The Army lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq did not fully understand a document he signed admitted to elements of the charges, the judge ruled. Watada was charged with conduct unbecoming and missing movement for staying behind when his brigade shipped out last June, as covered here. (I think war resisters deserve broad coverage, as I have explained.) Watada asserted that, because the war was illegal, his responsibility as an Army officer was to disobey his deployment order. Does any reader know if, under military law, he can face a second court-martial after the mistrial?

Should cut down on the incidence of brain tumors in New York as well as pedestrian-vehicle accidents [grin]…

“It’s a sad fact of military aviation that helicopters flying in combat are accidents waiting to happen.” They are slow, they fly low, and they have lots of external vulnerable targets. They can be brought down by small-arms fire. Most of the downings that the Pentagon is quick to assert did not result from hostile fire actually turn out indeed to have been shot down. The role of copters in the upcoming ‘surge’ remains to be seen… (Time)

Also: 

Copter Crashes Suggest Shift in Iraqi Tactics: “American officials say the streak strongly suggests that insurgents have adapted their tactics and are now putting more effort into shooting down the aircraft….Some aspects of the recent crashes indicate that insurgents have become smarter about anticipating American flight patterns and finding ways to use old weapons to down helicopters, according to military and witness reports. The aircraft, many of which are equipped with sophisticated antimissile technology, still can be vulnerable to more conventional weapons fired from the ground.” (New York Times )

I am puzzled by what I think is a specious distinction here. There are many ways to be a problem drinker. Alcoholism is an imprecise term that has little utility and serves to make people either defensive or self-satisfied. It is a common occurrence for people entering treatment for alcohol-related problems to bolster their denial with the assertion that, after all, they are “not alcoholic”. It is true, not all problem drinkers are alcohol-dependent, by which we mean physiologically addicted, needing to drink daily, going into withdrawal if deprived of access to alcohol, and requiring a medical detox to become sober. DSM-IV, the ‘bible’ of official psychiatric diagnoses, makes a distinction between alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse, but IMHO both qualify as “alcoholism”. Just my .02.

Four-year old Rebecca Riley was found dead on the floor of the family home in Hull on December 13. Prosecutors are charging her parents with first-degree murder for allegedly “regularly giving her drug overdoses, ostensibly to keep her calm and help her sleep”. (Boston Globe)

Rebecca had been diagnosed at age 2 1/2 [sic] with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder and was being medicated by a Tufts-New England Medical Center psychiatrist who was also prescribing nearly identical drug regimens for her older brother and sister. The medical center rushed to stand behind their clinician, stating

With the caveat that of course I don’t know the clinical details of Rebecca Riley’s case, I would have to say that there is at least one psychiatric colleague here in Massachusetts who questions the appropriateness of the care little Rebecca received. I find it difficult to imagine how any 2 1/2-year old could possibly be diagnosed with these disorders in the first place. As readers of FmH know, I think the field suffers from rampant overmedicalization of variant behaviors. In particular, I have vented my spleen about the irresponsible epidemic of diagnosing ADHD — there is not an epidemic of ADHD; there is one of diagnosing it! (Perhaps we ought to have a psychopharmacological treatment for disordered diagnostic practices among caregivers…) And childhood bipolar disorder, a controversial diagnosis which seems defined, Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, by little more than the fact that it does not present anything like the adult bipolar disorder with which we are familiar, is the newest abused diagnosis in child psychiatry. Then consider for a moment, even granting the validity of the diagnoses, whether one should ever medicate small children so heavily, or medicate them at all. The only possible consolation from this horrendous travesty of medical care will be if Rebecca’s death becomes a cause celebre that leads to earnest reform. Whatever aspersions one might cast on the parents’ role in their daughter’s death, this entire family should be considered poster children for the affront to human dignity that mental health diagnosis and treatment have become.

Your thoughts?

Hmm, sounds like it should be right up my alley, and in fact I find cognitive dissonance a psychological concept of crucial importance. We change our beliefs to avoid the distress of conflicting thoughts. Is it to salve our egos or to avoid agonizing over past mistakes, as the New York Times birthday appreciation poses the question? I actually think there is not much of a distinction. A sense of certainty allows us to have confidence in our minds, our ability to decipher the world and to act decisively. It is one of the foundations of effective functioning. As a mental health clinician, I see every day how devastating it is to lose confidence in the reliability of one’s own thought processes and the lengths to which people will go to avoid doing so.

Debra J. Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness and An American Story, argues that Obama is “black” rather than black, as he cannot claim ancestry from African slaves.