Month: May 2001

Clone Snafu Suspected: ” Scientists say they’ve found a reason why cloned animals sometimes drop dead or grow huge before

their time.

The paper, published in the June issue of Nature Genetics, suggests that “DNA imprinting” — a process

that the embryo’s genes go through in the early stages of sexual reproduction — goes haywire in cloned

animals.

One critic is giving the study the thumbs down, saying it was designed poorly and that it causes more

confusion than anything.” Wired

“A woman aged 62 has given birth to a

baby boy in France and may face court action for undergoing a

fertility treatment available in neighboring Italy and England but

banned under local laws.” Mother and child are doing well. Reuters

Winning entries in The Guardian‘s SMS (short messaging system) poetry contest.

Birds sing a new tune in wireless era: “Danish ornithologists say that birds, especially Starlings, have begun incorporating the sound

of a ringing cellular phone into their own songs. So far, reports of wireless warbling have been

restricted to Copenhagen, where birds seem to favor Nokia’s classic ring tone.” CNet

Top 10s: The Guardian‘s omnibus collection of authors’ quirky lists of recommended books in various categories.

Exploiting the friendly ‘good vibes’ at New Age gatherings to ‘pick up chicks’

Japanese scientists report optical transistor. New Scientist

Stop demonizing cell phones! ‘A car swerves into your lane. When you see the driver is talking on a

cellular phone you shout, “Those #$@!&! things oughtta be banned!” But let’s not stop

there. If you look at what people do on cell phones, you’ll see that banning the phones is

only the beginning–there’s a lot more we should get rid of.’ ZDNet

Stones that could be Britain’s pyramids: ‘The history books tell us how the Romans brought civilisation to

the barbarians of Britain.

But yesterday an archaeologist turned that long-held belief

upside down by claiming that the ancient people of these

islands were far more advanced than any of the early

Mediterranean cultures…

“There was no great movement of peoples towards the Atlantic,

because they were already there,” he told the Hay-on-Wye book

festival yesterday. “Only recently have we begun to discover that

these people were far more advanced than those around the

Mediterranean. We have underestimated dramatically the

complexity of these people.” ‘ The Guardian

‘Defective brain’ causes impulsive acts. The BBC bills it this way: “Scientists at Cambridge University believe they

have discovered the part of the brain

associated with impulsive behaviour.” The nucleus accumbens doesn’t function properly, as evidenced on fMRI scans, in extremely impulsive people who “can’t help it.” Rats which underwent n. accumbens lesioning were unable to delay gratification. The BBC article concludes that this is evidence of a “strong biological and, therefore, genetic basis to impulsive behavior.” Extremely reductionistic and misleading reasoning. To start simple, biological does not equal genetically based. The rats’ injuries were biological but acquired, not inherited.Organic injury, especially to frontal lobe structures, often causes impulsivity; most neurobehavioral conditions causing dyscontrol are acquired but not inherited. ADHD may have a heritable component but it’s not clear if it is primarily an impulse disorder, or if it’s even one homogeneous disorder at all. I’ve been studying, treating and writing aabout adult ADHD for more than a decade and I don’t believe it is. Don’t get me started on the absurdities of the current ADHD bandwagon fad!

Doubtlessly it is not a single small structure but the concerted action of many frontal structures that helps us with being planful, maintaining set, inhibiting urges, and deferring gratification, all parts of the complex human capacity for “impulse control.”

Are readers aware that clicking on the icon at the end of any post can start a fertile, intelligent, enlivening and enlightening discussion on that post on the FmH mailing list?

The intolerable truth of genetic inequality: “In free Western democracies today there

are certain ideas which are so explosive that

even to acknowledge their existence

publicly is to incur the most savage penalty

from the reigning liberal establishment. You

will be labelled a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a

fascist or in some way be demonised as

intolerant. Henceforth you will have no credibility. Nothing you say will be listened

to.

You will cease to exist in current debate, except in the ridiculed fringe. Your

persecutors will be the people who most preach tolerance. Yet they are the most

intolerant of all.

In a way that is what happened to American social scientist Charles Murray after

he wrote his controversial 1994 book which linked race and IQ, The Bell Curve:

Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Sydney Morning Herald

“A British eating disorder organisation was today warning women

about the dangers of visiting pro-anorexia Websites and chatrooms. These corners of cyberspace are filled with people who are aware

that they have eating disorders, but see it as a positive way to live

their lives.

Many refer to themselves as ‘pro-Anna’, and swap tips on how to

starve themselves and how to hide the obsession from others.

The sites and chatrooms are often littered with pictures of terrifyingly

skinny women.

They also include photos of celebs such as Ally McBeal star Calista

Flockhart and model Kate Moss.” The Register

“When we got the first shipment we

weren’t sure that it had arrived. The worker who unpacked it

said we’d got the packaging but not the things inside.” Invisible toy doll makes money out of thin air. “The US company behind action figure Invisible Jim says it

encourages children to use their imaginations and doesn’t

take up any space.” Ananova

666 Watch:

‘What is 666: The Mark of the Beast? Can a Christian take the 666: The Mark of the Beast? Is “www” equal to “666” in Hebrew? Can someone “innocently” or “accidently” receive 666: the Mark of the Beast? What if I “innocently” take a debit card, credit card, a vaccine, smart-card, or

biochip and it turns out to be — 666: The Mark of the Beast? Is the biochip implant The Mark of the Beast? What about barcodes and 666: The Mark of the Beast? Do barcodes really have the number 666 “hidden” in them?’

Missing in Action: what happened to the men of the 364th? “The story, whispered around Centreville, Mississippi since World

War II, goes like this: Members of the 364th (Negro) Infantry

Regiment were killed at Camp Van Dorn to silence their

relentless–and sometimes violent–demands for equality in a

segregated Army. Some swear they witnessed the shoot-out or

events that led to a shoot-out or its aftermath. Some say the

casualties were many, others say just a few. Some testimony

claims to be first-hand, much is just hearsay.” In These Times [I certainly don’t know if this is true, but if you don’t think it’s plausible, that’s another story.]

Blogging as a Form of Journalism: “Weblogs offer a vital, creative outlet for alternative voices” USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review

“Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall.” Matthew Rossi’s back, finally.

Stressed Out? Bad Knee? Try a Sip of These Juices As if you didn’t know it, the juice drinks with the herbal additives with which you’ll quench your thirst this summer come from the big beverage companies and are probably no healthier than Coke or Pepsi, except insofar as they inflate your self-righteousness when you drink them. And when pressed about the veracity of the health-promoting claims they make for them, the beverage companies say things like “We don’t claim that,

it’s just a playful theme.”

For all you pious vampire fans — recognize the actor? [via MetaScene]

I can’t believe it. I finally got one of those scam letters we’re always warned about!

Subject: Investment Pact

Greetings,

It is with strict confidence and trust that I wish to contact you seeking for your assistance to help

as regards an investment opportunity. I sincerely hope that this letter will not come as a surprise to

you, or cause you any embarrassment since we neither knew each other before, nor have had any

previous contact or correspondence. I would appreciate your benevolence in giving this matter the

much-needed attention as I am presently in a difficult situation and need your assistance and

guidance urgently.

I am Mrs. Ndaye Banya, wife of Maj. Timothy Banya, the former commander and head of the

Secret Unit in charge of Diamond dealing for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra-

Leone. My husband was formerly working directly with the former Rebel Leader Mr. Foday

Sankoh who is presently in government custody. The government intends trying Mr. Sankoh for

illegal diamond dealing and especially for the killing of 21 people during a public demonstration

outside his home in May last year which subsequently lead to this arrest. As the situation is, my

husband is very much likely to be prosecuted alongside for activities in the diamond mining.

The RUF is now headed by Gen. Issa Sesay who is determined in bringing peace to Sierra Leone,

he signed a cease-fire agreement with the government on Friday 10th Nov., 2000 and instructed

that peace must returned to our fatherland after nine-years conflict, pledging to allow U.N. troops

unhindered access throughout Sierra-Leone. My fear is that the government will try Mr. Sankoh

and that my husband may also be prosecuted alongside and our assets may be confiscated. Also all

accounts abroad and locally traceable to our name and families may also be frozen given the

circumstances.

In view of this development, I was initially trapped with about US$20,000,000.00 (Twenty Million

United States Dollars) that is in cash in boxed containers. Through the assistance of my proxy in

collaboration with a set of Diplomats, I was able to move to this consignment out of Sierra Leone

to a Security Firm in a neighboring West African country. The money is kept and lodged in a

security vault under the auspices of the Security in a crate marked antique. For the time being it is

safe and content undisclosed.

All I want you to do is to receive the said amount in your name and invest it on my behalf while

maintaining my anonymity in whatever business endeavour you decide undertaking. My situation is

very desperate, as I cannot leave Sierra Leone because of the house arrest I am under.

In the light of above, I am soliciting your assistance and partnership to move this money out of the

Security Firm as both of us can make a fortune. I would require your assistance in terms of logistics

and materials to enhance the movement of the consignment from the Firm in question. Therefore,

contact me immediately, if you are able and interested in assisting me in this endeavour preferably

using my alternative email address at ncbanyand@email.com, as soon as possible.

Thanks for your anticipated understanding and assistance.

Yours faithfully,

MRS. N. BANYA

Email: ncbanyand@email.com

---

A Note:

Each generation must out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it. (Frantz

Fanon)

I intend to send an encouraging reply; I’ll share any further correspondence from “her” with you. You could write her with excitement, saying you just heard about the fantastic investment opportunity she offered an acquaintance of yours and you wanted to get in on the action. I won’t mind that you violated her “strictest confidence”, honest.

Owning the Future: Looting the Library:

” As we plunge

into the digital realm, the nation’s 16,000 public libraries are

striving to uphold their tradition as protectors of public access to

new books and articles. But publishers, in an increasingly bald,

frontal assault on the library’s mission, have something very

different in mind: a pay-per-use model for information content

that will largely shut libraries out.

The battle is being waged on many fronts, from legislative

initiatives and lawsuits to the publishing industry’s unilateral

pursuit of copy-protection technologies that will keep

users—including libraries—from sharing digital content.”

Pat Schroeder, in a former life a distinguished progressive Congressional representative from Colorado and now chief lobbyist for the publishing industry, “has been quoted as saying that

publishers have to ‘learn to push back’ against libraries, which

she portrays as an organized band of pirates!” Technology Review And: The science world is in revolt at power of the journal owners: “Scientists around the world are in revolt against moves by a

powerful group of private corporations to lock decades of publicly

funded western scientific research into expensive,

subscription-only electronic databases.” The Guardian

The Quest for Justice: Aryeh Neier’s essay reviews a number of books on war crimes tribunals, the truth-and-reconciliation commission model, and the modern problem of making a people think about their responsibility for the atrocities committed in their name. New York Review of Books

Corporate anthropology: Dirt-free research. I studied cultural anthropology as an undergraduate. Money wasn’t the reason I didn’t go into the field, but it could have been; job prospects in anthropology never extended far beyond the campus — except to things like an uneasy marriage to oil companies consulting on how to exploit indigenous people’s land rights in “culturally sensitive” ways. But now it appears anthropology has successfully, comfortably reinvented itself as a tool of the domestic corporate economy. CNN

A Brief History of SPAM®, and Spam: ‘In a policy statement on SPAM® and the Internet posted on its website, Hormel now

says that it “does not object” to use of the slang term “spam” to describe unsolicited

commercial e-mail.

Instead, the company asks only that people writing specifically about square, canned

pork follow a set of trademark guidelines.’ Wired

“You have to be courageous to publicly criticize the Church

of Scientology. The organization recently proved — again

— how far it will go to investigate, smear and intimidate

critics… Scientology claims that it has reformed

and says it should be treated like any

other church. But the Jesse Prince case

and others continue to set this church

apart.” St. Petersburg Times

State of the Art: Zeroing In on Wristwear New York Times

Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation. Not just in the areas of the environment and energy, but everywhere. Among other tidbits in this article is news of a Harvard professor tapped by Shrub as an appointee for a major regulatory post (whose research on risks is a favorite of big business) who believes low-level dioxin exposure is good for you. At first glance, this anti-regulatory gobbledegook might sound appealing to those of you readers who are of the libertarian persuasion, but is the corporate terrorism against our environment, our pockets and our bodies really the price you want to pay for illusory relief from government tyranny? I was pointed to this article, by the way, by Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. Phil has started to see the new president as a four-letter word; I notice he’s begun to refer to him as “B—.”

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has also had some recent harsh words for Li’l George, says CNN. ‘Jiang is said to have called Bush

“logically unsound; confused and

unprincipled; unwise to the extreme,”

at a high level internal Communist

Party meeting. ‘ And let’s not forget the simple classical epithet, liar: Washington Post or New York Times.

Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation. Not just in the areas of the environment and energy, but everywhere. Among other tidbits in this article is news of a Harvard professor tapped by Shrub as an appointee for a major regulatory post (whose research on risks is a favorite of big business) who believes low-level dioxin exposure is good for you. At first glance, this anti-regulatory gobbledegook might sound appealing to those of you readers who are of the libertarian persuasion, but is the corporate terrorism against our environment, our pockets and our bodies really the price you want to pay for illusory relief from government tyranny? I was pointed to this article, by the way, by Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. Phil has started to see the new president as a four-letter word; I notice he’s begun to refer to him as “B—.”

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has also had some recent harsh words for Li’l George, says CNN. ‘Jiang is said to have called Bush

“logically unsound; confused and

unprincipled; unwise to the extreme,”

at a high level internal Communist

Party meeting. ‘ And let’s not forget the simple classical epithet, liar: Washington Post or New York Times.

Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation. Not just in the areas of the environment and energy, but everywhere. Among other tidbits in this article is news of a Harvard professor tapped by Shrub as an appointee for a major regulatory post (whose research on risks is a favorite of big business) who believes low-level dioxin exposure is good for you. At first glance, this anti-regulatory gobbledegook might sound appealing to those of you readers who are of the libertarian persuasion, but is the corporate terrorism against our environment, our pockets and our bodies really the price you want to pay for illusory relief from government tyranny? I was pointed to this article, by the way, by Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. Phil has started to see the new president as a four-letter word; I notice he’s begun to refer to him as “B—.”

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has also had some recent harsh words for Li’l George, says CNN. ‘Jiang is said to have called Bush

“logically unsound; confused and

unprincipled; unwise to the extreme,”

at a high level internal Communist

Party meeting. ‘ And let’s not forget the simple classical epithet, liar: Washington Post or New York Times.

More on the Face on Mars: an Astronomy Picture of the Day closeup. (Click on it today; link changes daily. You can find it in the archive afterwards.)

The blink below about the new ‘aliteracy’ has stimulated some discussion offline. While not solely, or probably even centrally, attributable to the computerization of our consciousness, it’s worth asking what technological advances are doing to the English language and language in general, as MIT media technology professor Michael Hawley does in Things That Matter: Waiting for Linguistic Viagra.

It’s important to communicate. It’s important to have a lingua

franca. But it’s also important to think differently. The most fertile,

thriving cultures have a balance of order and chaos, with

constant ferment. But today’s computer media are flat and

Anglocentric. Things are a bit too stuck, a bit too ordered. Both

within the machines and across the network, we could enjoy a

little more linguistic turmoil. Technology Review

By the way, my gratitude to Fred Lapides for pointing out to me this epigram by Hawley — who’s an interesting, prolific, guy — atop Mark Woods’ wood s lot: “Language is the mind’s opposable thumb.” I like that… as much as William Burrough’s comment about language being a virus… and Laurie Anderson’s immortalization of the latter in song. Looking at wood s lot today, you’ll find, from Wittgenstein: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” And speaking of minor bewitchments by language, Mark, I know, you’re “Woods”, not “Wood”, so “woodlot” just wouldn’t work, but the lack of an apostrophe in “wood s lot” has always struck me like an itch I can’t scratch. [Oh, there, I just scratched it.]

“We at Literary

Kicks believe in deconstructionism as long as you

clean up after you’re done. ” LitKicks: “The site is devoted to a few experimental literary

movements that tried to uncover some deeper

truths about life. In studying the life stories of the

writers as well as their works, there are sometimes

even more interesting truths to be revealed than

are found in the works themselves… And we do not believe

masterpieces exist, nor do we want them to. We

prefer the glory of brilliant mistakes.” Four main sections cover the Transcendentalists, what they refer to as ‘La Boheme’ (Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire… and Blake), the Beats and the post-Beat Hippie writers.

Could Senate Balance of Power Shift Again? As I speculated when I noted Jeffords’ switch below, “(t)he fragile balance of power could be further altered or even shifted back in the GOP’s

favor if another senator were to switch parties or forced to give up their seat in the

Senate.” ABC News has an improbably expansive list here considering nine other fence-sitters as well as the seats of the potentially indisposed Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, which would probably go to the Democrats.

I was out of town and not weblogging on Saturday, so I missed my chance to note Miles’ 75th birthday. Fortunately, journalist and online friend (“e-friend”?) Jim Higgins wrote to point me to this article he recently wrote on Davis, which makes an important point on the lack of attention paid to Miles’ electric years from the late ’60’s onward. Higgins describes Dutch guitarist Paul Tingen’s Miles Beyond, which claims that Davis’ plugged-in years still pack plenty of influence. I’d have to say I fit Higgins’ description of “many

listeners from the jazz continuum (who) dismiss his electric

era as a mistake, a sellout, a dead end in bad odor” I make an exception for In a Silent Way, at which I imagine most electric Miles fans scoff, probably because of its transitional nature. It’s not being plugged-in per se that’s the problem for me, any more than I would’ve joined the Newport Folk Festival audience in boo’ing Dylan when he played electric. It was rather the bastardization of jazz by funkifying and rockifying it that was the problem for my tastes. I’ve been relieved that many electric jazz musicians have, more recently, migrated back to straight-ahead acoustic formats, including Miles’ former sidemen Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation. Not just in the areas of the environment and energy, but everywhere. Among other tidbits in this article is news of a Harvard professor tapped by Shrub as an appointee for a major regulatory post (whose research on risks is a favorite of big business) who believes low-level dioxin exposure is good for you. At first glance, this anti-regulatory gobbledegook might sound appealing to those of you readers who are of the libertarian persuasion, but is the corporate terrorism against our environment, our pockets and our bodies really the price you want to pay for illusory relief from government tyranny? I was pointed to this article, by the way, by Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. Phil has started to see the new president as a four-letter word; I notice he’s begun to refer to him as “B—.”

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has also had some recent harsh words for Li’l George, says CNN. ‘Jiang is said to have called Bush

“logically unsound; confused and

unprincipled; unwise to the extreme,”

at a high level internal Communist

Party meeting. ‘ And let’s not forget the simple classical epithet, liar: Washington Post or New York Times.

Lionel Tiger on what the “Monkey Man” can teach us about ourselves Wall Street Journal

Study Casts Doubt on the Placebo Effect: “[I] n a new report that is being met with a mixture of astonishment and

sometimes disbelief, two Danish researchers say the placebo effect is a

myth… The report found no support for

the common notion that, in general, about a third of patients will

improve if they are given a dummy pill and told it is real.

Instead, the researchers theorize, patients seem to improve after taking

placebos because most diseases have uneven courses in which their

severity waxes and wanes. In studies in which treatments are compared

not just with placebos but also with no treatment at all, they said,

participants given no treatment improve at about the same rate as

participants given placebos.” New York Times

David Brake’s blog is back but it’s here, at blog.org.

NASA Captures New Images of the Face on Mars: “New high-resolution images and 3D altimetry from NASA’s

Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft reveal the Face on Mars

for what it really is.”

Scientists switch memory recall on and off in fruit flies. “Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have used a genetic strategy in

fruit flies to switch electrical activity in the insect brain on and off at will. In doing so, they have made the

surprising discovery that switching off electrical activity in the brain blocks memory recall, but not initial

formation of memory.”

Happy birthday, Bob!

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them,” said Twain. More and more Americans who can read are choosing not to. The ‘aliterates’ have less and less time, are too impatient, champion the superficial, live in a more multicultural society that is shifting from words to logos and symbols, and “base their future decisions on what they used to know,” according to one critic. Washington Post So, yes, don’t settle for reading the weblogger’s synopsis, click on the link and go to the source, indeed. But, as an inveterate reader who’s become increasingly impatient with much of what I read, it appears that the essay leaves out any consideration of the declining quality of writing as well as reading. I often find, and I hope I’m not merely sounding arrogant or deluded here, that there’s only one good idea in a written piece and, once you’ve grasped it, you’ve got it.

Annals of Ignorant Litigation: Paxil Follows Prozac into the Courtroom: “The maker of Paxil will be in a Wyoming courtroom next week to defend

its antidepressant against charges that the drug caused a user to shoot

three family members and himself to death.

GlaxoSmithKline faces the same charges that Eli Lilly and Co. has beaten

twice in court over the alleged ability of its drug Prozac to induce

suicide and violence.” PsycPort

How to Defeat GI Joe “A retired Army sergeant offers 30 handy military tips to Cobra Commander.” Daily Radar

Shrek

is not Shrek! “William Steig’s subversive misanthropy is jettisoned for winking

innuendo in the movie version of his children’s book.” Salon

The Atlantic has this opinion piece on the increasing trend toward retrospective medical diagnosis of literary and historical figures. Longtime readers of FmH have heard me notice and cavil about this trend before. This piece is not so rueful.

Why’d he do it? “Sen. Jim Jeffords has had problems with his party for a long time, but President Bush appears to have pushed him over the edge.” The April 23rd snub by wrathful Li’l George was the last straw. Also: Will Trent Lott pay for losing the Senate?

“Angry GOP moderates say the White House and party right-wingers drove Jim Jeffords out of his own party… Over the last generation, zealous conservatives have systematically purged their

party of dissidents — representatives of a moderate strain of reform Republicanism running from Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Rockefeller.” [If playing the margin is where the action is in the Senate, will we see Democratic defectors too?] Salon

Is this the face of Shakespeare? New York Times

“I just wish there had been something more to hold her here.” More on the tragic life and suicide of jazz singer Susannah McCorkle, who yielded to the hopelessness of her chronic depression. Are there some for whom it’s destined unalterably to be a terminal disease, no matter how much they might struggle? New York Times

The SurLaLune Fairy Tales Site: an attractive site containing the texts of classic fairy tales — suitable for download or printout to read aloud to your children — and annotations, histories of the tales, similar tales from other cultures, bibliographies etc. for the oral tradition scholars among us.

Juan Gonzalez on Pacifica Radio’s strong-arm tactics. “Dear Friend,

We have reached a critical point in our campaign to save the Pacifica network. Our movement is

winning, but to achieve the quickest victory possible we need your help…” NoLogo

Capture the Moment: On the uses and misuses of photojournalism. “This may be a useful time to reconsider our relationship to

photojournalism. For it is a relationship that is increasingly disturbed

and yet absolutely key to our understanding of, and bewilderment

about, the world outside our selves (and possibly, therefore, about our

inner selves as well). In our image-glutted culture, our connection to

photographs—and especially to those that record atrocities, wars,

and other manmade disasters—resembles a bad but inescapable

marriage in which one unhappy partner distrusts yet depends upon

the other. (As in so many unhappy marriages, there is a convenient

third party—in this case, the exploitative photojournalist—to blame.)” Boston Review

The Culture War Against Kids: “The culture war is not just phony, but reactionary. It commodifies powerless groups

to project a fearsome image of constantly escalating menace, suppresses discussion

of real social inequalities, and promotes repressive government solutions. Youth are

the most convenient population upon which to project damage, keeping the debate

safely away from questioning adult values and pleasures that form the real

influences on youths. In short, the culture war is not about changing genuine

American social ills such as high rates of child poverty, domestic violence, and

family disarray, but fomenting an endless series of moral panics that obstruct social

change.” A convoluted argument, unconvincingly argued, that fear of youth is fabricated. AlterNet

Fires Believed Set as Protest Against Genetic Engineering. A research laboratory at the University of Washington and several buildings at an Oregon tree nursery went up in flames, apparently simultaneously overnight Sunday night. Authorities cited “strong indications” that responsibility lay with a loosely knit radical environmental network opposing genetic modification of trees. ELF, the Earth Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for similar acts in the past, including the celebrated torching of an Aspen CO ski resort, and its initials were spray-painted at the site of the fire in Oregon. It is unclear if there is an organizational core of ELF or if unrelated eco-radicals operate under its banner.

The Washington fire may have destroyed a significant portion of the world’s population of at least one rare plant painstakingly raised from tissue cluture at the lab. Some environmental groups have supported genetic modification of trees, reasoning that augmentation of yields from commercial tree farms will reduce pressure to log old-growth forests. However, could the alterations come to harm native forests by escaping and dominating wild types? New York Times

Senator From Vermont Says He Is Leaving G.O.P.. A Democratic majority looms as James Jeffords jumps ship, either to the Democrats or independent status. Jeffords, a moderate who often voted with the Democrats and opposed Li’l George’s tax cut proposal, was apparently offered strong, but unspecified, inducements by Dems. and Repubs. to convince him to go or stay. He’s going, and whether to the Dems. or independent, the Republicans lose their ascendency and their committee chairmanships in the Senate, and bye bye, Trent Lott. Now some of the heat is off frail 98-year-old Strom Thurmond to hang on as long as he can. New York Times

Genetically-Modified Food Spoof and NY Times Reefer Madness — AlterNet media commentary.

India: Dealing With the Dead. The Zoroastrian tradition of leaving bodies unburied to decompose and be consumed by vultures is threatened by a decline in the scavenging birds. High-tech to the rescue, with ritualistic trials of ozone generators to mask the smell (which has been offending upscale neighbors of the Zoroastrian community) and solar reflectors to hasten decomposition. Wired

Rejection of Sharon’s truce proposal. ‘Palestinians lost no time in branding Sharon’s truce

proposal a “trick” designed to divert international

criticism of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

They said calm can only be restored after Israel halts

settlement construction.

Israel’s truce offer came a day after an international

commission, headed by former U.S. Sen. George

Mitchell, published its recommendations [overview here from CNN] for ending eight

months of fighting and restarting peace talks.’ MSNBC

Japan scientists find possible Alzheimer’s cure: “Ikuo Nishimoto, a professor of

pharmacology and neurosciences at

Keio University in Tokyo, said on

Tuesday his team has discovered a protein, which they have named humanin,

that can stop the death of brain cells that occurs in Alzheimer’s patients.” Years of testing lie ahead before approval for clinical use, of course… CNN

Bush Talks With Dalai Lama Seen by China as 2d Jab in Eye: ‘It is just “a

coincidence,” of course, that President

Bush will have a well publicized “private

meeting” with the Dalai Lama on, of all

days, May 23.

The meeting was condemned today by Chinese officials who have spent the last

week extolling May 23 as an important anniversary in the “liberation” of Tibet.

They have also been shrilly denouncing the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan

leader, as a wicked proponent of serfdom and a “scum” who wants to split the

motherland.’ New York Times [Finally, the Court Jester and I are on the same side of an issue, although of course not nearly for the same reasons…]

Clay Idols – At home with Wallace and Gromit Slate

Picture Books about Interracial Families, via Random Walks.

Though they’re trespassers to police, stealthy subculture thrives. Urban exploration continues to exert its odd fascination. SF Gate I wrote about this in FmH early on (when I have time, I’ll search back for the relevant links…)

David Brake is back he wrote me to say, although this most recent post on his weblog is dated April 20: “Apologies for the seemingly erratic updating of this blog. It is moving from one server to another – a process I thought

would be straightforward but which turned out to be a little trickier than I had bargained for. I’ve brought this copy up to

date now and soon you will be getting blog.org from an all-new and hopefully greatly improved and reliable location.

Hurrah!”

Weblog Madness: Other Media; here’s a list of media coverage of weblogs and weblogging.

The critics ring in: The Sopranos: Violence Rises on TV, but on This HBO Show, It Makes a Point

“But while the blood, beatings and deaths have kept everyone buzzing, from

ordinary viewers to the president of NBC, the more important issue goes beyond

how much splatter appears on screen. For the first time, this season’s Sopranos

relied heavily on violence directed against innocents, especially women,

characters not involved in Tony’s mob career.

And Tony’s explosion against his girlfriend put him in the center of violence

outside what his business demands. By daring to put Tony in such an

unsympathetic position, the series’s creator, David Chase, has done more than

escalate the brutality. He has kept the series honest, true to the lethal

consequences of a mob boss’s life, and refused to let audiences feel comfortable

with Tony’s career choice. In giving new meaning to the phrase brutally honest,

this season matched the awe-inspiring artistry of the first.” New York Times

And the psychoanalysts:

‘For 13 weeks the debate has intensified about what makes The

Sopranos so compelling. With tonight’s final episode for the

season–which was indeed anticipated in much the same manner

as the Super Bowl–we can answer the question. We are drawn

to the show because it is so radical in the sense that it explores

in an unflinching way some of our most troubling and deep-seated

sociocultural problems…

Kafka said that psychoanalysis provided a means for secular Jews

to try to orient themselves in the modern world. Tony is in the

same position as the newly secularized Jew was of Kafka’s time.

The traditional solutions don’t work, and the best place to turn to

get one’s bearings is some form of psychotherapy. Therapy

certainly can’t provide the certitude and the consolation of

traditional religions. Like life itself, it is an imperfect process

practiced by imperfect people, and we shouldn’t pretend

otherwise. And while Dr. Melfi has come in for her share of

criticism at our hands, she has turned out to be one of the most

constructive figures in Tony’s life. At times, it seemed she wouldn’t

make it through this treatment. But she persisted, battling her own

demons along the way. And now–psychologically

speaking–we’d have to say that Tony is in a much different

position than he was when he first walked though her doors three

seasons ago. Whether he is at the same time politically weakened

as a mafia don is another story.’ Slate

Like “… jazz musicians collecting themes that sound good for a

work in progress”: Before the Big Bang, There Was . . . What? ‘…(L)ately, emboldened by progress in new theories that seek to unite Einstein’s

lordly realm with the unruly quantum rules that govern subatomic physics —

so-called quantum gravity — (cosmologists) have begun to edge

their speculations closer and closer to the ultimate moment and, in some cases,

beyond it.

Some theorists suggest that the Big Bang was not so much a birth as a transition,

a “quantum leap” from some formless era of imaginary time, or from nothing at

all. Still others are exploring models in which cosmic history begins with a collision

with a universe from another dimension.’ New York Times

To Err May Be Human, But to Forgive Is Good for You. A psychologist thinks about the crucial, and often overlooked, significance of the complex internal process of forgiveness. New York Times

Solomon Snyder, one of the founders of modern psychopharmacology, reviews Psychedelics, psychosis and dreaming by Allan Hobson, a preeminent and synthetic neuroscientist of consciousness. ” All in all, Hobson succeeds in providing a fresh

perspective on the mental alterations that are

common to dreaming, psychosis and psychedelic drug

actions. The book is written in a lively style with

complex neurophysiologic and pharmacologic analyses

made lucid enough for any intelligent lay reader. It is

one of those rare books that will be of importance to

the most sophisticated researchers and clinical

practitioners and yet an accessible and a fascinating

read for many non-specialists.” Nature Neuroscience

An objection to the memetic approach to culture by Dan Sperber, French anthropologist and cognitive scientist. Note the ‘strong’ definition of memes — cultural elements non-genetically transmitted and subject to a process of selection; selected for because transmission benefits themselves, not necessarily their human carriers. Sperber’s objection to a memetic notion of culture is the low fidelity of reproduction of memes when they are transmitted, i.e the ‘Lamarckian’ reproduction of characteristics acquired in each generation. If, cultural patterns have high stability despite this low copying fidelity, something other than the meme, ‘behind it’ in a sense, is being transmitted and shaping consistency. He concludes:

Memeticists have to give empirical evidence to support the claim that, in the micro-processes of cultural transmission, elements of culture inherit all

or nearly all their relevant properties from other elements of culture that they replicate (i.e. satisfy condition 3 above). If they succeeded in doing

so they would have shown that developmental psychologists, evolutionary psychologists and cognitive anthropologists who argue that acquisition

of cultural knowledge and know-how is made possible and partly shaped by evolved domain-specific competencies are missing a much simpler

explanation of cultural learning: imitation does it all (or nearly so)! If, as I believe, this is not even remotely the case, what remains of the memetic

programme? The idea of a meme is a theoretically interesting one. It may still have, or suggest, some empirical applications. The Darwinian

model of selection is illuminating, and in several ways, for thinking about culture. Imitation, even if not ubiquitous, is of course well worth

investigating. The grand project of memetics, on the other hand, is misguided.

More about Sperber here.

Brain Damage Case Reveals Mind’s Filing System — “A woman who could not tell you whether an

orange is orange has led to new insights into how the brain organizes its

thoughts. Researchers say her case illustrates how the brain files away

the different details of individual objects so that we can know them

inside and out.” The punchline is that it appears that the attributes of an object — its color, size, shape, function, etc. — are stored in distinctive places. Here’s the abstract. Nature Neuroscience

Evolutionary origins of stigmatization: the functions of social exclusion. From the abstract: “The authors propose that phenomena currently placed under the general rubric of stigma involve a set of distinct

psychological systems designed by natural selection to solve specific problems associated with sociality. In particular, the

authors suggest that human beings possess cognitive adaptations designed to cause them to avoid poor social exchange

partners, join cooperative groups (for purposes of between-group competition and exploitation), and avoid contact with

those who are differentially likely to carry communicable pathogens.” Psychological Bulletin

Taleban to mark Afghan Hindus — “Hindus will be required to wear an

identity label on their clothing in

Islamic Afghanistan to distinguish

them from Muslims, a Taleban

minister told Associated Press on

Tuesday.” CNN Shades of Nazi pogroms?

Tree Slackers. With Shrub’s intention that environmental quality be damned as clear as he makes it, why can’t the environmental left get its act together in opposition? The American Prospect

McVeigh’s Last Message: “If the FBI can “misplace” a cache of

documents in the most notorious death-penalty

case since the Rosenbergs, is it any wonder that

nearly 100 factually innocent people have ended

up on death row in recent years?” The American Prospect

Product Images to be Inserted in Law & Order Reruns: “Turner Broadcasting System has reached a deal to allow it to

insert virtual product images in reruns of

Law & Order when the hit show moves to

TNT in syndication next month. Virtual

product placement allows images of

products to be inserted into scenes to

appear as if they were originally part of

the setting.” Advertising Age

Escaped kangaroo lived for year in Dutch woods: “A kangaroo who has been on the run for a year after

escaping from its owner has been found living in a Dutch

wood.” Ananova

Never mind rogue states, how about rogue superpowers? asks Noam Chomsky. BBC

Blind mice see

There’s more to vision than meets the eye.

Although unable to see, mice lacking rods

and cones in their retinas can tell day from

night. And their pupils still respond to

bright light.

These latest findings suggest that

mammals’ eyes contain another

light-sensitive pigment not found in rods

or cones. The pigment may regulate

circadian rhythms that govern sleep

patterns and other behaviours, such as

eating, that are related to general light

levels. Nature

Plan to clone Dracula ‘sucks’ says Dolly scientist: “The Scottish researchers who cloned Dolly the sheep say a

plan to clone Dracula is doomed to failure… A group of US businessmen came up with the plan to clone

Vlad the Impaler, who inspired Bram Stoker’s tale, after

hearing he was buried in Romania. ‘It is just a wonderful way of spending

a bit of money and getting a lot of publicity.’ ” Ananova

You only live twice: “A decade ago, Robert Brault survived a crash in his home-built airplane near Austin Straubel International Airport. A crash Wednesday — in

the same aircraft — killed him.” Green Bay Press Gazette

Shamans set up a code of ethics to fight shams— “For the first time, Amazonian medicine

men have drawn up a code of ethics and

established a union to police themselves,

complete with membership cards. The union of

Colombian shamans is trying to weed out

people who are exploiting traditional ways for

big profits and cheap thrills.” MSNBC

“General Motors Corp…will donate $10 million to restore

and protect an endangered tract of Atlantic Coast rain

forest in Brazil, an environmental group said

yesterday.” It would be likely GM would receive ‘pollution credits’, in any future Kyoto-like international agreement, for the role such a forest preserve can play in buffering against global climate change. Planet Ark And “Shell renewed a pledge Thursday to stay

away from Bangladeshi forests inhabited by the endangered Royal Bengal

tiger in the face of protests from environmentalists at the oil company’s

annual meeting.” CNN

Kicking the Hobbit: The December film release looms, and critical dispute about the merits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s creation flowers. “Still, Tolkienists have the staggering popularity of The Lord of the Rings on their side–a key

factor in the literary reputation of Charles Dickens, for example. Some Tolkienists observe

knowingly that the upcoming films will no doubt hook the Harry Potter generation on The

Lord of the Rings (though purists may secretly be a bit nervous about Hobbit Happy Meals).

Meanwhile, Tolkien criticism is already a substantial body of work, much of which cannot be

dismissed outright as fan pamphleteering. When it comes to Tolkien, says Jane Chance, “the

popular has become canonical”–or at any rate, it is becoming more and more so. Ultimately,

Tolkien’s literary stature may be assured by sheer momentum.” The American Prospect

Rules of TV Business Change as Network Race Tightens. The four networks end the season in a closer race than ever, and it will force them to abandon tried-and-true rules next year. The made-for-TV movie is all but dead; repeats are the latest breakthrough idea in programming; comedy is eclipsed by law-‘n’-order shows and reality TV. In short, there’s a whole lot more of nothing to watch. New York Times

Sad sad news, Susannah McCorkle, Pop-Jazz Singer, Dies at 55, apparent suicide.

Wake up and smell the genetically modified coffee. If the coffee berry ripening process could be more precisely controlled, berries wouldn’t ripen at different times and require handpicking. That’s what an American biotech company has figured out how to do, and it’ll take away absolutely essential jobs in the developing world and centralize coffee production even more firmly with large industrial plantations. And don’t you bet Starbuck’s will be one of their best customers?

Elvis Costello: ‘Let’s make some music, and see if anybody likes it’ Describes his recent ‘crossover’ activity (he hates the word, BTW) and particularly his collaboration with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. I have to say that Costello’s recent collaborations — the Brodsky String Quartet, Burt Bacharach, and now von Otter — have taken away the Costello whose music really moved me. I searched the article in vain for an indication that he’s going to go back to doing his own thing anytime soon. New York Times

Myth in Journalism: review of Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism by Jack Lule. “By analyzing case studies involving Black Panther Huey

Newton, Mother Teresa, baseball player Mark McGuire

and Hurricane Mitch, among others, Lule — a great

storyteller himself — demonstrates seven master myths

in the news that shape our thinking about foreign policy,

terrorism, race relations, political dissent and other

issues. He calls them The Victim, The Scapegoat, The

Hero, The Good Mother, The Trickster, The Other World

and The Flood.” The Media Channel

Polio Virus Targets, Kills Brain Tumors: Study. It turns out, fortunately, that malignant glioma cells abnormally express a certain protein, CD 155, to which the polio virus is specifically attracted in the CNS. So researchers have succeeded in using a genetically crippled polio virus (incapable of causing polio) to kill the glioma cells, leaving adjacent normal cells alone. Reuters

oneworld.net: guides “These guides aim to start you thinking about the key topics of human rights and sustainable development.

You will find here a range of views from named writers around the globe. And you may find some of the views

surprising, unfashionable or unfamiliar, because OneWorld has a commitment to including points of view that are

ignored by the mass media. You won’t agree with them all, any more than we do. ” OneWorld

Danny Schechter: Where do you go when PBS says no?

Critical filmmakers like myself, who are shut out of

commercial TV for all intents and purposes, need robust

public television because it is often the only game in

town when you want a program you’ve made to be seen.

And when you do, you want it on their national program

service, what they call the “hard feed,” because that

guarantees it will be carried by all public stations

nationwide. If the keepers of the PBS gates turn you

down, you can still get your show on the air, but you

have to try to sell it, or more likely place it for free, on a

“soft feed” that gives stations the discretion to run it or

not. This can mean it’ll be on at different time periods,

making a national promotion campaign very difficult. You

have to lobby station by station across the nation like a

beggar selling his wares. The Media Channel

Finding News About China, a collection of sources assembled by James Miles, former BBC Beijing bureau chief.

“People become so obsessed by hating government that they forget it is meant to be their government and is the only powerful public force that have

purchase on.” — John Ralston Saul. Nedblog pointed me to this entry in At the Margin:

John Ralston Saul’s novels are not his most influential work. His nonfiction — Voltaire’s Bastards (1992), The Doubter’s

Companion (1994), and The Unconscious Civilization (1996) — constitute the most articulate and powerful indictment of modern global society ever

published. Voltaire’s Bastards is subtitled “The Dictatorship of Reason in the West,” and it is over 600 pages (including footnotes) that document how it

was possible for the promise of 18th century Enlightenment to culminate in a society so simultaneously undemocratic and ungovernable as ours. The

thinkers of the Enlightenment, according to Saul, used reason as their principal weapon in the struggle against medieval darkness. Once the revolution

was underway, however, instead of retiring reason to its normal place among the other human faculties (Saul lists common sense, creativity, ethics,

intuition, and memory), we enshrined it as our governing principle. By elevating it over other human faculties, we have succeeded in converting it to

unreason.

Basing our society on reason, Saul argues, has resulted in corporatist politics, the cult of expertise, and our highly structured lives. And it has produced

a number of interesting contradictions and anomalies. One of these is that the arms trade is the largest single industry in a world supposedly at peace.

Another is that our so-called democratic societies are governed by entrenched elites. Still another is that we elect people to grapple with our public issues

based on their personalities rather than their abilities.

Saul points out that we call ourselves a democracy but we have built no time into our lives for citizen participation: “The only way a citizen can

participate is voluntarily, which means giving up going to the bathroom, give up making love, give up sleep, give up eating dinner with your family. In

other words, we have structured citizen participation out of our society.” Note that I’m only giving you the highlights here. Saul takes 171 pages to

position himself and lay out the argument, then follows that with over 400 pages describing what might be considered the everyday atrocities of

modern “democratic” corporatist society.

Psychiatrist says Monkey Man mystery is like penis panic. Fred Lapides of Bush Wacker (which has moved here) pointed me to this update on the Monkey Man matter, to which many webloggers have blinked.

An Indian psychiatrist has compared the Monkey Man

mystery to a penis-related panic among Nigerian men 10

years ago.

Doctor Sandeep Vohra, president of Delhi Psychiatric

Society, explains the Monkey Man panic as mass delusion.

Ten years ago, groups of Nigerian men became convinced

their genitals would disappear if they touched a stranger. Ananova

A male patient’s desperate fear that his genitals will shrink and retract into his body, causing his death, is a long-recognized ‘culture-bound syndrome’ appearing in most psychiatric textbooks alongside such entities as amok, latah, piblokto, and wihtigo. Called koro, it is described as common in the Malay archipelago and southern Chinese folk belief but occasionally reported in other cultures. Often, the affected person has secured a strong physical hold on his penis by tying or clamping it. Usually, it affects a single person at a time but occasional epidemic outbreaks have been reported around the world. I used to give an entertaining talk about unusual psychiatric syndromes.

Dying Comet Gives Rare View of Space: “It was like watching an autopsy on a comet.

Comet Linear, falling toward the sun last summer, peeled off layer

after layer, revealing its structure and composition to astronomers

watching with some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Yahoo!

Dying Comet Gives Rare View of Space: “It was like watching an autopsy on a comet.

Comet Linear, falling toward the sun last summer, peeled off layer

after layer, revealing its structure and composition to astronomers

watching with some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Yahoo!

Dying Comet Gives Rare View of Space: “It was like watching an autopsy on a comet.

Comet Linear, falling toward the sun last summer, peeled off layer

after layer, revealing its structure and composition to astronomers

watching with some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Yahoo!

Going Out With a Mobster’s Son? Follow the Code of Silence. The New York Times gives us some real mob-watch details on the morning of the season finale of The Sopranos.