This offer is propagating broadly around the web. Can anyone say what the catch is?
How would you like to be NASA’s artist-in-residence?
The offer was legit: The space agency was bestowing a $20,000 commission on the 57-year-old Anderson to produce a piece of work completely at her creative freedom.
NASA began its art program in 1963 but never before had it tapped a resident artist, nor had it pushed the aesthetic envelope so boldly by choosing a performer whose large-scale theatrical productions blended ‘Star Trek’ and Melville. Anderson is no Faith Hill.” (Washington Post)
There has always been speculation that physical constants of the universe may not be constant and that one way in which the universe ‘evolves’ may be evolution of those constants. Most attention has been focused (Physical Review Focus )on the fine structure constant (Physlink ), whose potential inconstancy has profound implications (Dr James Gilson ). Now a far more familiar number is called into question as well:
The controversial finding is turning up the heat on an already simmering debate, especially since it is based on re-analysis of old data that has long been used to argue for exactly the opposite: the constancy of the speed of light and other constants.
A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein’s theory of relativity, and would undermine much of traditional physics. But some physicists believe it would elegantly explain puzzling cosmological phenomena such as the nearly uniform temperature of the universe. It might also support string theories that predict extra spatial dimensions.” (New Scientist)
How Mozilla’s Firefox trumps Internet Explorer. […and this is at Microsoft’s own Slate!]
On the heels of last week’s sophisticated malware attack that targeted a known IE flaw, US-CERT updated an earlier advisory to recommend the use of alternative browsers because of “significant vulnerabilities” in technologies embedded in IE.” (Internetnews )
The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he believed that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was betrayed by Iraqis he befriended on his base and ended up in the hands of Islamic extremists.” (New York Times)
If you live in the realm of the First Circuit Court of Appeals as I do in New England, your privacy rights just took a hit. The Court ruled that a Massachusetts ISP did not break the law in reading his customers’ communications without their consent. In overturning the ISP’s conviction under wiretap laws, as I read it, the decision turns on semantic hairsplitting and allows your email provider to fulfill the letter while violating the spirit of privacy protection laws. And this was not a case driven by misguided post-9/11 patriotism but, rather, simple greed. (Wired News)
These opinions, researchers say, reflect and reinforce men’s dominance in those countries, because both the negative attributes (such as arrogance and aggressiveness) and the positive attributes (including competence and intelligence) relate to dominance. The study was published in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 86, No. 5).
The study supports ‘ambivalent sexism theory,’ a concept that the researchers–psychologists Peter Glick, PhD, of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and Susan T. Fiske, PhD, of Princeton University–have been investigating for several years. They posit that traditional attitudes toward men and women have both negative and positive components, and those components are generated by the interaction between men’s dominance and men’s and women’s interdependence.” (APA Online)
“Thousands of truckers, bus drivers and rest-stop workers are being enlisted to spot terrorists. Is this comforting news?” (Time) In linking to this article, boing boing focuses on the snitches’ misconceptions and prejudices about recognizing ‘Islamics’. In addition, there is the question of what has become of our national soul when neighbors spy on neighbors…
Family questions antidepressant’s role in teen’s death (Boston Globe). Several readers have asked what I thought about this story. Readers of FmH know my position on the innuendoes about antidepressant-induced suicide. It is usually a case of inadequate monitoring by the treating physician. Here is a slightly altered version of comments I sent to the reporter who wrote the article (to make sense of this lengthy commentary, you would have to have read the Globe article, of course; for a quick summary avoiding the gory details, skip to the bottom now):
The suicide described in the article, like nearly all, leaves family and friends bereft. It is especially unbearably tragic when a child dies, survived by the parents who were supposed to precede her in leaving this world. For those who survive, life seems particularly precious and the decision to end it unthinkable. There is a temptation to deal with the inconceivability either with easy answers or a facile embrace of the mystery of the event and the futility of any attempts to understand it. Usually, neither is true, although understanding suicide requires a conceptual leap that is quite challenging and difficult for the rest of us.
In that respect, this article leaves much to be desired. First of all, understanding the psychopathology involved is crucial. Not all suicide arises from depression per se. I strongly suspect that this patient had borderline personality disorder — and not depression — as her primary diagnosis. The fact that it was only suggested rather than diagnosed in the Westwood Lodge discharge summary relates to one of my pet peeves in psychiatric care, viz. our unwillingness to call a spade a spade. Because borderlines are dislikeable (their psychopathology is largely an off-putting, enraged and enraging interpersonal disturbance when they get into intensive clinical interactions with caregivers; they are unconsciously motivated to hurt and punish those who would dare to care about them, probably because of how they felt they were treated by their original caregivers), and psychiatrists by nature and training are largely uncomfortable with disliking patients, they cling to the idea that it is politically incorrect to call someone a borderline. The term is grossly underused and we miss the opportunity to diagnose someone in a meaningful way that allows us to properly understand their behavior, prognosis and appropriate treatment.
The mood disturbance in borderlines is usually secondary. In fact, sometimes the borderline instability is only held in check by the inertia and lassitude of a superimposed depression; then when that is treated, the core impulsivity, irritability and lability emerge. For this reason, borderlines are often best treated with mood stabilizers, which help control mood swings, reactivity, irritability and impulsivity. If she warranted the borderline diagnosis as I suspect, it appears to be an oversight not to treat her with a mood stabilizer. Many psychiatrist shy away from them especially in adolescents, at least sometimes because they can cause weight gain (we have evidence from the article that this patient was concerned with losing weight… but then, who isn’t at that age?).
I suspect that the reporter does not make much of the borderline personality allusion because s/he does not understand its implications and did not have a knowledgeable psychiatric consultant behind him/her in writing it. S/he seems to have conferred with ‘experts’ (although IMHO Dr. Joe Glenmullen is an expert mostly in his own mind, a grandstander trying to attract attention by taking a controversial stand against antidepressants with his overblown and irresponsible book, Prozac Backlash) only to obtain memorable soundbite quotes around the narrow, currently ‘sexy’, issue of whether this suicide is attributable to the Zoloft. The reality is far far more complex but, hey, what sells newspapers?
Instead of having limited expectations for medication used with parsimony, the psychiatrists treating patients with borderline personality disorder often put them on a laundry list of medications of multiple classes to target each of the chameleonic variety of symptoms with which this complex pathology presents. This young woman’s use of an antipsychotic medication, barely alluded to, is probably meant to address the thought slippage and distortion that occur in some borderlines some of the time, but antipsychotics are overused, perhaps out of desperation, in the treatment of borderlines. (They are, however, better than benzodiazepines, the Valium-like tranquilizers that are often a mainstay of the treatment of tempestuous and impulsive patients but which further disinhibit their self-destructive and rageful impulses…) One effect of the overuse of antipsychotics is that the recipient is ‘numbed’ or distanced from their feelings and experiences. We have evidence that being ‘numbed’ already troubled this patient, as it often does patients with borderline personality disorder (one of the diagnostic criteria for which is inner emptiness and identity diffusion). She, as many borderlines, impulsively cut herself, which along with meeting self-punitive needs is often motivated to cut through the numbing so the patient can feel something, anything, to know that they are alive and exist. I am concerned that the antipsychotic would worsen that. If one is to focus on her medications at all, it and not the antidepressant might be the primary offending medication in her case.
FmH readers already know my take on the supposed agitation caused by antidepressants like Zoloft. It is real but manageable. Doctors prescribe medications with side effects all the time; the question is whether the benefits are worth the cost, not whether the medication is cost-free. Where SSRI-induced agitation is a problem it is usually the fault of not monitoring the patient closely enough, which is something you are supposed to do when treating depression and suicide risk anyway, right? It is not a reason to throw the baby (SSRIs) out with the bathwater. The responsibility for a patient’s care is transferred from the treatment team at the hospital to the outpatient team upon discharge. The article does not say whether she had a psychiatrist’s appointment during the four days between her discharge and her suicide. This is a high-risk period, since no matter how well the hospitalization went the person is suddenly subjected to stresses from which they were insulated in the hospital — both their prior psychosocial problems and new ones arising from the fact that they have been hospitalized (their concerns about other people’s attitudes, missed time at their job or school, financial obligations from their treatment, etc.). In this instance, we know she had a visit from her ex-boyfriend, for example. The letdown on return home from the hospital is particularly crucial for those with borderline pathology, who are especially vulnerable to loss of support and whose moods are rapidly and dramatically reactive to changes in circumstances. It should be the standard of care — and once was — that patients are seen almost immediately upon discharge to reconnect with their outside team and keep a safety net under them. This has markedly eroded during the past few years; now we are lucky if we can get our patients seen within a month when we discharge them from the hospital. It is an obscene aspect of the degeneration of the quality of mental health care under modern fiscal realities. An intermediate structure of ‘partial hospital’ programming, in which patients attend treatment groups at the hospital during the day but go home each night, has emerged in recent years to transition patients back into the community after, as a rule, much shorter inpatient hospital stays in response to third party payor pressures. But, ironically, those same third party payors often deny or severely limit coverage for their clients to attend partial hospital programs. Was partial hospitalization considered in this patient’s case. especially if she remained impulsive and/or preoccupied with hanging herself? Westwood Lodge itself has a partial hospital program for adolescents…
Incidentally, it was misleading for the reporter to state that increasing the Zoloft dose from 100 to 150 mg/day puts it near the maximum for this medicine, in two senses. First, the reporter is alluding to the prescribing guidelines from the manufacturer and the FDA-approved guidelines, which go up to 200 mg. So (a) the patient went from 50% to 75% of that guideline, certainly in the UPPER HALF of the official range but is this near the top? and (b) psychiatrists are not bound by that maximum. Some patients require much higher doses. What determines dosing decisions are not guidelines in the PDR but adequate assessment of the balance between efficacy and tolerability at a given dose.
Borderline personality disorder patients are prone to self-mutilation (like cutting or scratching oneself) and mood lability/irritability, their central pathology — which is a lifelong enduring pattern of their personality — only gets better if at all with long term character-changing intensive psychotherapy. Medications play an adjunctive role only, stabilizing active symptoms sufficiently to allow them to engage in the life-changing they need to do. Likewise a hospital stay is not curative, only affording the beginnings of stabilization. Most of the work takes place after discharge, over a long long time. Furthermore, these patients are hospitalized too frequently for non-life-threatening cutting that should have been handled in outpatient monitoring, because they tend to regress, i.e. get worse, with the constant attention, the passivity and the control struggle of the psychiatric hospital setting. Because they present a false front — either false reports of how good they feel or of how badly they feel — readiness for discharge is often little better than guesswork. Because rage and rejection-sensitivity are core issues, there can often be a reaction to the rejection represented by hospital discharge. Minimizing hospitalizations in the first place is the beginning of wisdom in treating borderlines, IMHO.
Westwood Lodge, in particular, is a once glamourous and illustrious hospital which has considerably fallen from grace and into decay in recent decades under a succession of corporate owners which have bled it dry. It was bought in early 2001 by UHS, a large corporation that has been slashing-and-burning the hospital’s resources and cutting staffing levels drastically ever since. I happen to know that this is not the first recent suicide Westwood has had that may relate to understaffing or inadequacy of resources, and the Dept of Mental Health probably knows it as well. as they have had Westwood and its parent company under close scrutiny for quite some time. For-profit hospitals bow particularly low to insurance company pressure to discharge patients as soon as possible. There is also pressure to “do something” (usually interpreted as loading the patient with medications and jacking up their doses with frequent increases to give the appearance that there is active treatment going on) to justify continued coverage for the stay, even in the absence of scientific evidence of any value to some of the treatment strategies or the pace at which they are employed. Furthermore, the lack of effective collaboration with the parents, who were not notified in advance of the discharge, is egregious but unfortunately a common transgression in the modern psychiatric hospital standard of care. Certainly, an ongoing preoccupation noted in the chart notes with hanging herself throughout her stay, if true, suggests inadequate assessment of her readiness for discharge. On the other hand, hospitals do not insure ultimate safety, especially in borderlines who are often chronically suicidal. They only ensure momentary safety sufficient to discharge. There is a common misconception about hospitals that they can do more than they can in this day and age. The parent’s impression of inadequate care may have alot to do with the Westwood Lodge treatment team’s failure to articulate to them how little they might realistically expect to be achieved during their daughter’s hospitalization, in terms both of the realities of modern hospital care and the chronic instability of the borderline state. Typically, ‘consumer satisfaction’ is more correlated with such realistic articulation of expectations than with doing more.
When planned, suicide can serve any of a number of different purposes in the disturbed judgment of its would-be perpetrators; and, of course, sometimes it succeeds even when unplanned. Suicides in borderlines are usually impulsive acts, not deliberated. It is sometimes thought of as a highly fantasized escapist exploit without recognition of its finality. There are intriguing suggestions in the article that Kaitlyn was planning not on dying but on running away; I cannot say without reading the actual note she wrote, which is only excerpted in the article. Hours before her death, the article notes, Kaitlyn still had a sense of a future. There are also suggestions that she may have felt she was not so much ending her life as exacting angry retribution on her ex-boyfriend, which is another purpose suicide serves especially for internally rageful borderlines. Furthermore, we have mostly the parents’ word that her primary stressor was the ex-boyfriend (whom she had, it seems put behind her). We do not hear his perspective or even the perspective of many others around her. Yes, we do have her journals but, again, these were only excerpted. Loss and the threat of loss of relationship are core issues and crisis points with borderlines, because part of their pathology is that they cannot fully feel they exist without dependence on or merger with another. Which prompts me to ask, what about the relationship with the parents? While I understand they are grieving and in general I avoid the time-honored abusive psychiatric habit of blaming the parents for the ills of the child, it was after all them to whom she went home. And I am always more than a little bit suspicious of families who want to point the finger elsewhere — at the drugs, at the inadequate care, at the premature hospital discharge. Everyone gets defensive after a suicide, but some defensiveness is more warranted than others. Even if the boyfriend was controlling and the relationship with him unstable, what was the parents’ responsibility for monitoring their minor daughter? She began dating this boy when she was 14??!
By the way, nowhere is the issue of substance abuse mentioned in the article, except to note that the coroner is waiting for toxicology. This is often a complicating factor in borderline personality disorder (an aspect of their impulsivity and self-destructiveness, and unfortunately while under the influence their impulses are often further disinhibited).
The article suggests that the temptation to blame the antidepressants is compelling in the face of what would otherwise be an unfathomable mystery. Complicated it is, but it need not —and should not — remain unfathomable. There is an intensive process of inquiry after a suicide — called a psychological autopsy — that in fact often makes sense of the act, drawing attention in proper balance to the formulation of the patient’s personality, any biological mental illness, historical factors, psychosocial stressors, and the strengths and weaknesses of the treatment decisions made along the way, with the participation of all the pertinent parties. It is a healing action for those — family and caregivers — left behind, and can often improve care in similar instances in the future. All of the reductionistic speculation of the article and indeed of this response from me is useless; there must be a fullscale, sophisticated psychological autopsy. Probably, the investigation underway by the state Dept of Mental Health (DMH), which is the licensing agency for psychiatric hospitals like Westwood and has the power to close it down or impose oversight, restrictions on its ability to admit, or sanctions if its care was found wanting, will not do the trick, as it is in the context of a longstanding political struggle between DMH and the parent company of Westwood Lodge to limit the latter’s grandiose ambitions and heavyhanded influence in the Massachusetts mental health system. The psychological autopsy is usually done with a prominent suicidologist as a consultant; Boston is particularly well-endowed with a number of top-notch suicidology experts at Harvard Medical School. While it used to be standard in cases in which there is any question about the adequacy of the care received, unfortunately it is a procedure that is slowly but surely going by the boards in our era of pecuniary psychiatric care. After all, who is going to pay for the time of all the professional participants?
This is very speculative, of course, indeed it is irresponsible if taken as anything more than speculation, since I know nothing of the case beyond the Globe article and have neither reviewed the medical record, met the patient or talked to anyone involved in her care. Perhaps it is best to consider it a fictional account of how a similar situation might be considered if it arises in some parallel universe.
Addendum: The fine weblogger at Secretly Ironic gives this précis of my argument above. Thank you for the distillation; it is right on target and far more succinct:
“Dammit, I’ve said this before: inadequate staffing, for-profit insurance-gaming, misdiagnosis, inadequate supervision, overestimating the usefulness of drugs, poor explanation of illness and treatment, and sensationalized journalistic coverage all lead to death, disaster, and scandal.”
Forty-one per cent would feel safer if the forces left Iraq altogether, and only 32% would feel less safe.” (Guardian.UK)
She gave no indication of when fans can expect the next instalment of the boy wizard’s adventures. There was a two year wait between books four and five.” (BBC)
Few numbers are available, but experts say that as modafinil grows more widely available, it is becoming a fixture among college students, long-haul truckers, computer programmers and others determined to burn the midnight oil. Some worry that an array of common disorders, like diabetes and sleep apnea, will go undiagnosed if doctors dole out Provigil instead of seeking the underlying diseases that cause fatigue.” (New York Times )
The advent of Prozac and its congeners ushered in the era of so-called ‘cosmetic psychopharmacology’, in which psychoactive medication was used to tweak personality style instead of merely to treat distress identified with psychopathology. Now a second front in the battle over lifestyle pharmacology is recognized in no less an authority than The New York Times, and one side has already won. Some wonder what long term side effects or complications might emerge later in the saga of a modafinil-happy nation. Let’s not forget the cost to our soul of putting off, sometimes indefinitely, the debt we owe to fatigue. How will the piper come to collect on this one?
The film, which opens at Film Forum today, half-mockingly offers a psychiatric diagnosis based on a list of abuses that arise from the relentless pursuit of profit. The point is not that individual companies pollute the environment, hurt animals, exploit workers and commit accounting fraud, but that such outrages are a result of the essential personality traits of the corporate life form.” (New York Times)
Rice yields are plunging due to balmy nights, according to the first “real world” experiment on the effect of global warming on crop yields. The decline is twice as fast as that predicted by climate modellers who it turns out neglected the fact that global warming is most intense at night, when tropical plants need to cool off and respire. The results suggest that global rice yields could fall by a disastrous 50% during the coming century. (New Scientist)
Scientists at the University of Florence in Italy found that when youngsters were deprived of their TV sets, computers and video games, their melatonin production increased by an average 30 per cent.” (New Scientist)
Marine biologists have definitively shown that the ‘Chilean Blob’ and other similar mysteries are simply the remains of whales.” (New Scientist)
Amir Taheri reviews My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing by Christoph Reuter:
Reuter poses this crucial question in an intelligent way. But he provides no answer.” (Telegraph.UK )
“Iraq has now joined the increasing ranks of unstable, chaotic countries that exist as mere shells, stripped of any real power.” — Adam Hochschild (AlterNet)
Analysis of an incident that ended in an assault on an air marshall provides an object lesson in cellular sociology. (New York Times)
Sisyphus Shrugged has leaked this outline of rhetorical strategy for the coming campaign by Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz. Am I getting upset over nothing? business as usual? No one should be shocked that there are secret primers of ‘spin’ — politics is all spin, after all, isn’t it? Nor should we be shocked that the same old tired discredited lies — ‘they hate us because they hate freedom’, the disingenuous invocation of 9/11 at every turn; sidestepping the lack of evidence of any connection between Iraq and the Wot®; supporting ‘our boys’ in Iraq — form the basis of this rhetorical barrage. Lies repeated often enough begin to sound banal, and banality is the cornerstone for the appearance of credibility. …And Luntz recognizes this.
But several things leapt out at me in reading this. The first is the utter contempt the Republicans have for the public which has to elect them; this approach is predicated on capitalizing on the short attention span and short memory of the typical voter. One of the commenters to the Sisyphus post found it ironic that the memo insults the American attention span when they have tried to sustain lies for so long, but the listeners’ poor memory actually works in favor of the liar. If the voting public paid attention, Luntz acknowledges, the Bush Cabal could never get away with all they have done and plan to do. Actually, I quite agree. If Luntz and the Republican strategists are contemptuous of the voters, then what I feel must be meta-contempt — I find it contemptible that the public lets itself be the victim of such sustained contemptuous abuse. I am amazed there is still anyone with an income under $1 million or so and without a corporate board position who still considers voting for Bush-Cheney ’04.
Second, as I predicted (it didn’t take a genius), they are planning how to exploit The Adoration of Reagan for their campaign purposes. It is a pity that the above-mentioned factor number one, the short attention span of the voter, will mitigate against this. If only he had died three or four months hence…
Thirdly, it is clear that this is the strategy of a desperate beleaguered team on the defensive, grasping at straws. The smell of fear is in the air; let us savor it. I share other webloggers’ amazement that this memo is not being more broadly covered, and hope that if so it will have a remarkably focusing effect on that supposed short attention span of the electorate. The “Go fuck yourself, Leahey” story is splashed across all the front pages (especially the tabloids… and the weblogs); how about this great big “Fuck you, America”?
Here, if you want to counter spin with facts, are a few fact-based conclusions to use with those with whom you associate who are still on the fence, if you have the patience to debate with them.
Many, like myself, are heaving a sigh of relief that the Greens, albeit by the slimmest of margins, have recognized their pivotal responsibility in defeating Bush this time around. It truly is a decision in the interests of the future of the Green Party. Going with Nader’s misguided self-centered hubris would have been the party’s last gasp of credibility with most of the progressive voting bloc, I am convinced.
IBM’s pioneering punch cards and prototype computer systems were used by the Nazis to systematise and collate information on the Jewish population and others under the Third Reich from the 1930s, an operation that oiled the wheels of the Holocaust.” (Guardian.UK)
“…Cheney has shown that, with obsequiousness to the president and obtuseness to the facts, a vice president can run the world. Right into the ground.” — Maureen Dowd (New York Times op-ed)
“A Canadian man, driving a car packed with weapons and ammunition, was intent on killing as many people as possible in a Toronto neighborhood but gave up the plan at the last minute when he encountered a friendly dog, police said on Thursday.” (Yahoo!)
“An exploding vending machine turned the coolant freon into phosgene, a poisonous gas used as a chemical weapon in World War One, and forced the evacuation of 10 people from a Texas hospital, officials said on Thursday.” (Yahoo!)
“Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel…
In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FEC’s agenda for today’s meeting, the agency’s general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.
The opinion is generated under the new McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, which prohibits corporate-funded ads that identify a federal candidate before a primary or general election.” (The Hill)
“The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S. officials said.” (Washington Post)
While the legal basis for this appears dubious, it draws some of its supposed legitimacy from the UN resolution recognizing the transitional government and supporting the ‘multinational’ force. Perhaps achieving some basis for the claim of immunity, rather than any concern about the legitimacy of the US occupation, was the real ugency behind the resolution?
What’s going on under those black robes? (The Smoking Gun)
“On the eve of the so-called transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi caretaker government on June 30, former Saddam Hussein generals turned members of the elite of the Iraqi resistance movement have abandoned their clandestine positions for a while to explain their version of events and talk about their plans. According to these Ba’ath officials, ‘the big battle’ in Iraq is yet to take place.” (Asia Times)
Leader of the International Order of Sufis dies at 87. (Telegraph.UK)
“Even negative attacks on Kerry no longer seem to be working.” — Sidney Blumenthal (Guardian.UK)
“…Cheney has shown that, with obsequiousness to the president and obtuseness to the facts, a vice president can run the world. Right into the ground.” — Maureen Dowd (New York Times op-ed)
Now, while the rest of the country is grappling with the issue of gay marriage, Stanford evolutionary ecologist Joan Roughgarden is trying to untangle Darwin’s mess by publishing Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People. Roughgarden’s thesis begins with the idea that since homosexuality is not a reproductive strategy, according to Darwin it’s an aberration that should die off. But instead of deciding that homosexuality is wrong from an evolutionary standpoint, Roughgarden arrived at another conclusion: Darwin’s theory of sexual selection must be wrong.” (AlterNet)
The Who once sang about how the hypnotized never lie, but as we have seen, people hypnotized by television and deliberately enforced fear can certainly support a war, and a President, which are fundamentally at odds with basic American decency. In fact, people hypnotized by television and deliberately enforced fear will feed themselves into the meat grinder with ‘God Bless America’ on their lips.” — William Rivers Pitt (truthout)
Readers may recall my satisfaction at the 2002 Supreme Court ruling mandating that death sentences be imposed only by juries and not by ‘judicial override’ of a jury’s finding of a lesser sentence. Now the Supreme Court says its earlier ruling applies only to forthcoming death penalty cases, not retroactively to those cases already pending appeal. Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that this is because the 2002 ruling was just “procedural” and not a “watershed” rule of criminal procedure. It seems to me it violates the fundamental dictum of equal protection under the law. (Reuters)
(Uh, Dick, I hate to break it to you, but you’re raising the wrong finger.)
Against Happiness: “Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too.” (The New York Times Magazine)
Rivka, the thoughtful psychologist who writes Respectful of Otters, lambasted psychoanalyst Justin Frank’s armchair analysis of George Bush even more vociferously than I did. Remarkably, Frank wrote back to Rivka to defend himself. I agree with her that his defense is not very convincing, but he joins me in wondering if we don’t have a special abiding interest in this kind of knowledge about our national leaders, particularly with an election looming (particularly with the fate of the earth looming…). On the other hand, I suspect that anyone au courant enough to become concerned on the basis of a psychoanalytic portrait is someone who had already made their mind up on the basis of more conventional evidence, as Rivka agrees.
I have previously written about how much I love year-end best lists, and have sometimes posted lists of pointers to them here. I forgot to mention that I also look forward to the spate of summer reading lists that come out about now, although I am appalled by the suspicion that they owe their proliferation to the fact that many people don’t read for the rest of the year until they are lounging around the pool or the beach on their summer vacation. Rebecca has begun to collect links to summer reading lists here, so I can point you to hers.
“This may be the most important graphic you’ll see in the entire campaign.” (The Washington Monthly)
No Skeeters, No Problem? Not So Fast The New York Times reporter calls an entomologist and environmental ethicist to ask what I venture to say most people who spend any length of time outdoors in summer have asked themselves — “what good are mosquitoes?” and “why shouldn’t there be a world without them?” Being a good environmentalist do-be, I long ago gave up on my fantasy of a world without mosquitoes even though I am exquisitely sensitive to them and am one of the people who are bitten, and bitten severely, when all around me are getting a free ride. I figured that, with the complex web of interconnectedness of all life and all that, the possibility of severe unforseen consequences of eliminating even such a pest ruled out my daydream (apart from the question of whether it is even achievable in the real world…). The scientist suggests that we are reassessing the assumption that it the loss of every species that goes extinct is an environmental catastrophe per se. She says nothing, however, of the slippery slope we enter when we try to be the arbiters of which components of species diversity are dispensible; after all, it isn’t really an issue of how appealing a species is. And, as pointed out, some insect pests, in keeping the human ‘riff raff’ out of wilderness areas, are deemed some of nature’s ‘best conservationists.’ But, if mosquitoes in particular were on the endangered species list, how hard would those among us who are not reverent Jains (the members of which religion reputedly wear surgical masks so that they do not inadvertently kill small flying insects by inhaling them, if the apocryphal stories are true…) work to protect their remaining numbers? I never have and never will use an electric bug zapper in my garden; our tastes run more to citronella candles. But I remain an unabashed fan of DEET when I go into the wilderness…
This is due to two factors: a polarization in American politics that has led each presidential candidate to concede the electoral vote in about 30 states to his rival, as a foregone conclusion; and an anticipated tight election in which the winner, as in 2000, may be crowned by only a handful of electoral votes.
Those votes will come from 16 or 17 so-called “battleground states,” states that were decided by 6 percent of the vote or less in 2000. (Another three or four states, namely Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana and perhaps New Jersey, lean Republican or Democrat now, but could become battleground states if the other party focuses resources on putting them into play.)
Among the current battleground states, where the candidates are concentrating a majority of their time and money, Indian people hold the “swing vote” – the key few percentage points of total popular votes that could swing electoral votes whichever way they are cast – in a handful of them.” (Indian Country )
By the way, when did the term ‘Indian’ become politically correct again? Where on the political compass is Indian Country?
Boston Globe editorial: An involuntary army:
Seymour Hersh argues in The New Yorker that Israel’s abiding security fear in the Middle East is Iran and the evidence that it is developing a nuclear weapons program. Since the US invasion of Iraq, Israel has been warning the US to seal the Iraq-Iran border to prevent Iranian incursions to foment continuing Iraqi opposition to the occupation. Given the US bungling of the Iraqi situation, the likely fragmentation of postwar Iraq and the likelihood that Iran will be the real winner of the US war, Israel is developing a presence in Kurdistan — even at the risk of jeopardizing its relationship with Turkey — to have a hand in the region and monitor the Iranian nuclear program. Kurds are being armed and trained for covert operations and intelligence missions in the region.
I will be travelling for a few days and away from keyboard or web connection. So, sadly, no posts here until next Wed. or Thurs. What in the world do you suppose may have happened by then? In any case, have a wonderful few days, see you soon…
PS: Consider some ways you might contribute to disaster relief in the Sudan, please. The scope of the human crisis there is unimaginable…
“Ten years later, we’re still picking up the pieces. And if you can’t remember what happened … maybe you’re lucky.” (ESPN) Extraordinarily (and unfortunately?), everyone I ask remembers exactly where they were when they heard the verdict, as with 9-11 or (for those old enough) the Challenger space shuttle disaster or the assassination of JFK.
“Nessie’s turned into a real recluse. The men from Mars no longer pay us flying visits. And the spooks have been spooked. Why have all the sightings dried up? Sean Thomas investigates the mysterious death of the paranormal.” (Guardian.UK)
Catalytic cotton chows down on dirt.: “In the classic 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, Alec Guinness played a scientist who invents a fabric that never gets dirty or wears out. A chemist’s pipe dream perhaps, but the prospect of self-cleaning clothes might be getting closer.
Scientists have invented an efficient way to coat cotton cloth with tiny particles of titanium dioxide. These nanoparticles are catalysts that help to break down carbon-based molecules, and require only sunlight to trigger the reaction. The inventors believe that these fabrics could be made into self-cleaning clothes that tackle dirt, environmental pollutants and harmful microorganisms.” (Nature)
“The first virus to spread from one cell phone to another has been created, the Russian anti-virus software vendor Kaspersky Labs announced on Tuesday.
Cabir has no malicious capabilities and affects only a small slice of ‘smart’ phones that run on both the sophisticated Symbian operating system and have a Bluetooth connection. It has been written by a group called 29a.
The virus is an ‘interesting milestone’, says Graham Cluley, a consultant at the anti-virus software vendor Sophos in Oxford, UK, because it is the first virus to spread through a cell phone network.” (New Scientist)
“The finding casts serious doubt on the reliability of victim testimonies in cases involving psychological trauma.” (New Scientist) While prior research cast doubts on the accuracy of recall of traumatic events, critics felt the studies, necessarily, could not be naturalistic enough and that real trauma might actually focus the memory. But a new study by Yale researchers, partially funded by the Pentagon, studied over 500 military personnel at mock POW camps designed to train subjects to withstand capture. 24 hours after the subjects’ release from the camps, their ability to recognize their interrogators was abysmal.
After more than 80 years without surnames, picking one is as much about personality as it is ancestry: “For more than 80 years, everyone in Mongolia was on a first-name basis. After seizing power in the early 1920s, the Mongolian Communists destroyed all family names in a campaign to eliminate the clan system, the hereditary aristocracy and the class structure.
Within a few decades, most Mongolians had forgotten their ancestral names. They used only a single given name — a system that eventually became confusing when 9,000 women ended up with the same name, Altantsetseg, meaning ‘golden flower.’
By the mid-1990s, Mongolia had become a democracy again, and there were growing worries about the lack of surnames. One name might be enough when most people were nomadic herdsman in remote pastures, but now the country was urbanizing. The one-name system was so confusing that some people were marrying without realizing they were relatives.
In 1997, a new law required everyone to have surnames. The law was largely ignored, but then a system of citizenship cards was introduced. Slowly the country of 2.5 million began to adopt surnames.” (Globe and Mail)
![//www.milim.org/milim/M-1-Milim/JOYCE/4-BLOOMSDAY/JJ-BACK-150.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/www.milim.org/milim/M-1-Milim/JOYCE/4-BLOOMSDAY/JJ-BACK-150.jpg "What did you do in the Great War?")
![//www.milim.org/milim/M-1-Milim/JOYCE/4-BLOOMSDAY/JJ-FRONT-150.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/www.milim.org/milim/M-1-Milim/JOYCE/4-BLOOMSDAY/JJ-FRONT-150.jpg "I wrote Ulysses, what did you do?")
Happy Bloomsday! It was 100 years ago today that Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus circuited Dublin on Everyman’s journey. Millions will be marking the occasion today with a pilgrimmage, a reading, a staged reenactment or simply a pint.
Addendum: Thanks to acm for pointing me to this news which threatens to disrupt the Bloomsday celebration (from comments). Somehow it seems that Joyce’s ‘high-faluttin’ fun’ ought to be immune to litigiousness if anything is:
Copyright row threat to ‘Ulysses’ centenary: “Stephen Joyce, the grandson and last surviving relative of the writer, has caused consternation by declaring that any public reading of what is regarded as the most influential novel of the 20th century will be a breach of copyright and cannot go ahead without permission and payment. Readings in both London and Dublin to launch the first ever unabridged audio CD of the book – the 22 discs last 27 hours – have been cancelled because of fears of litigation.
Much of the difficulty stems from a change in copyright law in 1996 which extended the period of copyright from 50 years to 70 years after an author’s death. This meant Joyce, who died in 1941, was out of copyright for five years – allowing readings – before becoming copyrighted again.” (Independent.UK)
Here is Ulysses online. Dig in.
Dave Winer has abruptly pulled the plug on hosting anyone’s weblog at weblogs.com anymore. Among the homeless is Craig Jensen’s venerable Booknotes. Winer has agreed to send those who request a copy of their site. I hope Craig, and the other ninety or so who have so far asked him to export their sites, will find hosts soon.
“Ashcroft is a scumbag, fire his boss and he goes too.” — Rafe Colburn
US told: charge Saddam or free him: “Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last night.” (Guardian.UK)
“…(S)ources close to the Bush family say the elder Bush thinks his son has mishandled the war in Iraq.
“They disagree on the war,” says a family confidante. “Former President Bush believes the U.S. should have sought more support before invading Iraq and feels his son did not work hard enough to secure the support of allies.” (Capitol Hill Blue)
“A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a ‘paranoid meglomaniac’ as well as a sadist and ‘untreated alcoholic.’ The doctor’s analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, also says the President has a ”lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions … [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad.’
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President’s years of heavy drinking ”may have affected his brain function – and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse.’
Dr. Frank’s revelations comes on the heels of last week’s Capitol Hill Blue exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush’s emotional stability.”
As a psychiatrist, I am of two minds about Dr. Frank’s conduct here. On the one hand, it is a central ethical tenet of the profession that we not diagnose people from a distance, outside of a treatment relationship with them. Furthermore, Dr. Frank’s language here is nothing short of sensationalistic. On the other hand, the mental health of the President of the United States is of abiding public concern. In a sense, since his behavior is in the public domain, so too should be observers’ opinions about his psychiatric health. By assuming the role of President, perhaps one can argue that he abdicates a right to immunity from public speculation about his mental health. There have been calls to mandate an annual psychiatric checkup whose conclusions on the President’s emotional fitness and stability would be made public, much as we feel we have a right to know of his physical health. It is arguably especially important for qualified individuals to raise informed concerns about suggestions of grave instability. Apart from the ethical qualms that may be raised, scientific ones arise as well. No one believes psychoanalytic conclusions about a subject’s “character” as much as the psychoanalysts, and character diagnosis is what Frank is doing here. The psychoanalytic situation is specially designed to elicit evidence of the deep character structure and dynamics of the subject; through a delicate balance between empathy and reserve, the analyst creates the unique relationship with the subject that encourages a ‘transference’ of deep unconscious ways of perceiving and relating to others, shaped by earlier experience, to a trained observer skilled at discerning the pattern in them. So character analysis without an analytic treatment alliance and access to Bush’s transference material is on shaky ground indeed. (Not having read Dr. Frank’s book, I hope it includes a lengthy discussion of the merits and limits of the inferences he draws.) Frank is more justified, in my opinion, whem he raises concerns about the impact of Bush’s alcohol abuse on his brain function and cognitive competency. And as to Dr. Frank’s conclusion that
“our sole treatment option — for his benefit and for ours — is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late”,
well, it doesn’t take a shrink to reach such a conclusion — or to agree with it.
“The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials.
Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.” (New York Times)
Abu Ghraib Used Aggressive Tactics: “Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents.
The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib jail and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods.” (Washington Post)
Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming: “Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d’etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August.” (From the Wilderness)
“26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.” (LA Times)
![[Image 'iRaq.jpg' cannot be displayed]](iRaq.jpg "Groove!")
The iRaq iPod advertisement sendups are now being seen around LA too.
NPR Morning Edition: “A new report indicates one in six older teens and young adults lacks the skills to take on adult responsibilities, has little family or community support and is not likely to succeed as an adult. Advocates often call these young people ‘disconnected,’ and some say their situation has taken a back seat to the needs of younger children.”
Anthropologist suggests survival of the nicest prevails: “The prevailing view in popular and scientific literature is that humans and animals are genetically driven to compete for survival, thus making all social interaction inherently selfish. According to this line of reasoning, known as sociobiology, even seemingly unselfish acts of altruism merely represent a species’ strategy to survive and preserve its genes.
But Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that this is a narrow and simplistic view of evolutionary theory that fails to explain many aspects of sociality among mammals in general and primates in particular.”
“The torture scandal continues to grow, and with it the outrage of the Arab world. As our leaders continue to blame a few rogue soldiers, a cycle of mutual suspicion and dehumanization between the Arab world and the United States deepens.
We need to send a message directly from the people of the United States , to the people of Iraq and the Arab world, telling them that, as Americans, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in demanding justice for these sinful abuses committed in our name.
To do this, we’ve filmed a television ad with Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders to be broadcast on Arabic-language television in the Middle East. You can view the ad using the link below. If you feel the message expresses what is in your heart, let the world know by endorsing the ad. You can even donate to help put it on the air.”
www.faithfulamerica.org/AdClip.htm (True Majority)
![//antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0201/volcanoaurora2_shs.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0201/volcanoaurora2_shs.jpg "Volcano and Aurora, Iceland")
(Astronomy Picture of the Day)
The names that parents give their children illuminate cultural evolution. “Had Apple Blythe Alison Martin—the offspring of a celebrity couple, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin—been born a boy, it is quite possible she would have had been given something of a more normal name. This suggestion arises from research into changing fashions in children’s names, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Alexander Bentley, of University College, London, and his colleagues are studying the mathematics of cultural transmission. For this sort of work, birth records—which contain every instance in a country of one sort of cultural object, namely people’s first names—are a particularly good source of data.” (The Economist )
“We talk sometimes as if democracy were the natural human condition, as if any deviation from it is a crime to be punished or a disease to be cured. That is not true. Democracy, or what we call democracy nowadays, is the parochial custom of the English-speaking peoples for the conduct of their public affairs, which may or may not be suitable for others,”
cautions Bernard Lewis.
Ian Buruma reviews a new collection of a half-century of Lewis’ essays. (The New Yorker)
A 10-page special Infoporn on the global battle between liberty and control: “Wired offers an atlas of the intellectual property world. The maps and charts on the following pages show how IP enforcers are manning the ramparts while IP antagonists are challenging the protection regime. We focus on four industries: media, medicine, agriculture, and software. And while the battle rages, here and there a few pioneers are redrawing the map, marking a third way that respects patent protections and copyright controls while trying to foster more opportunities for broader access. The beginnings can be found in Linux and The Grey Album, generics and the Creative Commons. Use this atlas as a guide to two worlds in collision – and an outline of a new frontier.”
A Chilling AMA Resolution: The physician who proposed this resolution to the AMA ought to be brought before his state medical licensing authority on ethics charges. (This column by Ralph Nader illustrates why Nader should remain a muckraker and keep his nose out of the Presidential campaign, by the way.) (CommonDreams)
U.S. subsidies ensure low gas prices in Iraq: “Before the war, forecasters predicted that by invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein, America would benefit from increased exports of oil from Iraq, which has the world?9s second-largest petroleum reserves.
That would mean cheap gas for American motorists and a boost for the oil-dependent American economy.
More than a year after the invasion, that logic has been flipped on its head. Now the average price for gasoline in the United States is $2.05 a gallon – 50 cents more than the pre-invasion price.
Instead, the only people getting cheap gas as a result of the invasion are the Iraqis.
Filling a 22-gallon tank in Baghdad with low-grade fuel costs just $1.10, plus a 50-cent tip for the attendant. A tankful of high-test costs $2.75.
In Britain, by contrast, gasoline prices hit $5.79 per gallon last week – $127 for a tankful.
Although Iraq is a major petroleum producer, the country has little capacity to refine its own gasoline. So the U.S. government pays about $1.50 a gallon to buy fuel in neighboring countries and deliver it to Iraqi stations. A three-month supply costs American taxpayers more than $500 million, not including the cost of military escorts to fend off attacks by Iraqi insurgents.
‘We thank the Americans. They risked their lives to liberate us, and now they are improving our lives,’ said Baghdad taxi driver Osama Hashim, 26, while filling the tank on his beat-up 1983 Volkswagen.
Iraq?9s fuel subsidies, which are intended to mollify drivers used to low-priced fuel under Saddam, have coupled with the opening of the borders to create an anarchic car culture in Baghdad.
Cheap used cars shipped from Europe and Asia are flooding into Iraq. A 10-year-old BMW in good condition costs just $5,000. Since gas is so cheap, anyone with a car can become a taxi driver. Drivers jam the streets, offering rides for as little as 250 dinars – about 17 cents.
Iraq has no sales tax, no registration, no license plates and no auto insurance. Some would argue there are no rules of the road. Cars barrel the wrong way on the highway. They swoop into surprise U-turns. They ignore traffic signals.” (Columbia Tribune [via walker])
David Aronovitch: “The Reagan years were the years, perhaps, in which the cold war was won, and that is obviously good. He wasn’t the missile-mad cowboy of cartoons, and those of us who thought otherwise were wrong. But the Reagan presidency of 1981-89 was also when the dragon’s teeth of the present were sown. Reagan’s legacy to the world may be the fallen wall, but it is also the third-world landmine.” (Guardian.UK [thanks, Roger])
Also: a remarkable collection of progressive columnists share my revulsion, or at least querulousness, about the orgy of myopic praise for Reagan this week. (I am tempted to take back my contribution from NPR for joining in the almost universal hushed tones of reverence with no counterbalancing viewpoints. All Things Considered indeed! Some would invoke the cliché about not speaking ill of the dead, but I would counterpose with that the one about living your life so that no one can speak ill of you when you die.) Here is a collection of links from the Common Dreams Media Center:
“The torture scandal continues to grow, and with it the outrage of the Arab world. As our leaders continue to blame a few rogue soldiers, a cycle of mutual suspicion and dehumanization between the Arab world and the United States deepens.
We need to send a message directly from the people of the United States , to the people of Iraq and the Arab world, telling them that, as Americans, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in demanding justice for these sinful abuses committed in our name.
To do this, we’ve filmed a television ad with Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders to be broadcast on Arabic-language television in the Middle East. You can view the ad using the link below. If you feel the message expresses what is in your heart, let the world know by endorsing the ad. You can even donate to help put it on the air.”
www.faithfulamerica.org/AdClip.htm (True Majority)
Who Says? “If you’ve been following the election coverage, you know how angry you’re supposed to be. This has been called the Armageddon election in the 50-50 nation, a civil war between the Blue and the Red states, a clash between churchgoers and secularists hopelessly separated by a values chasm and a culture gap.
But do Americans really despise the beliefs of half of their fellow citizens? Have Americans really changed so much since the day when a candidate with Ronald Reagan’s soothing message could carry 49 of 50 states?
To some scholars, the answer is no. They say that our basic differences have actually been shrinking over the past two decades, and that the polarized nation is largely a myth created by people inside the Beltway talking to each another or, more precisely, shouting at each other.” (New York Times)
“On May 10 Steven Kurtz went to bed a married art professor. On May 11 he woke up a widower. By the afternoon he was under federal investigation for bioterrorism.
What began as a personal tragedy for Mr Kurtz has turned into what many believe is, at best, an overreaction prompted by 9/11 paranoia and, at worst, a politically motivated attempt to silence a radical artist.” (Guardian.UK)
“A clever border collie that can fetch at least 200 objects by name may be living proof that dogs truly understand human language, German scientists reported on Thursday.
Rico can figure out which object his master wants even if he has never heard the word before, the researchers say.
The findings, reported in the journal Science, may not surprise many dog owners. But they are certain to re-ignite a debate over what language is and whether it is unique to humans.
Rico’s abilities seem to follow a process called ‘fast mapping,’ seen when young children start to learn to speak and understand language, they report.” (Wired)
from POE News [via Dennis]
I have previously written about the arms race between Apple and those who seek fair use of the tunes they buy from the iTunes Store. Ver. 4.5 of iTunes defeated Playfair’s de-DRM strategy; Hymn renovated it. Now Apple’s up to ver. 4.6 and, if you really need to upgrade (?perhaps to avail yourself of AirTunes’ functionality?) you will find that Hymn’ed songs won’t play. Hymn embeds the user’s name and email address in the unprotected .mp4 file it makes as a sign of good faith, as if to insure that the unprotected files are not redistributed. Well, iTunes 4.6 looks for the embedded identification information and simply refuses to play those files. Here is a method of getting past that in iTunes 4.6 by taking a hex editor to your unprotected songs.
Paul Boutin: Virus-proof your PC in 20 minutes, for free:
“So I whittled the world of options down to three steps that, on most PCs, can be done in less than 20 minutes. (Once you’re done, you’ll need to run some programs that take longer than that, but there’s no need to sit and watch.) Just as important, they’re all free, thanks to a mix of promotional offers and hacker idealism. Some of these instructions might seem obvious, even dumb, but I was surprised to find that many of my friends’ PCs had missed one or another of them. Any computer user who got hit by the Sasser worm hadn’t bothered to do the second step. Do all three, and you’ll be protected against the most common infections and still be left with time and money for lunch.” (Slate)
Four adult epilepsy patients who had had a grid of electrodes implanted on the surfaces of their brains (for the purpose of accurately localizing their seizure focus) learned to move a computer cursor on screen with their mental processes alone and, with only hours of practice, play a simple computer game with their minds. As boing boing, which pointed me to this item, suggested, I wonder how long it will be before the Pentagon starts implanting these grids into their clientele.
![//www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ym9n-em/about/card.gif' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ym9n-em/about/card.gif "Know all ye by these presents...")
This observance of the 35th anniversary of the 1969 release of David Bowie’s Space Oddity made me recall the Pan Am “First Moon Flights Club”. If you remember, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) put Pan Am’s name on the shuttle the protagonists ride to the moon. When the airline announced in late 1968, during a break in ABC-TV’s coverage of the Apollo 8 mission, that it would begin accepting reservations for the first commercial flight to the moon, it was deluged with requests and quickly established the club, which was essentially a waitiing list dignified by a wallet card. I was one of the charter members of the First Moon Flights Club and showed off my increasingly dog-eared membership card, with a number somewhere in the low 1000’s, to anyone who did not believe my boast that I was on the waiting list for a moonflight. I swore that I would do anything to raise the airfare by the time my name rose to the top of the list. By the time Pan Am stopped taking reservations in 1971, club membership stood at over 93,000 strong, and rival TWA had a similar arrangement. I don’t know what ever happened to my card, although I doubt the waiting list was transferred anywhere else when Pan Am went out of business in 1991. And although some opine that space activities will never be profitable until tourism services begin, I don’t suppose I am going to break my terrestrial bonds in this lifetime.
“Live Bonnaroo offers downloads of high fidelity, mastered, soundboard recordings of entire sets from many artists performing at this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival. Sets are available in both MP3 and CD-quality lossless formats (FLAC), powered by nugs.net’s state-of-the-art delivery system.” [via largehearted boy]
“Reversing itself, the Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba.
The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker’s medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.
Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American..” (New York Times)
Musician Ray Charles Dies at 73. “His sound was stunning — it was the blues, it was R&B, it was gospel, it was swing — it was all the stuff I was listening to before that but rolled into one amazing, soulful thing,” — Van Morrison
Riemann hypothesis may have been solved… for a cool $1 million:
“A mathematician at Purdue University claims to have come up with a proof for the Riemann hypothesis, often called the greatest unsolved math problem, though the work has yet to be peer-reviewed.” (CNET)
“What tricks will BushCo pull to attempt to win the election in November? Well, he’ll probably try something around or before October to swing or steal the vote. Welcome to October Surprise, where you can predict what will happen before the November 2004 election. Take the poll here.” Announcing the capture of Osama bin Laden is currently the leading contender, with around twice the votes as the next most popular alternative. My only question to the poll originator(s) — why are we only allowed to choose one??
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right: “Christopher Ricks, the newly elected professor of poetry at Oxford, is also the Warren Professor of Humanities at Boston University, where he has a large and elegantly furnished office overlooking Storrow Drive, and he bikes to it every day from his house in Cambridge. The bookshelves contain a complete vellum-bound set of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets and copies of the many books Mr. Ricks has himself written or edited — books about Keats, Milton, Beckett and T. S. Eliot; editions of Tennyson, Housman and Eliot’s early poems; anthologies of Victorian verse and of English poetry from the anonymous author of “Sumer is icumen in” to Seamus Heaney. In a corner by the desk there is also a boom box. Mr. Ricks brings this to lectures when he wants to talk about another of his favorite poets: Bob Dylan.
Mr. Ricks, who is 70 and was born in Britain and educated at Oxford, is a professor’s professor, a don’s don. He is courtly, charming and fond of wicked anecdotes about academic backbiting. He is also immensely learned. It’s a tossup whether he or Harold Bloom knows more English verse by heart, but Mr. Ricks surely knows more Led Zeppelin lyrics than Mr. Bloom does, and can recite them on request. His love of Mr. Dylan’s work is not an affectation, though — the pathetic impersonation of an old prof trying to prove how cool he is — but a genuine passion. He has just added to the not inconsiderable body of Dylan scholarship with a book of his own, his longest to date, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (Ecco Press), which devotes some 500 pages to a close analysis, line by line sometimes, of the master’s greatest hits.” (New York Times )
Lacy, 69, Who Popularized the Soprano Saxophone, Dies: “After performing in New York, his hometown, Mr. Lacy moved to Italy and France, and became the most Europeanized of all expatriate American jazz musicians. He married one of his musical collaborators, the Swiss-born singer Irene Aebi, who survives him. He insisted on a literary dimension to his work, incorporating texts by novelists, poets and philosophers — as well as visual-art and dance components, when time and money allowed.
For someone long considered an avant-garde artist, Mr. Lacy always insisted that nobody could get more avant-garde than Louis Armstrong; his best work was anti-highfalutin and doggedly practical. His most representative melodies, like “The Bath” and “The Gleam,” use gentle repetition and gentle wit; he developed his saxophone tone to be as attenuated as a Hemingway sentence, and his improvised lines as succinct. At the end of his life, hounded by tax problems in France, he returned to the United States, moving in 2002 to teach at the New England Conservatory and live in Brookline, Mass.” (New York Times)
“Although it won’t ship until July, the Express has already lured many gadget fiends into placing early orders. Apple won’t talk numbers, but according to one of the leading online Mac retailers, CDW MacWarehouse, advance orders for Express base stations have been lighting up their Web site.
Clearly, Express’ primary allure is moving digital music off the desktop and into the living room, the office, or wherever a user happens to be. A plethora of consumer-electronics and PC vendors have introduced products trying to do more or less what Apple seeks to do with the AirPort. But, in most cases, configuration remains tricky and a stumbling block for Joe Public.
That usability gap is where the Express truly shines. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Apple has just added some new twists to make the router an extension of the already popular iTunes and iPod famly. A new piece of software, AirTunes, promises seamless synching between a computer — PC or Mac — and any Wi-Fi-ready speakers within range via the Express router.” (BusinessWeek)
“It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid accountability.” — Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch (Washington Post)
Said to Be ‘Victim of Ancient Albanian Jinx’: “While heavyweight pundits ponder the ‘real reasons’ behind CIA director George Tenet’s sudden resignation, a Tirana newspaper on Friday offered a typically whimsical explanation; he fell victim to an ancient Albanian curse.
The Korrieri daily said the CIA chief’s resignation on Thursday fell a day before he had been due to visit Albania.
‘If he had not planned a visit to Albania, probably he would have not been struck by the curse of the Pojan jinx,’ editor Alfred Peza said in his column, citing a supposed evil spirit that jinxed the villagers of Pojan back in the mists of time.
Tenet was clearly felled by the jinx, wrote Peza, as were the late Soviet Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov, former West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and others who were demoted or quit after becoming involved with Albania.” (Yahoo! News)
New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV: “TiVo, the maker of a popular digital video recorder, plans to announce a new set of Internet-based services today that will further blur the line between programming delivered over traditional cable and satellite channels and content from the Internet. It is just one of a growing group of large and small companies that are looking at high-speed Internet to deliver video content to the living room.
The new TiVo technology, which will become a standard feature in its video recorders, will allow users to download movies and music from the Internet to the hard drive on their video recorder. Although the current TiVo service allows users to watch broadcast, cable or satellite programs at any time, the new technology will make it possible for them to mix content from the Internet with those programs.” (New York Times)
![//media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I31755-2004Jun10' cannot be displayed]](http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I31755-2004Jun10 "Ray Charles is dead at 73")
![//graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/05/arts/Lacy184.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/05/arts/Lacy184.jpg "Steve Lacy")
