‘Lifters’: An Idea in the Clouds: ‘Antigravitational devices developed by a computer geek could eventually change the world as we know it.

Or they may just blow a few holes into some barn roofs.

The devices are known as “lifters.” When charged with a small amount of electrical power, they levitate, apparently able to resist Earth’s gravitational forces.’ Wired

Alan Stone, distinguished Harvard psychiatrist, considers John Nash and the Hollywood romance with mental illness:

“If I were a Hollywood actor, I would be calling my agent to be on the lookout for roles in which I could play a mentally troubled character. Kathy Bates earned her Oscar playing a madwoman in Misery in 1990; the next year, Anthony Hopkins earned one for the role of cannibal Hannibal Lecter; in 1993 Holly Hunter was the mute heroine of The Piano; 1994 produced Tom Hanks as the strange but winning Forrest Gump; in 1995 there was the alcoholic Nicholas Cage of Leaving Las Vegas; Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor award for his 1996 performance as schizoaffective pianist David Helfgott; 1997 was Jack Nicholson’s turn for doing obsessive compulsive disorder; James Coburn picked up his Oscar as the sadistic paranoid father in 1998’s Affliction; and in 1999, Michael Caine was a narcotics addict and Angelina Jolie co-starred as the sociopath of Girl, Interrupted. That’s ten Oscars in ten years and I am not counting the borderline cases like Jessica Lange who is half mad in most of her movies and has already collected two Oscars.”

Stone’s comments about the Russell Crowe portrayal (or was it the script?) capture some of the discomforts I felt with the film’s view of schizophrenia, patients with which I work every day, as well:

Life is uglier and more complicated than movies. The screenwriter did find an imaginative way to capture Nash’s claim that he cured himself with reason. There is a moment in the movie when Nash suddenly has the insight that his roommate’s niece never gets older—a logical proof that allows him to recognize that his mind has been playing tricks on him. He is a problem-solver and so he solves this problem slowly—to use his analogy—like an overweight person who sticks to a diet. The other half of his cure—the movie myth that his wife’s love rescued him—is also fiction and the emotional high point of the movie. In an imagined Nobel speech, he is shown speaking to dignitaries gathered from around the world. He explains that he has explored the physical and the metaphysical, logic and reason, but what is real is love, and he learned that from his wife. This Hollywood redemption speech puts the face of humility on Nash’s unyielding egocentricity and arrogance. It brings tears to ones eyes, even when one knows better.

Boston Review

Satire on Patsy Cline Trips Up Columnist NY Times

“Bush warns Pakistan on Kashmir incursions; he says curbing militants more critical than stopping missile tests.” Read to the end of this San Francisco Chronicle piece, which is more about his conduct during a joint press conference with President Chirac than it is about the warning to Musharraf, for ongoing coverage of what a jackass we have for a President (if you still need convincing). He’s unconvincing in attributing his cognitive difficulties this time to jetlag.

Maureen Dowd in the NY Times is also still on his case, of course. This piece echoes my discomfort at how astonishingly rapidly “fighting terrorism” has become a platitude comparable in its emptiness to “fighting Communism” during the Cold War. If your thinking is as unnuanced and cognitively inflexible as Bush’s, you need meaningless stereotypes instead of concepts.

Like Ronald Reagan, W.’s appeal is that he is an All-American who believes what he believes. And he trusted his gut to create a new dynamic with a Russian leader. But such a lack of nuance over the long term could be worrisome. As Murray Kempton said, there is “the evil of lesser evilism.” The Bushes exhibit a moral myopia, thinking anything they do must be virtuous because they see themselves as virtuous.

I would, however, quibble with Dowd’s repeated description of Bush’s reign as a “Manichaean” presidency. Although the term is often applied to anyone who sees things as all black-and-white, good-or-evil, it is only dumb luck that the President’s conceptual limitations superficially echo a sophisticated worldview (and, ironically, one that was considered an anti-Christian heresy…)

Not if but when: “All Sept. 11 did was turn a theoretical possibility into a felt danger. All it did was supply a credible cast of characters who hate us so much they would thrill to the prospect of actually doing it — and, most important in rethinking the probabilities, would be happy to die in the effort. All it did was give our nightmares legs…

The best reason for thinking it won’t happen is that it hasn’t happened yet, and that is terrible logic. The problem is not so much that we are not doing enough to prevent a terrorist from turning our atomic knowledge against us (although we are not). The problem is that there may be no such thing as ‘enough’. ”

The author comprehensively considers the risk of both the detonation of an atomic explosion and the non-explosive dispersal of radioactive matierals by terrorists. Uncharacteristically, he lapses into the first person toward the end of the article:

Fear is personal. My own — in part, because it’s the one I grew up with, the one that made me shiver through the Cuban missile crisis and ”On the Beach” — is the horrible magic of nuclear fission. A dirty bomb or an assault on a nuclear power station, ghastly as that would be, feels to me within the range of what we have survived. As the White House official I spoke with said, it’s basically Oklahoma City plus the Hart Office Building. A nuclear explosion is in a different realm of fears and would test the country in ways we can scarcely imagine.

I share this reaction; it’s the reason, as readers of FmH will recall, that I disapprove of referring to the WTC site as “ground zero,” a term whose connotations properly relate to the site of a nuclear blast. Most people have no idea how unimaginably worse a nuclear detonation in the midst of New York would have been, and we ought not use sexy linguistic hype to obscure that distinction:

As I neared the end of this assignment, I asked Matthew McKinzie, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, to run a computer model of a one-kiloton nuclear explosion in Times Square, half a block from my office, on a nice spring workday. By the standards of serious nuclear weaponry, one kiloton is a junk bomb, hardly worthy of respect, a fifteenth the power of the bomb over Hiroshima.

A couple of days later he e-mailed me the results, which I combined with estimates of office workers and tourist traffic in the area…

NY Times Magazine

Not if but when: “All Sept. 11 did was turn a theoretical possibility into a felt danger. All it did was supply a credible cast of characters who hate us so much they would thrill to the prospect of actually doing it — and, most important in rethinking the probabilities, would be happy to die in the effort. All it did was give our nightmares legs…

The best reason for thinking it won’t happen is that it hasn’t happened yet, and that is terrible logic. The problem is not so much that we are not doing enough to prevent a terrorist from turning our atomic knowledge against us (although we are not). The problem is that there may be no such thing as ‘enough’. ”

The author comprehensively considers the risk of both the detonation of an atomic explosion and the non-explosive dispersal of radioactive matierals by terrorists. Uncharacteristically, he lapses into the first person toward the end of the article:

Fear is personal. My own — in part, because it’s the one I grew up with, the one that made me shiver through the Cuban missile crisis and ”On the Beach” — is the horrible magic of nuclear fission. A dirty bomb or an assault on a nuclear power station, ghastly as that would be, feels to me within the range of what we have survived. As the White House official I spoke with said, it’s basically Oklahoma City plus the Hart Office Building. A nuclear explosion is in a different realm of fears and would test the country in ways we can scarcely imagine.

I share this reaction; it’s the reason, as readers of FmH will recall, that I disapprove of referring to the WTC site as “ground zero,” a term whose connotations properly relate to the site of a nuclear blast. Most people have no idea how unimaginably worse a nuclear detonation in the midst of New York would have been, and we ought not use sexy linguistic hype to obscure that distinction:

As I neared the end of this assignment, I asked Matthew McKinzie, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, to run a computer model of a one-kiloton nuclear explosion in Times Square, half a block from my office, on a nice spring workday. By the standards of serious nuclear weaponry, one kiloton is a junk bomb, hardly worthy of respect, a fifteenth the power of the bomb over Hiroshima.

A couple of days later he e-mailed me the results, which I combined with estimates of office workers and tourist traffic in the area…

NY Times Magazine

My family and I will be away vacationing for two weeks. Please come back and visit Follow Me Here again beginning on Memorial Day (to you non-U.S. readers: May 27th). If you need a reminder when FmH becomes active again, click on the “spy on this page” link in the sidebar.

As always, please consider supporting the other fine weblogs in the sidebar by following me there both in my absence and after my return. And don’t feel inhibited about continuing to send me interesting blinks even while I’m away. I enjoy coming back to a mailbox bursting at the seams…

Rolling Stone‘s “50 coolest records” — I own eight, I’ve never heard of the artists of six, and I disagree with, oh about half. And Rolling Stone‘s “50 uncoolest records (that we love)” — I own none of these but have to admit that in years past I had two of them on vinyl. Again I have to disagree with many of their choices — these are not uncool records you should love and covet. They’re just plain uncool…

Geov Parrish: A Quiet Revolution In Burma: “The release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is

a triumph for non-violent movements everywhere.” AlterNet

Michael Kinsley: Answering Sharon – Look, are we at war with terrorism or are we not? Not.

“The Bush folks should not have needed the annoying Sharon to remind them that the facile absolutist rhetoric of the weeks after Sept. 11 was unwise. Bush’s oil buddies the Saudis believe that dealing effectively with terrorism itself requires dealing financially with terrorists. Appeasement is not a very attractive anti-terrorist tactic, but Bush was never prepared to call them on it because even his more bellicose and principled approach needs Saudi official backing.” Slate

KartOO: novel new web search engine. I don’t have a sense yet of how good their spidering and indexing are, but their interface is nifty. Instead of a listing of ‘hits’ on a search term, what pops up here is a map of webspace depicting the datapoints and their linkages. Click on a point on the map to drill deeper into your search. Worth playing with.

Pediatric Psychiatric Illness in the Emergency Department—An Ignored Health Care Issue —

Abstract: “Objectives: To examine the differences in the care of children with a psychiatric illness and all other children in the emergency department (ED). Methods: One-year cross-sectional retrospective chart review of children <18 years of age admitted to the ED… Conclusions: These data suggest a gap in the health care system that is perhaps mostly due to inadequate recognition of the magnitude and severity of the problem. Children with psychiatric illness often become “stuck” in the ED or on the pediatric inpatient ward for prolonged periods of time because there are inadequate inpatient or outpatient services to care for them.” Academic Emergency Medicine

The evolution of the nomenclature of antipsychotic drugs (.pdf) —

Abstract: “Objective: Psychiatry as a science and psychotherapy as an art thrive on words, words that were often

coined arbitrarily and that are often used idiosyncratically. This article examines the origins, progenitors and

usage of the word “antipsychotic” and explores its ramifications. Methods: Original publications from the

1950s onward, beginning with the report of the discovery of chlorpromazine, were sought for their specific

references to the terminology of drugs used to treat psychotic disorders. Preferences for individual words,

debates surrounding their adoption and changing trends in their use are reviewed from scientific, clinical and

social perspectives. Results: Over the past 50 years the drugs used in the treatment of schizophrenia and

other psychotic disorders have been variously labelled “tranquillizers,” “neuroleptics,” “ataractics,” “antipsychotics”

and “anti-schizophrenic agents.” These terms, coined out of necessity, were quickly accepted with little

debate or due consideration of their clinical, personal and social implications. The development of a new

generation of antipsychotic drugs as well as the prospect of treatment strategies with diverse mechanisms of

action highlight the need to re-examine the issues involved in the naming, classification and labelling of psychotropic

drugs in general and of “antipsychotics” in particular. Conclusion: This historical overview of the

labelling of drugs used in the treatment of psychoses reflects the confusion and controversy surrounding the

naming and classification of drugs and diseases in general. It also illustrates the dynamic interplay of personal

beliefs, rational thinking, practical considerations and societal values in shaping the scientific process.” Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience

A close look at Southern Poverty Law Center and “hate groups”: thanks to David Walker for directing me to this discussion of the SPLC’s “perfidy” in aggressive solicitation, based on “careful reporter” (says Declan McCullagh, on whose Politech mailing list this discussion occurred) Ken Silverstein’s dissection of their fundraising efforts in a Harper’s Magazine piece reprinted here. I’ve given money to the SPLC for years and have been edified by Morris Dees’ achievements in breaking the backs of hate groups in litigation. I’m certainly concerned that the American Institute of Philanthropy gives the SPLC low marks, and have certainly noticed the frequency of  its direct-mail solicitations — although they are not distasteful, as the genre goes. But on the other hand, if the flagbearers of this critique are Alexander Cockburn and the “Counterpunch folks”, who too often discredit their political credentials by leading with hysteria without following through with thoughtful analysis, IMHO concerns can be discounted… ‘Wads of cash’ raised by direct mail are not necessarily evil if they do good works…

Jellyfish ‘Blooms’ Could Be Sign of Ailing Seas Washington Post

New journal supports the null hypothesis: “It’s disappointing to conduct a study and find the statistics to be insignificant. But a new journal, the Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, makes insignificant results somewhat significant by publishing them.” APA Monitor

Review: The Art of Suicide by Ron M. Brown: “Reaktion publishes books integrating history and images. Brown’s punningly titled volume both divides suicides into sinful and heroic, and also surveys their images in European art.” British Medical Journal

‘I Am a Racially Profiling Doctor‘ — Sally Satel MD, NY Times Magazine

BBC attempt to test nation’s IQ is not so bright, say critics Telegraph UK

Scientists Describe New Form of Life as ‘Weird Bug’: “Scientists have discovered an entirely new type of creature–one that does not fit into any previous category of life–lurking in an undersea vent north of Iceland.

The creatures are small spheres attached to other organisms and are so genetically strange and so tiny–smaller than a grain of sand and about the width of four human hairs–that they were invisible to traditional ecological survey methods.” Los Angeles Times

Risking Limbs for Height, and Success, in China: a horrifying story about the relationship between height and stature in modern-day China and the lengths (no pun intended) to which some will go for advantage. NY Times Magazine [thanks, Abby]

Zoned Out: a University of Alabama professor writes about how universities are using ‘free speech zones’ to drastically restrict free speech on campus. The New Republic

The assassination of Pim Fortuyn has rocked the Netherlands and, as The Economist puts it, “given Europe’s extreme right a martyr.” The news coverage of Fortuyn is complicated, however; he’s clearly anti-immigration but the press attributes his opposition to Muslim immigrants in particularly as a function of their homophobia and misogyny. Fortuyn himself is gay. His newly-established party was predicted to capture 15% of the vote in the May 15th general election, making him a potential player in coalition politics. Chillingly, he predicted he would be killed and blamed Dutch prime minister Wim Kok for not providing him with any protection, taking no responsibility for garnering enmity himself due to the unpopularity of his position and his penchant for alienating and offending political opponents of all stripes with blunt dismissals. The Dutch government was quick to publicize the fact that the suspect they arrested was a “white Dutchman.” A number of news sources at which I’ve followed coverage of his assassination betray their flair for the dramatic by puzzling over his assailant’s motive, but some reports describe him as an extreme leftist. The Economist

Watch an animation of the deconstruction of the ancient ur-continent of Pangaea [via Schism Matrix]

Filming an Art-Heist Mystery and Hoping for a Happy Ending: “Not that you would, but if you do happen to know who swiped a Vermeer, three Rembrandts and other masterworks totaling up to $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, or know where the hoard is stashed, here’s a suggestion…”

U.S. Rejects All Support for New Court on Atrocities. In so doing, the US ignores the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a 1969 agreement that requires states to refrain from taking steps to undermine treaties they sign, even if they do not ratify them. It would be fitting if such flagrant, contemptuous and contemptible defiance of international law comes back to haunt the Bush Administration in the form of international isolation, mistrust in Europe and the collapse of the “anti-terrorism coalition.” The winning faction in the Administration, led by Rumsfeld, puts themseelves firmly in the camp of the loonies who see black helicopters everywhere and fear a ‘new world order’ in which US sovereignty is subordinated to the UN’s rule.

Anthrax Sent Through Mail Gained Potency by the Letter, according to Federal investigators;
For Anthrax Survivors, a Halting Painful Recovery:

Of the 11 people who came down with the deadliest form of anthrax after germ-laced letters were sent through the mail in October, six survived. Of those, one is well enough to return to work, even though the typical recovery period for a serious infection is three to six months. The others are caught in the limbo of recovery, grateful to be alive but wondering whether the aftereffects, both physical and psychological, will ever subside. Some have nightmares. One has begun seeing a psychiatrist to cope with flashbacks that transport him, without warning, back to intensive care. Others complain that they are tired, short of breath and plagued by losses of short-term memory, symptoms that puzzle their doctors, as well as government experts.

And: Washington Accuses Cuba of Germ-Warfare Research:

In a speech yesterday at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control, publicly alluded to conclusions that American intelligence agencies have reached in recent months after protracted internal debate.

“The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort,” Mr. Bolton said, taking aim at the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Cuba, he added, has also “provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states.”

New enemies added to ‘axis of evil’ to rev up failing American fervor! NY Times

Tom Waits: A Poet of Outcasts Who’s Come Inside:

He hasn’t taken a drink, he said, in nine years, and his self-destructive alcoholic patches are two decades behind him. But from his first album, Closing Time (Asylum) in 1973, to the two new ones being released simultaneously on Tuesday, Blood Money and Alice (both on Anti), he has peered into dank recesses and populated his songs with drunks, hobos, prostitutes, carnies, transvestites, suicides and a few stray politicians.

In the songs, true love collides with callous fate and close observation dissolves into surrealism. The music drags hymns and parlor songs, blues and ballads into a sonic menagerie that, on the new albums, includes Swiss hand bells, calliope and a four-foot-long Indonesian seed pod, which is “as wide as a Bible,” he said, and has “seeds as big as CD’s.”

The tunes hold some Stephen Foster, some Kurt Weill, some Louis Armstrong, some Lightnin’ Hopkins, some Harry Partch, some Captain Beefheart and some circus music — clear points that Mr. Waits has connected into his own constellation. He doesn’t mind that his influences show. “Most songwriters, you can trace back what they’ve been listening to,” he said. “It’s like you can go through the entrails of any animal and tell what the last three days were like. How do you reconcile your irreconcilable musical desires and dreams and wishes and memories? You may not be able to make one thing out of it. I think I feel more comfortable trying to visit different places. I don’t know if I have anything that I’ve made that’s a synthesis of the things I love. I don’t think I leave it in the blender long enough.”

There has been enough straightforward melody and romance to let some of Mr. Waits’s songs, like “Ol’ `55” and “Downtown Train,” be shined up and turned into pop hits by the Eagles or Rod Stewart. But others never will be. Blood Money starts with songs called “Misery Is the River of the World” and “Everything Goes to Hell”; Alice, a collection of songs written for a music-theater collaboration with Robert Wilson in 1992, is haunted by solitude and death. But both albums are bipolar, with deep-seated misanthropy and pessimism sitting alongside pure, unironic love songs like “Coney Island Baby” from Blood Money, on which he rasps, “All the stars make their wishes on her eyes.” NY Times

Wrecked Exotics: “If you’re tired seeing beautiful

and expensive cars buffed to an immaculate sheen, take a walk on

the wrecked side and check out when happens when good cars go

bad.”

Colombian Tribe Topples Mighty Oil Giant: “Occidental Petroleum is hightailing out of Siriri, Colombia thanks

to the sheer will of the U’wa — a small indigenous tribe in the Andean

rainforest.” AlterNet

Leave Our Kids Alone: “Some Palestinian groups have called for a ban on suicide bombings

by teenagers. If Palestinian families are finally speaking out

against manipulation of their youth by Palestinian officials, they

could bring new hope to the region.” — Andrew Friedman, AlterNet

Maureen Dowd: Boxers, Briefs, Mochas:

Bill should not be the next Oprah.

That’s silly.

He should be the next Ozzy.

After all, as one network executive says of the prolix ex-president: “How could he be an interviewer? He only wants to hear himself talk.” NY Times op-ed

Tom Waits: A Poet of Outcasts Who’s Come Inside:

He hasn’t taken a drink, he said, in nine years, and his self-destructive alcoholic patches are two decades behind him. But from his first album, Closing Time (Asylum) in 1973, to the two new ones being released simultaneously on Tuesday, Blood Money and Alice (both on Anti), he has peered into dank recesses and populated his songs with drunks, hobos, prostitutes, carnies, transvestites, suicides and a few stray politicians.

In the songs, true love collides with callous fate and close observation dissolves into surrealism. The music drags hymns and parlor songs, blues and ballads into a sonic menagerie that, on the new albums, includes Swiss hand bells, calliope and a four-foot-long Indonesian seed pod, which is “as wide as a Bible,” he said, and has “seeds as big as CD’s.”

The tunes hold some Stephen Foster, some Kurt Weill, some Louis Armstrong, some Lightnin’ Hopkins, some Harry Partch, some Captain Beefheart and some circus music — clear points that Mr. Waits has connected into his own constellation. He doesn’t mind that his influences show. “Most songwriters, you can trace back what they’ve been listening to,” he said. “It’s like you can go through the entrails of any animal and tell what the last three days were like. How do you reconcile your irreconcilable musical desires and dreams and wishes and memories? You may not be able to make one thing out of it. I think I feel more comfortable trying to visit different places. I don’t know if I have anything that I’ve made that’s a synthesis of the things I love. I don’t think I leave it in the blender long enough.”

There has been enough straightforward melody and romance to let some of Mr. Waits’s songs, like “Ol’ `55” and “Downtown Train,” be shined up and turned into pop hits by the Eagles or Rod Stewart. But others never will be. Blood Money starts with songs called “Misery Is the River of the World” and “Everything Goes to Hell”; Alice, a collection of songs written for a music-theater collaboration with Robert Wilson in 1992, is haunted by solitude and death. But both albums are bipolar, with deep-seated misanthropy and pessimism sitting alongside pure, unironic love songs like “Coney Island Baby” from Blood Money, on which he rasps, “All the stars make their wishes on her eyes.” NY Times

What attracts gay men to the Catholic priesthood? “It would be a good thing for the bishops to agree on a strict and enforceable national policy. But what many Americans are calling the ”crisis” of the Roman Catholic Church won’t be settled by an administrative proposal on the single issue of sexual abuse. The crisis is a big bundle of old questions about priestly sexuality and systems of Roman authority. Many church officers, here and in the Vatican, want to keep the larger questions out of the discussion, in particular the volatile question of priestly homosexuality.” — Mark D. Jordan, professor of religion at Emory University and author of The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, Boston Globe op-ed [thanks, Rich]

“Memo indicates FBI was warned about Arab pilots: Two months before the Sept. 11 attacks, an FBI agent in Arizona alerted Washington headquarters that several Middle Easterners were training at a US aviation school, and recommended contacting other schools nationwide where Arabs might be studying.” Boston Globe

Planet Alignment Peaks Sunday and Monday: “The long-awaited gathering of the five naked-eye planets reaches its peak May 5-6 in the western evening sky. In a single glance you’ll be able to see all five planets, a feat not possible again for decades.

Further, three of the five planets will crowd into a small spot in the sky, making for a very distinctive formation — officially dubbed a “planetary trio” — that is sure to thrill skywatchers.” What to look for and when. Yahoo! News

Skipping commercials is stealing, says Turner CEO. 2600

Don’t really need to see photos from the party, but it’s got potential that Jacob Weisberg, whose insightful political musings are among the few Slate pieces I read and blink, is Slate‘s new editor.

“Hundreds of millions of songs may illegally trade hands online every month, but file swapping may actually be causing people to spend more money on music, according to a new research report.” CNET

As Adam [thanks!] said in sending me a pointer to this story, ‘(Seymour) Hersh says we’re fucked’. I agree; in a rambling speech he gave last week transcribed here, he captures my worst post-Sept 11th political fears and makes them sound like the most likely realities. Read it and weep… or duck and cover. An invitation to you warbloggers out there — give it your best shot at rebutting Hersh’s assertions; I’d love it if you could reassure me just a little bit that any of this wasn’t in the offing… Chicago Magazine

Clinton Said to Want TV Talk Show LA Times

Hubble’s Advanced Camera Unveils a Panoramic New View of the Universe:

‘Jubilant astronomers unveiled humankind’s most spectacular views of the universe, courtesy of the newly installed Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Among the suite of four ACS photographs to demonstrate the camera’s capabilities is a stunning view of a colliding galaxy dubbed the “Tadpole” (UGC10214). Set against a rich tapestry of 6,000 galaxies, the Tadpole, with its long tail of stars, looks like a runaway pinwheel firework. Another picture depicts a spectacular collision between two spiral galaxies — dubbed “The Mice” — that presages what may happen to our own Milky Way several billion years from now when it collides with the neighboring galaxy in the constellation Andromeda. Looking closer to home, ACS imaged the “Cone Nebula,” a craggy-looking mountaintop of cold gas and dust that is a cousin to Hubble’s iconic “pillars of creation” in the Eagle Nebula, photographed in 1995. Peering into a celestial maternity ward called the Omega Nebula or M17, ACS revealed a watercolor fantasy-world of glowing gases, where stars and perhaps embryonic planetary systems are forming.’ STScI

Wittgenstein’s Curse: how bad academic writing is these days is a function of how seriously academics take themselves, and the author of this Wilson Quarterly essay blames it, only semi-facetiously as he says, on Wittgenstein:

Wittgenstein’s early philosophy led him to the conclusion that we cannot talk rigorously or precisely about most things that humans deem of ultimate importance: truth, beauty, goodness, the meaning and ends of life. We can speak precisely and meaningfully only about those things that objective science can demonstrate. In his view, philosophy was to be a helpful tag-along of science: It can paint clear verbal pictures of what science divulges. But even Wittgenstein recognized that this understanding of the limitations of language was too limiting, and he became more and more interested in the provisional and social character of language, and in how the mystery of meaning emerges out of the shared play of making worlds out of words. He was struggling beyond scientism, and his final book, Philosophical Investigations (1953), posthumously assembled, seems to point suggestively away from the narrowness and inconsequentiality of his earlier position.

But if Wittgenstein struggled against the conclusions of his early work, I fear that the Western academic world increasingly succumbed to a desire for the kind of dubious seriousness that enticed the young philosopher.

The Origin, and the Sickening, of Our Species: “If one of your hominoid ancestors hadn’t gotten a viral infection millions of years ago, you might look really, really different today.

In the beginning, before the first landlubbers crawled out of the murky ocean depths, viruses were everywhere. These parasites infected our earliest ancestors, and today, many millions of years later, bits of their genes live on in our genes.

For three decades, scientists have wondered whether the viral DNA within us is more than merely a vestige of our lowly origins. Could these infectious organisms have assisted in driving our evolution-by helping, say, to turn a foraging ape into a more cerebral toolmaker?” Popular Science

Cellphone radiation ‘trapped’ in train carriages: a Japanese study finds that you could be exposed to levels of microwave radiation exceeding the maximum recommended by the International Committee for Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP) [what’s the ‘P’ for? — FmH] just by being packed into a train with a reasonable number of cellphone-users. New Scientist [via boing boing]

Rats Turned Into Remote-Controlled Robots: implanted electrodes simulate sensory input from their whisker bundles and activate motor behavior directly. After training, the rats can be steered any which way in three dimensions via remote control. Washington Post

“There is no evidence that the alleged leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, a finding that eliminates a once-suggested link between the terrorist attacks and the government of President Saddam Hussein, according to a senior administration official.” Washington Post

California bills would stop automatic billing after free trial periods. This is such an obviously desirable piece of consumer protection I’m surprised no one’s pushed it sooner, or more broadly.

Having taken the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org, I’m told I’m a

David Weinberger:
“You are smart, savvy, interested in why people do what they do,
enjoy questioning yourself and are not balding.”
[At least they’re right about my hairline…]

Why hasn’t the U.S. produced a Le Pen? asks New Republic editor Peter Beinart. “The answer is a happy and bipartisan story of political leadership by two men: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.” I’ve always liked the Conan Doyle “curious incident” metaphor with which Beinart begins the essay.

The deficit gets worse, and so does Bush: “The latest in what has become a steady stream of bad budgetary news arrived last Friday, when newspapers reported that this year’s deficit is estimated to be about $100 billion–twice as large as previous forecasts had suggested. President George W. Bush immediately offered a multilayered defense packed with jaw-dropping mendacity.” The New Republic

The Morning News‘ blistering take on two weeks in the Sun — the first two weeks of the much-anticipated New York Sun, that is: “Already in its third week of publishing, the Sun has yet to pass a single day without a major, basic-rules-of-journalism-violating mistake. Unsourced assertions, manipulated quotations and editorial infringement abound, not to mention the paper’s unrelenting support for charter schools, Israel, and Forgea, the dog trapped on an Indonesian freighter (a wire story that, inexplicably, ran front page for three consecutive days). It’s bad, and not simply in a beginner’s bad-luck sense of the word. We’re talking state-university-weekly bad.”

The Beat Movement as Lived by Ginsberg: “Allen Ginsberg was not only the Beat movement’s second-best-known luminary after Jack Kerouac; he was also its most assiduous visual chronicler. Ginsberg’s black-and-white photographs of Kerouac, Gregory Corso and others are definitive snapshots of an era.

Many photographs — as well as handwritten manuscript pages of Ginsberg’s poetry, audio clips, selected artwork, and video clips — are featured at www.allenginsberg.org, a Web site founded in March that is devoted to the life of the poet, who died in 1997 at age 70.

A work in progress, the site includes a Flash-enabled timeline that allows the user to click and drag on a picture of Ginsberg and take a guided chronological tour of his life.” NY Times

A conversation between James Fallows and Ralph Nader in Slate starts out with this from Fallows:

‘I was among the Nader alums who admired your entry into politics but resented your effect on the last presidential race. There is nothing new to say on this subject. I will never get you to agree that those 90,000 Nader votes in Florida gave Bush the election. You will never convince me that they didn’t. So, I won’t reargue the point—and I’ll try to keep from asking, about each Bush appointee or policy, “Happy now, Ralph?” But since we’re old friends who haven’t actually spoken since the election, I put it on the record here.’

XP Updates Start to P.O. Users: ‘One of the purported user-friendly features of Microsoft’s new operating system is turning out to be user-annoying.

As many as three times a week, on average, XP users see a little window pop-up at the bottom of their computer screens announcing the availability of another new update for their system. This plethora of patches has left many users wondering whether their hard drives are big enough to handle “Trustworthy Computing.” ‘ Wired

Blood filtering allows unmatched kidney transplants: Remove the antibodies from a transplant patient’s blood and they can receive a new organ from any donor. More than a hundred patients, most of whom had been told they had no hope of ever receiving a kidney transplant, have been successful recipients with the new procedure, developed by a team at Johns Hopkins. And: ‘ Two Japanese researchers have revealed the first details of their claim to have grown tadpole eyeballs from scratch in the lab. They say the eyes are functional when they are transplanted into tadpoles, and even work when the tadpoles metamorphose into frogs.

“None of the eyes were rejected and none dropped out,” said Makoto Asashima, of the University of Tokyo. “All of the frogs can see.” New Scientist

Listening to: When I Was Cruel. He’s back! with 2/3 of the Attractions! “You don’t become more reasonable — you become less reasonable. But it’s expressed more as absurdity. It doesn’t have to be just fury and mindless insult. And on this album, most of the negative things are intended for myself.” Questions for Elvis Costello: “The musician on why he’s still angry, why he doesn’t make money on his records and why he can’t understand his own lyrics.”

Sometime last year, you reached a point where you’d been Elvis Costello for longer than you were Declan McManus. Did you mark the date?

No, I didn’t. I don’t see that as my identity. It’s not on my passport. It’s a show-business alias. Like Count Basie — he wasn’t really a count. Though my driver’s license might be Costello.

And your first wife goes by the name Costello.

Only professionally, though.

Hmm. This is beginning to sound like an Elvis Costello song. Have you written any lyrics that you read now and say, ”What does that mean?”

Oh, yeah. But you know Monet? I look at his paintings without my glasses and they’re in focus and 3-D. I think that about words.

NY Times Magazine

Actually, the recording does disappoint, after several listenings. I agree with this deflating review by Ira Robbins in Salon:

“Endurance presents a different challenge in rock than it does in jazz, blues or pop. Physicality, youthful allure and creative momentum are less relevant to the aging titans of those musics than to rockers struggling to beat the clock. Credible artistic careers of 30 or 40 years, the rule in many realms, are the exception in rock. Costello’s reinvention as a vocalist was a prudent move, and this belated attempt to have it both ways is proof. If he hasn’t lost the ability to rock with conviction, at the very least he’s shown that it’s no longer a simple matter of choice. “It was so much easier when I was cruel,” he sings, and he’s undoubtedly right.”

‘Prof. Harris Mirkin could not have devised a better test for his controversial theory of sexual politics.

In 1999, Dr. Mirkin published an article in an obscure academic journal likening the “moral panic” surrounding pedophilia to the outrage of previous generations over feminism and homosexuality.’ Scholar’s Pedophilia Essay Stirs Outrage and Revenge [as you might imagine…].

For the record, Dr. Mirkin, who has grandchildren 2 and 7, said he had never had sexual contact with a child. Incest and rape, he said, are always wrong. He agreed that priests and teachers who touched children sexually were abusing their authority.

But he questioned whether some people accusing priests these days were making up stories in search of a payday, and he said he believed that much of what was called molestation was really harmless touching.

He said he resented that teachers were leery of hugging children for fear they might be accused of abuse. He imagines, he said, most adolescent males have fantasies similar to his, as a 12-year-old delivery boy, of being seduced by a female customer, and he wondered whether it would have been so bad had it come true.

In the article, an 18-page essay with 38 footnotes published in the Journal of Homosexuality, Dr. Mirkin argued that the notion of the innocent child was a social construct, that all intergenerational sex should not be lumped into one ugly pile and that the panic over pedophilia fit a pattern of public response to female sexuality and homosexuality, both of which were once considered deviant. NY Times

• Dan’s back,
• Mark has a birthday, and
• Rebecca turns three.

Let’s Stop the Killing of an Innocent Person. South Carolina attorney Tom Turnipseed asks readers to write to the governor of South Carolina to ask for commutation of the death sentence, scheduled to be carried out on May 3, of a man convicted of a murder to which another person has confessed. One-click link to send email to Gov. Hodges. If you’ve got a weblog and you support this effort, isn’t spreading the word in this manner one of the ways the weblog community can be of distinct value??

Yet another reason to hate the rich: “Depraved rock stars and party-hearty Playmates in overpowered Toadmobiles are our betters, and as they careen across America we must bow before their power.” Salon

Cosmic Weight Gain: A Wispy Particle Bulks Up: “It is not often that a correction must be made to a poem. But when the subject is the mercurial science of particle physics, that is the risk a writer takes.” NY Times

U.S. Blueprint to Topple Hussein Envisions Big Invasion Next Year: “The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

The administration is turning to that approach after concluding that a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and that a proxy battle using local forces there would be insufficient to bring a change in power.” NY Times

Bush Owes Presidency to NRA, NRA Says: ‘At their convention here Saturday, National Rifle Assn. leaders took credit for President Bush’s election, saying they’re taking aim next at unseating gun control advocates in Congress and defeating campaign finance reform in court.

“You are why Al Gore isn’t in the White House,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told more than 4,500 delegates at the NRA’s 131st annual meeting.’ LA Times

Let’s Stop the Killing of an Innocent Person. South Carolina attorney Tom Turnipseed asks readers to write to the governor of South Carolina to ask for commutation of the death sentence, scheduled to be carried out on May 3, of a man convicted of a murder to which another person has confessed. One-click link to send email to Gov. Hodges. If you’ve got a weblog and you support this effort, isn’t spreading the word in this manner one of the ways the weblog community can be of distinct value??

UK math whiz tackles $1 million problem; refusing interviews, he claims to have solved Poincaré’s conjecture, one of the seven thorniest remaining problems in mathematics, according to a respected American mathematical foundation that has offered $1 million for the solution of any of them. An outline of his proposed solution, which is not yet accepted by the mathematical community without controversy, is posted on the web. CNET

danklife is an attractive and thoughtful weblog I just stumbled upon (“where life is a gift wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper…”).

Boy adopted by chimps

KANO, Nigeria: A disabled Nigerian boy believed to have been adopted and raised by chimpanzees for 18 months is in care in a specialist children’s home in this northern city.

Named Bello by nursing staff at the Tudun Maliki Torrey home in Kano, he was brought to them six years ago by hunters after being found with a chimpanzee family in the Falgore forest, 150km south of Kano, staff told AFP.

Believed to have been aged about two when he was taken in, Bello is probably the son of nomadic ethnic Fulani people who travel through the region, Abba Isa Muhammad, the home’s child welfare officer, said.

Mentally and physically disabled, with a misshapen forehead, sloping right shoulder and protruding chest, he was probably abandoned by his parents because of his disabilities, Isa Muhammad said.

news.com.au

Expert claims primates may have roamed with dinosaurs: “A Chicago expert claims his statistical techniques show primates evolved 20 million years earlier than thought.

If correct, it means they were roaming Earth at the same time as dinosaurs. It also means many fossil records may be useless.” Ananova

Diminutive, but perfectly formed: “Umberto Eco explains why short forms of modern communication can be simply irresistible.” An appreciation of a new book edited by Isabella Pezzini, Trailer, spot, clip, siti, banner: Le forme brevi della comunicazione audiovisiva [Trailers, Ads, Clips, Websites, Banners: The Short Forms of Audiovisual Communication]. Guardian UK

One ring to rule them all: ‘From post-“Bridget” fiction to ABC’s frightening “The Bachelor,” the wedding porn genre mates emasculated Mr. Rights with soulless, life-size Barbies.’ Salon

Egypt ready to wage war on Israel … for $US100 billion: ‘ “Let the Arab world give $100 billion from Arab funds deposited around the world. Let it say to Egypt: ‘This is a budget for confrontation. This budget is at your disposal. Undertake confrontation,’ ” (Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Ebeid ) said.’ Sydney Morning Herald

Guth’s Grand Guess: ‘In December 1979 Guth, then 32 and an obscure physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, emerged as the first scientist to offer a plausible description of the universe when it was less than one-hundredth of a second old. During an unimaginably explosive period between 10-37 second and 10-34 second after its birth, Guth said, the universe expanded at a rate that kept doubling before beginning to settle down to the more sedate expansion originally described by the Big Bang theory.

Guth’s theory of inflation—the name he coined for this superfast early-universe expansion—has since vanquished every theoretical challenge and grown stronger with each new cosmological finding, including the latest, largest one: that the universe’s expansion rate, long thought to be slowing, is actually accelerating. “There’s no competition, but that’s not for lack of trying,” says cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University. “Many people have tried to develop a model that addresses the same problems, and they have failed.” Guth’s reputation has ascended with the theory: He has gone from an underemployed postdoc to cosmology’s leading man. In April of last year, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in physics, often a precursor to the Nobel Prize.’ Discover

Zoe

The goal here is to do for email (starting with your personal mailbox)

what Google did for the web… The Google principle: It doesn’t matter

where information is because I can get to it with a keystroke.

So what is Zoe? Think about it as a sort of librarian, tirelessly,

continuously, processing, slicing, indexing, organizing, your messages.

The end result is this intertwingled web of information. Messages put in

context. Your very own knowledge base accessible at your fingertip. No

more “attending to” your messages. The messages organization is done

automatically for you so as to not have the need to “manage” your email.

Because once information is available at a keystroke, it doesn’t matter

in which folder you happened to file it two years ago. There is no

folder. The information is always there. Accessible when you need it. In

context.

Practically Speaking: Zoe is a email client. It’s also a email server. And a long term

archive. And a search engine. And an application server. All that at

once on your desktop. Or server. Or both. Or it doesn’t matter because

client and server are the same.

Science And Consciousness Review: “…is an up-to-date resource for everyone interested in scientific studies of consciousness. We will not publish primary empirical articles, but will focus on interpreting the rapidly growing scientific literature, from sources like Science, Nature, Consciousness & Cognition, and Psyche.

The scientific study of consciousness is a rediscovered enterprise, and does not yet have the institutional underpinnings of other topics in psychology and brain science, fields like memory, perception, and attention. Yet consciousness is an unavoidable ingredient of all those fundamental topics. Today we have a fast-growing body of new evidence. Our notion is to make the new evidence easily available to interested people, no matter what their background.”

Bad brain or bad person?: “Does the existence of a criminal brain diminish the notion of personal responsibility?” The Times of London

Teen-ager who survived suicide pact with her husband is charged with a sex crime

A teen-ager who tried to kill herself as part of a suicide pact with her husband has been accused of a sex crime against a 14-year-old girl, officials said.

Jennifer Holey, 19, was charged Thursday with first-degree criminal sexual conduct for aiding her husband, Patrick Holey, in the alleged assault at the couple’s home April 1, assistant prosecutor Joyce Draganchuk said.

Apparently despondent about the investigation into the assault, the couple tried to commit suicide together April 9 by swallowing painkillers, authorities said. Patrick Holey, 19, died but his wife survived.

Patrick Holey’s mother, Kathleen Holey, faces two charges of assisted suicide for allegedly helping the couple carry out the pact.[emphasis added — FmH] SF Chronicle

Limits: Interesting argument by Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic, that the Church pedophilia scandal is a challenge for the opinion industry “because they have so little to say.”

The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald have called on Bernard Cardinal Law to resign. But you can’t declare someone unfit for their post without having an opinion about the requirements of the post. And you can’t have an opinion about the requirements of the post without having an opinion about the mission of the institution as a whole. Newspapers can call on a politician to resign because they have legitimate opinions about the purpose of the government in which he or she serves. They can demand that a cardinal who shields pedophile priests go to jail because they have legitimate opinions about criminal justice. But they can’t legitimately call on a cardinal to resign because they can’t have a legitimate opinion about the purpose of the Catholic Church. You can’t weigh Law’s cover-up of pedophilia against his work serving the poor, or opposing abortion, or bestowing the sacraments, or espousing the gospel, without making a judgment about the relative value of those endeavors, and that judgment is inescapably theological. It is a judgment about the best way to incarnate the revelation of Jesus Christ–and that’s not a judgment for The Boston Globe.

Heal Me, Father: Portrait of Dr. Thomas Plante, chair of the psychology department at Santa Clara University and editor of the book Bless Me Father For I Have Sinned: Perspectives on Sexual Abuse Committed by Roman Catholic Priests, who screens potential priests and nuns for emotional problems when they’re applying to take their vows and has treated about 50 priests accused of sexual misconduct, including those charged with pedophilia or sexual abuse. He says that the proportion of pedophiles among the clergy is much lower than among the general American populace; that around 20% of sexual abuse accusations against clergy are untrue, and that he finds it relatively easy to recognize prospective candidates who will ‘sin’ in this way but has ‘no responsibility’ for what the Church does with his findings. AlterNet

Anti-Semitism Is Deepening Among Muslims: “…(A)nti-Semitic imagery is now embedded in the mainstream discourse concerning Jews in much of the Islamic world, in the popular press and in academic journals.” NY Times

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider, and other xenophobes:

“After Sept. 11, many observers predicted that the ugly side of the American character would soon reveal itself. Xenophobia and nativism would flourish. Ominous reports of widespread violence against Arab-Americans would surface. A few hysterical doomsayers worried that it was only a matter of time before Muslims would be placed in internment camps. Despite those fears, none of the Ugly American predictions came to pass. Instead, 9/11 cemented an altogether different phenomenon: Ugly Europeanism.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s strong showing in the French presidential election is only the latest in a string of successes by anti-Muslim political parties across the Continent.” Slate

“This decision is an essential first step in restoring stability and sound management to this very important organisation.” — US State Department spokeswoman.

Chemical weapons body sacks head: Thanks to Colin Green for pointing me to this; put it together with my post several days ago noting that the UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Rogers is stepping down because of US pressure for a new, 21st century take on The Ugly American.

The body that polices the ban on chemical weapons has ousted its chairman, after the United States threatened to withhold funding.

The US objected to Jose Bustani’s plans to encourage Iraq to join the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Mr Bustani believed it would be a means to carry out new arms inspections in Iraq.

But the US said the inspections envisaged by the Brazilian director-general would be too lenient. BBC

The Anti-American: Ian Buruma reviews a new collection of political essays edited by the mercurial Arundhati Roy and suggests that her “preposterousness” may undermine the causes she adopts, quoting a critic who says she ought to stick to novels. But Buruma reserves his sharpest teeth for novelist John Berger, who writes the introduction to the essay collection. The New Republic

‘Exact uncertainty’ brought to quantum world: “Exact uncertainty sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that is what governs the quantum world, according to a theoretical physicist who has created an improved version of the famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle.” New Scientist

Innateness and the Structure of the Mind: “This interdisciplinary conference will investigate the nature of the innate capacities, processes, representations, biases, and connections in the human mind. What elements of the mind are plausibly innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities? Which of these elements are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? What is the structure of the innate mind?” Part of a three year interdisciplinary project sponsored by the Arts & Humanities Research Board of the UK.

Following many years of neglect, nativist theorizing is now thriving. This resurgence owes much to the pioneering arguments of Noam Chomsky, which have stimulated a great deal of productive work in linguistics and cognitive psychology. But nativist theorizing has also received a powerful impetus from work in genetics and evolutionary biology, as biological thinking has begun to permeate psychology and philosophy of mind. As a result of these influences, there has been a huge amount of work in the cognitive sciences inspired by nativist theorizing in the past 15 or 20 years.

The roster of participants is a roll-call of luminaries in cognitive science, evolutionary psychology and philosophy of mind. University of Sheffield (UK) Dept. of Philosophy

We’re Younger Than We Look: “Put away the wrinkle cream: The universe is only 13 billion years old,

scientists now believe. That’s a little younger than previous estimates.” Wired

‘Magic’ Mushrooms to Be Outlawed: ‘Japan’s Health Ministry said on Friday it would outlaw hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms from June, plugging a legal loophole that has allowed the mind-altering fungi to be openly sold without penalty.’ Reuters

Is Taking a Psychedelic an Act of Sedition?

“The very idea of going off on a psychedelic “head trip” in this hour of national crisis might be seen as self-indulgent folly, or worse, an act of cerebral sedition. Yet a cold and sober look through the smoldering smoke of Ground Zero leads me to believe that, depending on individual circumstances, of course, there are now even more compelling reasons to sanction the practice of judicious psychedelic use.

If combat readiness is an issue, if your function is to evacuate a building in a hurry, screen airline passengers, detect the presence of microscopic pathogens, analyze forensic evidence that could lead to the apprehension of culpable or would-be terrorists, or execute a commando raid on an Afghan mountain, this is probably not the season for psychedelics. But if you’re not sure who the real enemy is, if you’re inclined to ask more questions about the nature of the reality that’s just swung out into a broad new arc, or if you’re seeking solace and healing from trauma or debilitating stress, it could well be the time to venture out into new psychical frontiers by means of certain time-tested plants and chemicals. In fact, for some especially scarred, it might even be foolish not to, given that there might not be as much time to lose as we thought we had.” — Charles Hayes, Tikkun

Who is Charles Hayes?

From Poet Anne Waldman:

My first experience of lysergic acid, in the summer of 1965, conjured an archetypal vision that illuminated both my past history and my future development.

I was twenty, a student at Bennington College in Vermont, and had decided to travel out West to the now-celebrated Berkeley Poetry Conference. A great number of poets I refer to as “the outrider tradition” ‑- major visionaries and mavericks, including Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, and Allen Ginsberg ‑- were gathering to hold panels, present their work in public readings, and interact with students and passionate readers of poetry. The atmosphere surrounding the event was highly charged and magical. The Conference was a major congregation for disparate avant garde literary artists – including the Beats, the San Francisco Renaissance, the New York School, and Black Mountain – to come together and feed off of each other’s energy. The aggregate voltage of their nexus sent shock waves through the literary establishment.

Those who convened at Berkeley were poets and writers in the prophetic tradition, many of whom were experimenting with psychedelics. There was a legend about the night when Charles Olson, who’d been head of the Black Mountain College, gave a very shamanic poetry reading during which he literally came apart on stage. The story was that he’d taken some psychedelic the week before and it had had this effect on him. His wife had just died. On acid, as I would soon learn myself, things come apart and then reforge. Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures ed. by Charles Hayes

[This read dramatically with slow crescendo, building as it moves.]


You loathsome miserable draconian TV patriarchs,

obsolete Senators,

questionable House of Reps,

lie-of-the-land Admirals,

perjuring Lieutenant Colonels,

dishrag attorney generals,

namby-pamby political pentecostals,

macho drug smugglers,

killer arms dealers,

consultant traffickers in blood money,

multimillion dollar-fraud Pentagon schemers,

techno-military-industrial-complex corrupt Wedtech lowlifes,

Silverado mainliners,

slimy presidential wannabes

SHUT OFF



Not a woman amongst ya!



Ye lily-livered walloping big wheels



Judges of my world?



I'll make your semen dry up



YOUR GENITALIA WILL WITHER IN THE WIND

— Anne Waldman, Kill or Cure

Crimes of Big Tobacco: “Big Tobacco’s multibillion-dollar profits rest on a global

underground network of smugglers and money launderers. A

six-month investigation follows the paper trail of this illegal trade.” The Nation [via AlterNet]

Hunger affects school, psychosocial develoment: ‘Hunger and poverty in the United States are severe enough to significantly impair the academic and psychosocial development of school-age children and adolescents, according to two studies at Cornell University.

“The level of food deprivation in this wealthy nation puts millions of children at risk for multiple developmental problems,” says Katherine Alaimo…’

Call for re-think on eugenics:

The condemnation of eugenics went too far and it needs reassessment, a leading

scientist is arguing.

Eugenics is the science of using genetics ostensibly to “improve” mankind.

The idea that this was a good thing had wide currency throughout the early part

of the 20th century.

However, the concept got a bad name in the 1930s when the Nazis determined that

they would use it to create a “master race”.

Now Richard Lynn, Emeritus professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster,

has written a book in which he says it is time for a re-think.

He told the BBC that advances in medical technology, such as the pre-natal

diagnosis of pregnant women for genetically disordered foetuses, meant that in

a sense eugenics was already being practised.

“The general principle of eugenics, that we could improve the genetic quality

of the population need taking seriously.

“The new medical technology of eugenics is going to take off, because it

satisfies the needs of individuals, both for themselves and as parents. BBC

Activists demand lawyers for chimps: “The Chimpanzee Collaboratory says that chimpanzees are so close to humans – sharing 98.7% of our genetic make-up – that they deserve to get the same kind of legal representation as children. Campaigners say this would let activists act as legal guardians for the chimps, potentially lodging law suits against researchers and animal entertainers. ‘A minimum level of autonomy is sufficient to justify the basic legal right to bodily integrity.’ — Lawyer Steven Wise.” BBC

N.C. linguists trying to quantify ebonics: “Rural African-Americans increasingly speak the urban-sounding dialect called ebonics, even when their grandparents sound like their white neighbors.

That helps explain how the distinctive tongue is spreading nationwide, two N.C. State University linguists say.” The Nando Times

Hackers turn tables on file-swapping firms:

For the past several weeks, the pseudonymous programmer, who says he’s a male college student and declines to give his real name, has been releasing versions of popular file-swapping programs online with the advertising and user-tracking features stripped out.

He’s done Grokster and iMesh. And he’s not alone. His work, now available through the Grokster and iMesh networks themselves, joins that of other programmers who have previously “cleaned” programs such as Kazaa and Audiogalaxy in a campaign against “adware” and “spyware.”

“I’ve never been a big fan of large companies spying on their users,” Dr. Damn wrote in an instant messenger interview. “Especially me.”

The college student and his “Clean Clients” site form just one part of a growing backlash against the software now routinely bundled with free file trading programs. These piggyback software packages, which include Gator, Cydoor, and others, often track computer users’ activity online to show them targeted advertisements. In Altnet’s case, the add-on promises to turn users’ computers into links in a new for-profit peer-to-peer network.

What we didn’t learn from Enron: “Enron hasn’t changed a thing in Washington: Bush is taking the side of business again, supporting companies’ right not to deduct stock options on their financial statements, while deducting them on their tax returns. But even more depressing is that key Democrats are taking big business’ side, too.” The New Republic

Oriana Fallaci on anti-Semitism

“I have never been tender with the tragic and Shakespearean figure Sharon. (I know you’ve come to add another

scalp to your necklace,” he murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.). I have often had disagreements with the Israelis,

ugly ones, and in the past I have defended the Palestinians a great deal. Maybe more than they deserved. But I stand with Israel, I stand with the

Jews. I stand just as I stood as a young girl during the time when I fought with them, and when the Anna Marias were shot. I defend their right to

exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And disgusted by the antisemitism of many Italians, of many Europeans,

I am ashamed of this shame that dishonors my Country and Europe. At best, it is not a community of States, but a pit of Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet were to think otherwise, I would continue to think so. ”

Henry Raddick’s Amazon.com Reviews: “One man turns raving about obscure and out-of-print books into a comedic art form.”

Is al-Qaeda’s Man Playing Games?: “Abu Zubaydah, the strategist for al-Qaeda nabbed in Pakistan last month, may be taunting the American military and intelligence personnel who visit his hospital bed at a secret facility overseas. He told them Osama bin Laden’s terror cells are targeting U.S. banks on the Eastern seaboard, but the Americans wonder if it’s for real.”