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Arnold Relman MD.) [One of the best things in Marriage…, IMHO, was the essay on the ‘right’ way to settle into the euphoric buzz you get from hot peppers such as jalapenos.]

A chance observation of an analogy to the physical world may mean that someone is closing in on the solution to the Riemann hypothesis, one of the world’s greatest unsolved mathematical problems, which relates to the distribution of prime numbers. New Scientist

‘Happy’ Kristallnacht: Hate e-mails bombard Jewish group. The emails were sent via a server in the US. Nando Times

Most Promiscuous Species Have The Highest WBC Counts.’A new study indicates that evolution of the immune system may be directly

linked to the sexual activity of a species. A comparative analysis of 41

primate species demonstrates that the most promiscuous species have

naturally higher white blood cell (WBC) counts — the first line of defense

against infectious disease — than more monogamous species.

The findings are reported in today’s issue of the journal Science.

“Our findings strongly suggest that the most sexually active species of

primates may have evolved elevated immune systems as a defense

mechanism against disease,” says (the) principal investigator.’ UniSci [via Robot Wisdom]

Happy 40th, Caffe Lena

Lions Maul Man Offering Alms. ‘A Sri Lankan man was seriously injured

when he jumped naked into a lions’ den at the national zoo,

apparently offering himself up as a feast for the big cats,

officials said Monday.

“The man…had written a letter before jumping into the enclosure saying he wanted to

give ‘alms’ to the lions,” said (the director) of the National Zoological Gardens…’

31 Eyewitnesses See Mile Long Aerial Craft in Yukon. “There are only

30,000 residents in the entire Yukon and at least thirty-one eyewitnesses near Pelling Crossing saw an aerial craft

estimated to have been nearly a mile long hovering silently about 300 feet above the ground.” A summary report with drawings by the eyewitnesses has just ben assembled by a UFO investigator, and a transcript of an interview with one of the witnesses is published here. Earthfiles

Astronomers find planet around Spock’s “home star”. “According to some Star Trek lore, the

planet Vulcan, homeworld of Mr. Spock, is

a rocky, arid planet orbiting the nearby

star Epsilon Eridani. Now, astronomers

say they’ve found a planet orbiting the

star – but it doesn’t exactly match the

description of Vulcan.” exn.ca

Gut reactions: Scientists discover ‘second brain’ in the stomach. “Scientists are claiming to have discovered a second

brain – in the human stomach.

The breakthrough, involving experts in the US and

Germany, is believed to play a major part in the way

people behave.

This ‘second brain’ is made up of a knot of brain nerves

in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100

billion nerve cells – more than held in the spinal cord.

Researchers believe this belly brain may save

information on physical reactions to mental processes

and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may

also be responsible in the creation of reactions such as

joy or sadness.” Ananova

Poland: Committee Warns against Revival of UFO Sect. ‘A national sect-monitoring

committee has issued a warning about the revival of an “apocalyptic

Polish sect” called Antrovis. It sees salvation in the landing of UFOs

on a southern Polish mountain and has been linked to the alleged

disappearances of individuals.’ The sect allows as how, when the saucers land, all terrestrials who are not sect members will be exterminated. Central Europe Online

Retailers’ Siren Song. “…your buying habits are being

mapped almost as closely as the human genome,

manipulated like Pavlov’s dog, and seduced like the

American electorate every fourth November.” Why not know what they know? Training about their insidious uses of consumer psychology may help stop you from being ‘had.’ Kiplinger’s

Bush is behaving like the U.S. version of

Milosevic, ‘telling Al Gore

“to hurry up and concede before the people find out I

really lost the election.” ‘

The man who says he wants to be “a uniter, not a divider”

and that he “trusts the people,” doesn’t give a damn that

some 20,000 voters in Florida were disenfranchised one

way or another – and the numbers keep rising. Or is it that

he figures if the country’s and world’s eyes are diverted

away from Florida, he can somehow save his baby

brother [Florida Governor] Jeb’s hide?

Jeb seemed mighty uncomfortable as he stood before the

cameras at a press conference Wednesday, rolling his

lower lip over his upper, his beady eyes darting about as

he announced he was recusing himself from the election

certification commission. State Attorney General Bob

Butterworth, a Democrat, was visibly shaken.

Does Butterworth know something we don’t? As the

state’s chief law enforcement officer, could he be

wrestling with bringing charges against Jeb and all the

constitutional officers engaged in this debacle?

Jeb promised George W. that he would deliver Florida to

him. What he left out of that statement was how he

planned to accomplish that. An investigation and a reform

of Florida’s election law are surely in order.

Florida has a long history of election fraud. So it takes a

grand stretch of the imagination to believe that so many

Florida voters and election officials are bumbling idiots,

when the funny business stretched from north to south and

east to west.

Perhaps Floridians and the nation should have paid more

attention to the 1997 election fraud in Miami. That ended

when Mayor Xavier Suarez’s election was overturned

because of fraud involving absentee ballots. City

Commissioner Humerto Hernandez, along with 13 other

elected officials and volunteers, were convicted and

sentenced to 364 days in prison for their roles in helping

to steal the election for Hernandez.

Now we learn that Suarez sits on the executive committee

of the Miami-Dade Republican Party and, in this year’s

election, was specifically involved in recruiting absentee

voters and helping to fill out absentee ballot forms. Do

you smell something rotten here?

Two breaking scandals drive Bush’s rush to

claim presidency. “Thursday afternoon the Bush

campaign scrambled frantically to seize the presidency as

it came closer to slipping out of its hands. Cabinet

appointments were announced, plans for a victory

celebration were underway, and old Bush associates were

called in to lend an air of authority.

The rush was necessary because of two breaking scandals

now nipping at Bush’s heels that could ultimately render

him ineligible for the office or heavily damaged as

president.

Bush has been accused of a deception in a Texas jury

questionnaire that has been characterized as perjury. He is

also under fire for refusing to release his military records,

despite numerous requests from the press and from

veterans groups who have provided documentation that

Bush deserted his National Guard post duty from May

1972 to May 1973.” Online Journal

Hubble Sees Bare Neutron Star Streaking Across Space. “It’s as big as Manhattan Island, is 10 trillion times denser than steel, and is hurtling our way at speeds over

100 times faster than a supersonic jet. An alien spaceship? No, it’s a runaway neutron star, called RX

J185635-3754, forged in a stellar explosion that was visible to our ancestors in 1 million B.C. Precise

observations made with the Hubble telescope confirm that the interstellar interloper is the closest

neutron star ever seen. The object also doesn’t have a companion star that would affect its appearance.

Now located 200 light-years away in the southern constellation Corona Australis, it will swing by Earth at

a safe distance of 170 light-years in about 300,000 years.”

Penguin-Toppling Claims Studied. Pilots are ridiculed for the claim that, when they fly over penguin colonies, the “curious birds topple over like dominoes as they stare up at the aircraft.” Now British Antarctic Survey researchers plan to spend a month studying the veracity of the phenomenon. Washington Post

Salon interviews Denis Dutton, founder of the Arts and Letters Daily website, and now starting up the online publishing house

Cybereditions, offering up out-of-print “worthwhile scholarly books” as etexts, HTML downloads and print-on-demand paperbacks.

In contrast to the plurality system of voting used in most American elections, Instant Runoff Voting, an election reform rapidly gaining attention throughout the US, allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate

without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it

ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the

voters. Center for Voting and Democracy

Judges have power to overturn elections. “Under a 1998 court ruling, Florida judges have broad authority to invalidate

elections or order new elections in cases in which fraud, or even unintentional error,

results in flawed outcome.” Tampa Tribune

Buchanan Says Disputed Florida Votes Are Gore’s

Alexander Cockburn on Gridlock: . “So it all came out right in the end: gridlock

on the Hill and Nader blamed for sabotaging

Al Gore.

First a word about gridlock. We like it. No

bold initiatives, like privatizing Social Security

or shoving through vouchers. No

ultra-right-wingers making it onto the

Supreme Court. Ah, you protest, but what

about the bold plans that a

Democratic-controlled Congress and Gore

would have pushed through? Relax. There

were no such plans. These days gridlock is the

best we can hope for.” And Cockburn continues with a good summary of the reasons Greens voted Green rather than “sneaking back to the Gore column.” CounterPunch

Nader and La Follette: History Repeats Itself. Should Nader’s run be cast in the same tones as Robert La Follette’s 1924 campaign as an independent against “a conservative Republican and an only marginally less conservative Democrat”?

Described as an antiracist educator, organizer and writer, Tim Wise of Alter Net writes an Open Letter to the Pioneer Fund, delighted to discover he shares their interest in “the proposition that people of different

ethnic and cultural backgrounds are, on the basis of heredity, inherently

unequal and can never be expected to behave or perform equally” , as their charter proclaims. Wicked tongue firmly ensconced in cheek, he wants them to fund his investigation into the reasons for Causasian genetic inferiority, as demonstrated by their “disproportionate drug use, binge drinking, and propensity for serial murder.”

It may be that nothing can wean whites from their insatiable appetites for

drugs and alcohol. If so, then just as your founder, Wickliffe Draper, once

said blacks were “genetically inferior,” and “ought to be repatriated to

Africa,” so too will you surely be brave enough to call for a full-fledged “back

to Europe” movement, so as to rid the U.S. of millions of narcotized

Caucasian parasites.

As one of your grantees, Richard Lynn says, it might even be necessary to

“phase out” inferior cultures: a prospect that might apply to whites if they’re

unwilling or unable to clean themselves up. Such is the price of progress.

Wanted: Homeland for 300 Webheads. ‘Most college students don’t tend to say things like “Whether or not we see a

nation of liberty on this planet could hinge largely on my competence.” Then

again, most college students aren’t self-proclaimed royalty… He doesn’t use slang or even

contractions, and he signs his correspondence “Yours in Liberty.” His chief

hobby is improving his qualifications for princehood by studying political

philosophy and keeping up with international news.’ By one writer’s count, the web is home to 118 self-defined virtual “micro-nations” with self-declared sovereignty. And some of them are looking for territory in the actual world. Alter Net

Here, in full, is a dispatch from Phil Agre (Red Rock Eaters mailing list owner), who has rapidly pulled together alot of concerns about the Florida vote situation:

[People have been sending me a flood of material about the Florida

vote, so much that I can hardly keep up with it as I’m typing here.

The situation is a mess, and it just gets worse. I’ve gathered URL’s

for a great deal of relevant information, and I urge you to pass

it along to everyone who can use it. I’m getting so much material,

the situation is evolving so fast, and the relevant Web sites are so

overloaded, that I cannot guarantee that I have summarized everything

100% accurately, or that the URL’s all still work. I’ve done my best.

Earlier I passed on a report that a locked ballot box had been discovered

in a Democratic area. Now the cnn.com Web site reports that, according

to “Miami-Dade County election officials”, this box contained no ballots:

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/ballotbox.found/

There is a lot of vague talk about other missing ballot boxes, but this

is the only one that has been formally reported to my knowledge.

But the missing ballot box was hardly the only problem, or the worst.

For example, there are the misleading “butterfly ballots”. Here is an

article from the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Palm Beach County:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000123102,00.html

This article is being continually updated. The Sun-Sentinel Web site is

overwhelmed, so keep trying.

You can see an image of the misleading ballot on these pages:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elections/palmbeachballot.htm

http://cnews.tribune.com/news/image/0,1119,sunsentinel-nation-82373,00.html

The Democrats are asserting that this ballot design was illegal under

Florida law:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-ELN-Florida-Ballot-Confusion.html

Bob Kerrey is calling for a new vote in Florida:

http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/07/results/

The problem has two aspects. First, statistical arguments and massive

anecdotal evidence suggest that the misleading ballot produced easily

enough bad votes to throw the election. Second, one of the authors of

the Sun-Sentinel article just said on public radio that something like

20,000 more ballots than one would statistically expect were discarded

in the strongly Democratic areas where the misleading ballots were used.

There is a brief statistical discussion of the issue here:

http://cuwu.editthispage.com/2000/11/08

This page should include a dramatic plot of the voting data, but it only

seems to appear under certain browsers. Here’s another URL for the plot:

http://madison.hss.cmu.edu/palm-beach.pdf

Here are some more articles on the subject:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001108/el/eln_ballot_confusion_1.html

http://www.time.com/time/campaign2000/story/0,7243,60132,00.html

I have enclosed another statistical discussion by Jeff Harris, a former

official at the Office of Management and Budget now working a public

policy consultant in Los Angeles. I have also enclosed a message by a

friend, also in Los Angeles, who was involved in an investigation of a

rigged election out here. He knew about the 1988 case in Florida, and

I found his message interesting. People have made further claims about

the 1988 election that they aren’t willing to put their names on, so I

won’t repeat them.

Nobody to my knowledge is arguing that the ballots were consciously

designed to bias the election. They are only arguing that the ballots

were badly designed, illegal, and very likely had the effect of changing

the outcome on the national level.

Enough about the butterfly ballots. Here are some other subjects…

For a while last night, the cnn.com Web site said that CNN was trying

to investigate an apparent discrepancy between the Florida voting figures

that were reported to the press and the actual count. If I understood

the sequence of events correctly, these discrepancies may have had an

impact on the bizarre sequence of events last night, possibly motivating

Al Gore’s premature concession call to George W. Bush. I was watching

the numbers minute-by-minute until about 5am EST, and there certainly did

seem to be a discrepancy. But I have not heard anything further about the

matter on cnn.com or elsewhere.

The Wall Street Journal mentions complaints of voter intimidation

(or fraud or something) based on claims that at least one conservative

radio host in Florida broadcast an assertion that, due to high turnout,

Democrats should vote on Wednesday. In the few days before the election

I saw just that claim, framed as a joke, in messages circulating on

the Internet. But then other messages said that it was Republicans

who should vote on Wednesday. In any case as I say these messages were

clearly jokes. If a radio host made such assertions in anything but a

clearly joking way then that would be a serious matter as well.

The police have locked the elections office of Volusia County, Florida

(which Gore won) after they caught an employee removing bags from it.

http://orlandosentinel.com/news/1108guard.htm

http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,247897-412,00.shtml

You can get county-by-county numbers at cnn.com. The numbers do look

strange for the down-ballot candidates compared to other counties.

It is worth remembering that Dade and Broward counties in south Florida

have big-time histories of voter fraud. For a story on one recent

episode, see today’s issue of Feed:

http://www.feedmag.com/templates/daily_master.php3?a_id=1389

One Florida journalist mentioned on public radio that the whole Miami

area is full of ex-CIA people including right-wing anti-Castro activists

and many of the major figures of the Watergate scandal, and that people

in Florida are not surprised to hear of strange goings-on in that area.

I also recommend the concise analysis at http://www.orvetti.com/.

My conservative friends are telling me what a pissy loser Al Gore is

for contesting this problematic vote in Florida. So it’s worth noting

that the Bush campaign was quite prepared to contest an election if

(as widely predicted) he won the popular vote but not the electoral:

http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-11-01/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-86769.asp

On a different and flakier subject, Consortium News reports that a voter

has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that the

New York Times made improper in-kind contributions to the Bush campaign

by repeating large numbers of false statements about Al Gore from Bush

press releases:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/110700a.html

The complaint probably won’t (and shouldn’t) succeed, but it does point

to a real and serious problem:

http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.The.New.Science.of.C.html

I’ve been told of all sorts of scenarios involving compromises between

the Gore and Bush campaigns, but I see no evidence that these things are

really happening.

I have also received all sorts of unsubstantiated reports of problems

with the vote in Florida, including rumors about suspicious turnout

levels and the handling of write-ins (and not just in the southern part

of the state). But I don’t want to report any of these reports until

someone can document them. The only reason I’m mentioning them is

because people (who I don’t know) claim to have heard about them in the

Florida media, which is something but not very much. At the same time,

I would encourage students of Florida politics to study the numbers all

across the state very carefully. You can start at cnn.com.

I am also hearing unsubstantiated reports of street protests. Have

you noticed the widespread pattern of inadequate provision for voters

in African-American communities? These include Miami and New York.

In St. Louis, large numbers of voters who had been waiting in line

were sent home by an appeals court after a day of chaos; according

to cnn.com, George W. Bush won Missouri by fewer than 80,000 votes.

phonespell.org: “Enter a 6 to 10 digit phone number and we’ll show you what words and phrases your phone number spells.

Moving? Pick a new 7 or 8 digit phone number by typing in an available exchange (first 3 to 5 digits) and see what one-word numbers you

can choose from. ”

Annals of the Age of Depravity: San Jose woman kept 5-year-old son in car trunk, police say (11/07/2000) [SJ Mercury via Obscure Store]

From a reader’s suggestion: “Keeping Time”. “We have learned to measure time via a system that is

actually more accurate than the phenomena, the events and the

movements that gave rise to it namely the movements of the earth, the

rotation and revolution of the earth. We’ve got the calendar pinpointed,

tuned so perfectly that we can refer it to the oscillation of a caesium

atom in the National Bureau of Standards. I like to think we’ve gone

about as far as we can go. Our shortest unit of time the femtosecond , a

very valid unit to be used in physics, is so small that if the distance

between the earth and the moon were a second the femtosecond would

be the width of a human hair. So maybe we haven’t stopped yet as long

as there are physical laboratories around the world we’ll probably just

keep splitting hairs won’t we.”

Dewey Defeats Truman? It’s 1:30 a.m. Eastern time and I’m going to bed to the sound of anchors intoning “too close to call, too close to call” ad nauseum. It’s certainly looking from this jaundiced vantage point as if we can look forward to four more years of these Slate “Bushisms of the Day”. I just heard, however, that it’s only in 25 of the 50 states (and D.C.) that the electors are bound to vote the way their state electorates determined. In an election as close as this — I really don’t know the answer to this — will the losers try to bring some political influence to bear on the electoral votes of the other 25 states?

Thank God, at least, the ad nauseum of the campaign season is over for another four years. And that the end of the Clinton follies is in sight. As Jonathan Freedland reflects in The Guardian,

His fellow Americans will miss him –

more, perhaps, than they realise. They’ll

miss the two terms of peace and record

prosperity, of course, but they might even

miss the psychodrama: an eight-year

rollercoaster ride so turbulent that those

who followed it become queasy at the

recollection. They’ll miss the daily

triumphs and disasters of a character of

Shakespearean complexity, a president

who stirred in the American people

passions of love and hatred unseen since

the days of John F Kennedy and Richard

Nixon – and almost never aroused by a

single man. Above all, they will miss his

signature feature, one which may well

have redefined the presidency itself: an

almost eerie gift for empathy.

I don’t know if I’d exactly call it empathy, which has a particularly complimentary connotation among us mental health professionals. Certainly, he does have an eerie — but somewhat pitiful — skill at using interpersonal insights to his advantage.

Interesting prank targets San Francisco’s movers and shakers. [via boing boing]

“The 21st century can’t

possibly be as awful as the 20th.” Review of Zeitgeist.

“In his epic new novel, Bruce Sterling leaves technophilia behind and sides with humanity.” Salon

Shakespeare a dope smoker? “Scientists believe they may have discovered the source of William

Shakespeare’s genius smoking cannabis, a British newspaper has reported.

Researchers are investigating whether the secret of the Bard’s creativity was

his dopesmoking, according to the Independent on Sunday. Pipes found at Shakespeare’s home in StratforduponAvon, central England,

are being tested for traces of the drug, the paper said.” The Age [via Null Device]

R.I.P.: David Brower Dies At 88. IMHO, the most important, evangelical environmental activist since John Muir, responsible for the influence of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth.

“More interesting than threatening…”: Scientists Downplay ‘Space Object’. “Scientists who announced last week that a

mysterious space object had a 1-in-500 chance of striking the

Earth in 30 years have retracted their prediction, saying it poses

little threat.

The object, which is either a small asteroid or piece of space

junk, has virtually no chance of hitting the planet in 2030.

However, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena

said there’s a 1-in-1,000 chance it could hit Earth in 2071.”

Funding to Deorbit Mir Confirmed, Russian Official Says. ‘The Russian government has set aside the $25 million needed to

bring down the Mir space station, an official said.

“The Russian government has already taken the decision to provide the financial resources

needed to deorbit Mir,” said Russian space agency chief Yuri Koptev. The statement runs

contrary to some media reports.’ Reuters

Studies Find Ways to Diagnose, Treat Alzheimer’s Several potential advances. First, positron emission tomography (PET) scanning of the brain apparently shows a distinctly different pattern of brain activity in Alzheimer’s Disease than in other brain dysfunctions with which it may be confused. Up ’til now, no diagnostic technique short of autopsy has been shown to improve on the educated guess we make to diagnose the condition.

A definitive diagnosis might be important if there were therapies that target the specific disease process in Alzheimer’s, which appears to be the deposition of rogue proteins in the brain in characteristic configurations called “plaques” and “tangles”. These progressively destroy normal brain tissue and interfere with cognitive functioning. The disease is incurable and inevitably fatal. A team at Johns Hopkins have now identified the enzyme that is the major player in forming plaques. Growing mice genetically engineered to be deficient in this enzyme will give a first approximation to whether blocking the enzyme could be a potential preventive or therapeutic measure agains Alzheimer’s, or whether it would have any adverse consequences.

Palestinians Try to Keep Children Away From Clashes. Latest development in this reprehensible Children’s Crusade. Israel is surely guilty of using excessive force against the uprising especially in light of the fact that many demonstrators, and many casualties, are youths. Palestinians claim that schoolchildren’s participation is spontaneous (here’s a spokesperson’s view: “the children take part because they feel the loss of

relatives along with a sense of grievance that their rights have been violated by Israeli

occupation” ) but it’s difficult for me to believe they’re not being used as cannon fodder either by toleration or active encouragement of that “sense of grievance.” We’ll see if the reported Palestinian effort to spare their children bears fruit.

On the other hand, here‘s a wonderfully written, heartfelt and earnest journal from a Palestinian woman under Israeli occupation.

Court: Prosecutors Can’t Invoke God for Death Penalty. “A federal appeals court panel

overturned a death sentence passed against a convicted

murderer on Monday, saying prosecutors should not have argued

that God sanctioned capital punishment.

In vacating the death sentence against Alfred Sandoval, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said

it was improper for prosecutors to suggest to the jury that “destroying Sandoval’s mortal

body might be the only way to save Sandoval’s eternal soul.” He also said the penalty would

be a wake-up call.” Reuters

George Will, in an op-ed piece titled The Case for Bush , makes the opposite case, IMHO.

For the official World Series magazine, Gore and Bush provided

written answers to some questions pertaining to baseball, including, “What

do you think of domed stadiums?” Gore’s complete answer was: “The design and

construction of domed stadiums–in Seattle (the Kingdome was the first

free-standing cement dome ever built), Houston (the Astrodome was the first

stadium to use Astroturf) and Minnesota (the Metrodome is the only stadium

in the US whose roof is suspended without beams or rods–it’s supported by

air pressure), for example–have been feats of architectural and engineering

excellence. But the real measure of any stadium, domed or otherwise, is how

much fun you have inside.” Bush’s complete answer was: “I like to go to

baseball games outdoors.” Washington Post

But then again, as I noted the other day, the American people don’t seem at all scared of having an intellectually deficient man in the White House. I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’m sure that there are those among Dubya’s handlers who will have an extra special reason to celebrate should their man win, knowing who’ll really be running the country behind the scenes. Let’s hope it’ll at least be better than Nancy Reagan and her astrologers this time.

Semiotics for Beginners

Context is a quarterly publication intended to create a historical and cultural context in which to

read modern and contemporary literature. Its goal is to encourage the development of a literary

community.Its latest issue has several dense but thoughtful articles, among them a description by Curtis White of the cultural criticism of George W. S. Trow. Trow’s “real contribution to the

genre is a very persuasive ability to determine

when a social formation is alive and dominant, and when it is dead….Trow argues that for the last fifty years the

United States, at the height of its world dominance and authority, has been caught in a

process of persistent social devolution that has left us with a world dominated by television

and the likes of David Letterman. It is a world emptied of all honor and truthfulness, and

whose only depth is the abysmal depth of self-reflection and ‘ironic self-contempt.’ ” Along the way, he has a very interesting analysis of the failure of the ’60’s counterculture, which he calls “vitalitarianism” insofar as he sees its central force to be the opposition to the “creeping catatonia” of television and the tabloids. In its wake, it left “our moment, …isolated, utterly lacking context, illiterate, illiberal, empty

of useful information, narcissistic,

and incapable of a single serious moment. That’s our post-Reagan, Clinton-in-ascendance,

cultural dominant. And damned if I know why Trow is wrong to say so.” Perhaps caught up in the ironic spirit, White wonders why, “…if Trow has a

brilliant grasp of when a ‘cultural aesthetic’ is alive and when dead (and he does), how is it

that he could, for thirty years, make these critical and intellectually lively distinctions from

within something that is itself dead?” He is referring to Trow’s career as a staff writer for the New Yorker, which White makes a point of explaining why he does not read (he doesn’t find the cartoons funny, among other reasons).

Plants show their bright side. A leading biologist warns us to underestimate the intelligence of plants at our peril. Telegraph

Stop Smiling, Start Griping: Why gloom is good for you ‘…Pessimism and negativity may have their

advantages. Curmudgeons may cope better than those who

succumb to the “tyranny of the positive attitude”. ‘ Telegraph

Compounds Also Present In Alcoholic Beverages May Explain Chocolate Cravings. ‘A Spanish researcher has a new clue to what motivates “chocoholics”:

a group of chemicals that might contribute to the good feelings

associated with binging on the tasty treat. The finding is reported in the

current (October 16) issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food

Chemistry… The researchers are the first to find that ordinary cocoa and chocolate

bars contain a group of alkaloids known as tetrahydro-beta-carbolines,

according to Tomas Herraiz, a researcher at the Spanish Council for

Scientific Research in Madrid, Spain. In previous research, the same

chemicals were linked to alcoholism, he said. The family of

compounds, which are also known as neuroactive alkaloids, continues

to be investigated for possible influences on mood and behavior.”

Effect of death of Diana, Princess of Wales on suicide and

deliberate self-harm . “The death of the Princess of Wales in 1997 was followed by widespread public mourning. Such major events may influence

suicidal behaviour. To assess the impact of the Princess’s death on suicide and deliberate self-harm (DSH), analysis of the number of suicides and open verdicts (‘suicides’) in England and Wales following the

Princess’s death compared to the 3 months beforehand, and the equivalent periods in 1992-1996, and similar analysis on DSH presentations to

a general hospital, revealed that suicides increased during the month following the Princess’s funeral by approximately 17%. (The author concludes that) the death of a major public figure can influence rates of suicidal behaviour. For DSH, the impact may be immediate, but

for suicide it may be delayed.” British Journal of Psychiatry

Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit

A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who

have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit

seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.

The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law

professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American

blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation

dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.

“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a

change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,

raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”

Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July

and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP

Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit

A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who

have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit

seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.

The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law

professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American

blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation

dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.

“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a

change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,

raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”

Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July

and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP

Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit

A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who

have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit

seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.

The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law

professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American

blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation

dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.

“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a

change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,

raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”

Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July

and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP

Celluloid Visions Are What Dance in My Head. “No matter how many

good baking and roasting

smells waft through the house or apartment, no matter how

old-fashioned and bountifully decorated the Highland Fraser

fir, no matter how many halls are decked with boughs of

holly and how many carols about merry gentlemen and lords

a-leaping are sung, my Christmases will always have a tragic

flaw. They’re not taking place in England.

These expectations are primarily the fault of the 1951 British

film version of A Christmas Carol, directed by Brian

Desmond-Hurst and starring Alastair Sim as a sympathetic if

rather bug-eyed Ebenezer Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge’s clerk, Bob

Cratchit, may be poor, but the holiday dinner at his house is

the epitome of Yuletide merriment.”

Pollution News Update: First, Supreme Court to Consider Air Pollution Rules. In what is considered the most important environmental case since the adoption of the Clean Air Act 30 years ago, business groups who have failed to get Congress to gut environmental regulations ever since are taking their appeal for relief to the Supreme Court, attempting to argue that the EPA is overstepping its regulatory authority. Because newly promulgated regulations tighten up air pollution standards further at great cost to polluters, industrial concerns are attempting to reverse the principle that environmental regulations can consider health effects without regard to cost-benefit analysis. And: What’s This About Cultural Pollution? “Popular culture is getting more and more juvenile, and

the serious arts, or what used to be the serious arts, often emulate popular culture,

depressingly. But we can be disappointed in our arts without being made coarser as a society.

There’s a difference. Why as a nation do we periodically presume that society is coarsened by

culture? That’s the real question.” Although of course it’s not one or the other, I think the

argument is stronger that the degradation of culture is not a cause so much as an effect of

societal decay. Serious artistic expression seems to me to have lost the power to shape the

zeitgeist. A heroic, thoughtful artist can hope at best to reflect, and reflect upon, it. New York

Times

Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit

A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who

have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit

seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.

The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law

professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American

blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation

dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.

“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a

change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,

raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”

Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July

and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP

Nowhere to go: Britain’s Toilets Find New Uses as pubs, cafes, offices and theaters. Fans of urban regeneration have long admired the Victorian edifices and wanted them preserved, but as loos or something else? Washington Post

Pro-toilet forces boost them as tourist attractions; here‘s the Loo of the Year award site.

A bit belated but: R.I.P. Steve Allen, Television’s Font of Wit . Washington Post critic Tom Shales quotes Steve Allen’s wife, Jayne Meadows, who said of her marriage: “I live polygamously with eight men: a published writer of earthy prose and poetry; a deep thinker; a comedian; a pianist; a composer; a crusader; a motion picture star, and a tender father.”

Europe told there is no choice but to adapt

to extremes of climate

which will cause new deserts in the south

and floods and wind storms in the north,

according to a new report before the

European commission. The Guardian

Giant Deep-Sea Creature Amazes Spanish Scientists. “Fishermen off northern Spain have

captured a giant specimen of a strange, light-emitting,

deep sea cephalopod, scientists said Friday.

The octopus-like creature, a taningia danae, weighs in at 275 pounds, measures seven feet

and is easily the biggest of its type discovered.” Reuters

How Jaded Are We? Russian-U.S. Crew Sets Up in Space. I’ve been amazed there hasn’t been more excitement about the fact that humans have for the first time taken up permanent extraterrestrial residency.

New Moons For Saturn:

“Which planet has the most moons?

For now, it’s Saturn. Four newly discovered satellites

bring the ringed planet’s total to twenty-two, just

edging out Uranus’ twenty-one for the most known

moons in the solar system.” Astronomy Picture of the Day

You’ve got hate mail: “Steve and Jean

Case’s $8.35

million donation to

a school affiliated

with an anti-gay

ministry prompts a

call for a boycott of

AOL.” Salon

Not with a bang but a whimper: A Wilderness Ecosystem in Collapse. The vast subarctic ecosystem of the Aleutian Islands has suddenly gone to hell in a handbasket. In just a handful of years, there has been a catastrophic reduction in the biodiversity of the Gulf of Alaska, and no one knows why. Sea mammals, crustaceans and varieties of fish, and the kelp forests that were the foundation fothe food chain have vanished. Scientists are beginning to unravel the tangled, cascading chain of effects that has led to this “regime shift”; and it’s not encouraging how fragile a web the ecosystem turns out to be. As usual, the ultimate causes of such a disastrous upset to the vital balance appear to be manmade efffects. “If this rugged, remote ecosystem is

collapsing, can any place on Earth be safe?”Indeed, there is growing suspicion that other ocean realms are undergoing such a drastic change, just with no one there to see. LA Times

Annals of the Decline and Fall (cont’d.): Films aren’t as good as they used to be, it is generally conceded. ‘Foreign-language “art house” films are still being made but… they

are a diminished force in our cultural life – on cinema and television screens and in

the eyes of the critics.’ Will serious thoughtful filmmaking survive “Hollywood’s

feelgood factor”?