For an Undersea Library. From Jim Higgins’ weblog: “A salesman for Borders who had recently started calling on Navy bases in Puget Sound asked the poet
W.S. Merwin what books he should recommend to the crews and captains of Trident submarines (with their
nuclear weapons), which have small libraries frequently visited by the sailors during their months at sea:

He asked Merwin:

Could any poem, novel or short story cause anyone to interrupt their learned sequence of actions, once
they have been ordered to launch? What words do I hope these men have read, and thought of, before
they push buttons?

Merwin took his questions seriously. In an essay in the May/June 2001 issue of American Poetry Review,
Merwin chooses five books and five poems, and explaining his reasons for each. He made a point of
choosing works that are fairly modern, making them accessible to contemporary readers.” [thanks, Higgy]

Browsing Higgins’ site yielded the following gem as well. Word Ways: the Journal of Recreational Linguistics. “For more than thirty years, Word Ways has explored the many facets of logology (an old word
resurrected by the late Dmitri Borgmann to describe recreational linguistics). Dmitri wrote the classic book on
this topic — Language on Vacation (Scribner’s, 1965), now out of print — and was the first Word Ways
editor in 1968. Word Ways is currently edited by Ross Eckler, author of the recent book Making the
Alphabet Dance (St. Martin’s, 1996), a survey of the field and the many new discoveries made in the last
thirty-five years.” [thanks, Higgy] Here are two entertaining tidbits from Word Ways:

the Francis Xavier O’Brien Problem

Nixon and the Bee

Ex-Senator Kerrey Admits Role in Vietnam Massacre “I went out on a mission, and after it was over, I was so ashamed I
wanted to die. This is killing me. I’m tired of people describing me as a hero and
holding this inside… I understand that there are all kinds of potential consequences, up
to and including somebody saying, ‘This is a war crime, and let’s
investigate and charge him and put him in prison’ .” Here’s the New York Times investigative report which broke the story.

Crew Unable to Destroy All Secrets on China Plane “In some cases the crew was not able to physically destroy the
material, and in others what they tried to destroy was not destroyed
to the extent that rendered it useless, the source said.” Uhh, under what circumstances, then, could failsafe measures be taken??

Browser delays hit Mozilla, Microsoft “Two pending browser upgrades — one from Microsoft Corp. and one from Mozilla.org — have fallen
behind schedule.

Mozilla.org.’s Mozilla 1.0 browser, which
until last week was expected to go gold
in May, is now expected sometime in the third calendar quarter of this
year…
At the same time, Microsoft’s next version of its MSN Explorer consumer browser, which Microsoft
had said it planned to make publicly available last week, now won’t be available until some time
in early May, a Microsoft spokesman confirmed.” ZDNet

Sex, lies and monogamy: “At the heart of all
long-term relationships lies a fundamental
deception — women only stay with men for security,
and men only stay with women for sex. It’s a
cynical view of human relationships, but
researchers now say it is the driving force behind
the evolution of monogamy–and women started
it. By offering sex all the time, females in
monogamous species disguise whether they are
fertile and trick males into sticking around.” New Scientist

How to delude yourself: ‘Robyn Dawes, a psychologist at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh (Everyday Irrationality: How pseudo-scientists, lunatics,
and the rest of us systematically fail to think rationally, Westview Press),
wants to show us how to recognise thinking
that is not merely muddy or wrong, but
“irrational” in a strict sense, in that it leads the
thinker into a self-contradiction.’ New Scientist

Sleep in early life may play crucial role in brain development. A new study shows that sleep enhances brain connectivity during a critical period of visual development in cats, a process called plasticity. The new study strongly suggests that sleep functions to help consolidate the effects of new learning in response to exposure to novel experience. “This is the first direct evidence that sleep modifies the effect of environmental stimuli on the development of new brain connections,” said the principal researcher.

While the study focused specifically on the impact of sleep on neuronal remodeling during the critical period for visual development in the
cat, the researchers believe the finding has broader implications, not just for plasticity during development in other brain structures, but for
plasticity in the adult brain.

If this is shown to be the case, sleep could prove an important part of the strategy for preparing for such challenges as exams. “The fact
that sleep provoked slightly more plasticity than double the amount of exposure to experience [when cats remained awake in a lit room]
suggests that if you reviewed your notes thoroughly until you were tired and then slept, you’d achieve as much plasticity, or ‘learning,’ in the
brain as if you’d pulled an all-nighter repeating your review of the material”…

“This discovery offers direction for examining the two major hypotheses for how sleep impacts plasticity. One theory is that patterned
neuronal activity following a period of environmental stimulation is replayed during non-REM sleep, strengthening neuronal connection
changes. The alternative theory, which could also work in conjunction with the first, is that powerful growth factors, such as neurotrophins,
which are known to be necessary for cortical plasticity, are released during non-REM sleep.” EurekAlert!

Lost Innocence: “This coming Saturday marks the birthday of the mathematician
Kurt Gödel. Born in what was then Austria, on April 28 1906,
Gödel died in Princeton, New Jersey on January 14 1978, having
developed a paranoia that he was being poisoned and, as a
result, starving himself to death (an altogether odd end for one of
the greatest logicians the world has ever known).

Two years ago, when Time magazine conducted a poll to
determine the 20 most influential thinkers of the 20th century,
Gödel was one of just two mathematicians in the score.” The Guardian

Teenage boys are embracing fatherhood: “Scientists have found that boys aged between 11
and 14 … unconsciously change the way they
cradle babies, a sign of their emerging parental
instincts. Nurturing behaviour at such a young age
appears to be a new phenomenon and may be
connected to the positive portrayal of fatherhood by
role models such as David Beckham.

Eighty per cent of people cradle babies on the left,
a preference that has little to do with whether they
are right- or left-handed. Past studies have shown
that the trait is present in girls as young as six. They
have also suggested that it only emerges in men
when they first become fathers.

The new study shows, however, that it is beginning to emerge at an earlier age in adolescent males. The article doesn’t explain this phenomenon of left-sided cradling, which I think has to do with unconsciously preferring to activate the nonverbal (nondominant, “emotional”) hemisphere with the direction of one’s gaze on the baby’s face. The Telegraph

Civility and Double Standards. Robert Parry: ‘As George W. Bush completes his first 100 days in office, he seems to have
accomplished at least one of his campaign promises: restoring civility to
Washington. The national press corps — that couldn’t use the word “liar”
enough when describing Al Gore’s supposed exaggerations or pretty much
anything about Bill and Hillary Clinton — now tip-toes around apparent
contradictions and misstatements by the new administration.

While some might call this a victory for civility, others might call it a
double standard. (Here’s) how the national press corps
avoids the “L” word in this new era…’ The Consortium

Psychoanalysts continue to discuss The Sopranos: ‘There is no doubt the Jennifer finds herself in an extremely difficult
therapeutic situation. Gloria and Tony are toying with her like
“great cats of prey”–contemptuously flaunting their power and
defiance–and there isn’t much Dr. Melfi can do.’ Slate. Looking at the archives of this discussion, by the way, it’s clear the four analysts are enthralled by the show’s characterization and plotting. Comments indicate that they (including the renowned Dr. Gabbard, who has written a well-received book, Psychiatry and the Cinema) consider this ongoing subplot the most realistic media depiction of the psychotherapy process they’ve seen. And Gabbard observes:

Two of the writers, Robin Green and Mitchell
Burgess, also executive producers, spoke at an analytic
meeting last year in L.A., where they were given an award.
When we asked them about how they came up with such
accurate depictions of psychotherapy in the series, they said
that most of the writing team had been in psychotherapy
themselves. They don’t actually use consultants for the therapy
scenes (except for medication questions), but the accuracy
appears to stem from good treatment experiences in their own
lives.