Philospoher Ian Hacking is tired of “the social construction of…”

Joey Skaggs is at it again: cemetery theme parks. [Salon]

New Scientist reviewer says frothy book deserves cult status.

The Punch Lines: ‘Although the literati like to think they’re

superior to the millions of simple folk who tune

into Jerry Springer and Who Wants to Be a

Millionaire, their savage attacks on each other

are often as ugly, tacky, and phony as any

World Wrestling Federation bout. Still, a quick

breeze through last month’s Manhattan

publications proves that literary fuck-you fests

are alive and kicking, along with our

fascination for them.’ [The Voice Literary Supplement]

Salon: If code is free, why not me?

“Some open-source geeks are as open-minded about sex

as they are about hacking,” says reporter Annalee Newitz from a rapturous position “at the feet of three charming naked men…” in a state of partial undress.

The New York Times calls it a Rebel Outpost on the Fringes of Cyberspace. It’s going to be interesting to see how this shakes out. A group of libertarians has struck a financial deal with Roy Bates (a British businessman and former army major who has maintained that the abandoned antiaircraft bunker in international waters six miles off the coast of England of which he took possession in 1968 is the independent Principality of Sealand, and that he and his wife are its regents) to allow them to establish a “data haven” there for “a diverse

clientele that may wish to operate beyond the reach of large

nations for reasons of privacy or financial necessity. They

expect their customers to include people who wish to keep

their e-mail safe from government subpoenas as well as

other businesses seeking to avoid regulation, like

international electronic commerce, banking and gambling.” In other Sealand news, purported representatives of the principality “tried to

acquire arms worth at least $50 million from Russia, Spanish

authorities said Friday.” The investigation also revealed that Bates has commissioned a tailor to design battle uniforms for Sealand, “reserving one with the rank of Colonel for himself”, and that a vigorous trade in driver’s licenses, university degrees and passports from Sealand goes on. When investigated, those pursuing these activities have claimed diplomatic immunity for their actions.

How U.S. Left Sierra Leone Tangled in a Curious Web. 1998: Clinton goes to Africa, promising an African Renaissance and greater U.S. involvement in the continent. 1999: U.S. brokers peace accord empowering rebels. 2000: U.S. invisible in the faltering peacekeeping effort. “When the Rev. Jesse Jackson, President Clinton’s special

envoy for democracy in Africa, came to West Africa to help

defuse the crisis, he was forced to cancel a stop in Sierra

Leone because he was not welcome.

Mr. Jackson was given the role of special envoy to Africa

after helping to keep the black vote solidly behind Mr.

Clinton in 1996. He is a vocal proponent of intervening in

Africa’s conflicts.

In May last year, Mr. Jackson criticized the administration for

protecting Kosovo Albanians but leaving Africans to defend

themselves so that Sierra Leone’s war was “fought in the

dark” for seven years.” [New York Times]

Matan Has Two Mommies, and Israel Is Talking. ‘A classic Israeli idiom, which means to proclaim that there’s

no one like mom, says, “There is only one mother.” And the

government felt that the catch phrase should be taken

literally: it was biologically impossible, the government

insisted, for anyone to have more than one.’ [New York Times]

Nymphet at the Net: skin-deep still counts. [New York Times]

Living in the Shadow of Chernobyl’s Reactors. A current status report from the site of the 1986 disaster. There’s continuing thyroid cancer downwind; the concrete “sarcophagus” is on shifting ground, admitting rainwater to corrode pipes and girders and increase the risk of collapse; President Kuchma has promised to close the remaining operating reactor at Chernobyl but international wrangling about the costs of decommissioning it and replacing its electricity generating capacity has stalled implementation; the “forbidden zone” turns into a post-industrial resurgent wilderness tempting poachers in search of burgeoning deer populations; and — this is just nuts — employees of the plant wearing surgical masks stir up the radioactive soil with hoes to till the earth to plant flowers. Someone with post-apocalyptic credentials — Lewis Shiner, Jack Womack or Samuel Delaney come to mind off the top of my head — should write a novel set there.

Hate Sites Bad Recruiting Tools. Several hate-watchers say that, contrary to public concerns, the aggressive and expanding web-presence of right-wing hate groups has not paid off in terms of recruitment. Moreover, increased public scrutiny may be harmful to them. [Wired]

“This isn’t just a

decent film or a good film. If everything comes together right, this could stand as a beloved film, something that not only honors the memory of Dr. Seuss, but actually adds to the luster of his name.” [via Robot Wisdom]

Another new tick-borne disease, HGE, human granulocytic erlichiosis. First recognized in 1994, around 1,000 cases have been reported. 2-3% fatality rate reported when prompt diagnosis and care are not received, according to the CDC.

Archaeologists’ playtime: Ancient Cities Reported Found Under Sea Off Egypt, and Lost City Discovered in Peruvian Jungle.

Canada Funds Clinical Trials of ‘Invisible Condom’. This probably deals with the male concerns about the notorious loss of sensation caused by conventional condoms, but of course it appears to be inconvenient to use and the burden falls on the woman (in heterosexual sex).

Look at it this way. This is one of those things that is perfectly obvious once you think about it but took a long time for anyone to recognize. Engineers at Fuji have realized that the world has more horizontal and vertical lines than oblique ones, probably because both natural and manmade things organize themselves in relation to the pull of gravity. That means that the linear gaps in a conventional horizontal array of photodiodes in a digital camera will result in more loss of detail than an innovative, different arrangement of the diodes they are now introducing. [New Scientist]

Raising a stink. The methane produced from decaying vegetation in stagnant water makes hydroelectric power schemes worse greenhouse-gas offenders than large coal-fired power plants, says the World Commission on

Dams, a group of scientists, engineers and environmentalists supported by the World Bank, the world’s biggest funder

of large dams.

The New York Times Book Review summer reading list 2000.

Salon TV critic Joyce Millman reflects on the debut episode of The Survivor, finds few surprises. “When the president of CBS TV, Leslie Moonves, tells

reporters that he participated in the casting of “Survivor,”

helping choose the final 16 contestants, and gets all giddy

describing the show’s “voyeuristic appeal,” then you can bet,

my friends, that this is not “reality,” but some winking faux

version of it. Still, I’m sure that won’t stop “Survivor” from

becoming this summer’s national obsession and then, who

knows, maybe next year’s sweeps programming main event.

I can see the celebrity edition of “Survivor” now: Bobby

Knight, Oprah Winfrey and the cast of “Friends” vs. Martha

Stewart, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry, George, Kramer and

Shaquille O’Neal.”

Improve Performance; Check your BIOS Settings

The Turn. “At the very heart of winged flight lies the banked

turn, a procedure that by now seems so routine and

familiar that airline passengers appreciate neither

its elegance and mystery nor its dangerously

delusive character. The author, a pilot, takes us up

into the subject.” One of the points in this essay is the way in which the aerodynamic forces in a turn can counteract the inner ear’s positional sense and contrary to common sense one may be unable to feel one’s position relative to the vertical, especially when flying without visual cues. A pilot friend of mine explained to me the way in which, if I understood it correctly, this can easily get inexperienced pilots in trouble and may have caused the fatal crash of JFK Jr’s plane. [Atlantic Monthly]

Salon: L.A. to serve toilet water. One proposal for the Southern California water shortage. In the ’70’s, I worked briefly for an environmental concern that promoted wastewater recycling. But they were talking about “grey water” — bath-, sink- and laundry-drainage. In this scheme, waterless composting toilets keep human waste contamination out of the recycling stream and “stop the five-gallon flush”; seemed like a good idea then and now. In recent years, I’ve been delighted to discover this system in use at several of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s backcountry huts in the White Mountains, but imagine the economy of scale and public acceptance that could come from its LA-wide introduction!

Cal State Long Beach (CSLB) psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, as a recent New Times LA article describes it, uses

evolutionary

psychology to argue that Judaism is not merely a religion; it is

also a Darwinian strategy that serves to raise Jewish IQ, and

that anti-Semitism can be understood rationally as a by-product

of natural selection. He writes that Jews have reacted to

anti-Semitism by taking over intellectual movements and

attacking Gentile culture to promote Jewish interests. The

result, he warns, is a “present decline of European peoples in

the New World.” He also asserts that Jews protect their

interests by suppressing criticism of Judaism, and cites David

Irving as an example of a writer whose work has been

suppressed by Jewish groups.

MacDonald agreed to testify on behalf of Irving at the prominent London libel suit Irving recently lost against Deborah Lipstadt, whose academic criticism of Holocaust deniers claims distortions in Irving’s work. MacDonald says he is an “agnostic” about the question of the reality of the Holocaust because he has not studied its history extensively enough and that his decision to support Irving was based on academic freedom considerations. (He writes here about his reasons for testifying.)

Now critics on the faculty of CSLB want him to defend his own controversial doctrines in a public academic forum, which he refuses to do partially on the grounds that it is not appropriate to ask a tenured professor to present such complicated ideas orally to an audience that is likely to be hostile. CSLB, whose enormous psychology dept. (with over 1200 students and 55 faculty) was criticized in a 1994 external audit for doing too little to foster open debate of academic issues, has put off until the fall its decision on calls for a public forum on MacDonald’s ideas. Many colleagues say they’ll be reading his work this summer, vowing to move forward with criticism in the fall whether MacDonald participates or not. His colleagues point out that they believe MacDonald’s right to do the kind of research he does is protected by academic freedom, and no one is calling for his discipline or expulsion.

One prominent critic is UC Santa Barbara professor John Tooby, arguably the founder of the discipline of evolutionary psychology in the early ’90’s. Tooby wants to defend the good name of evolutionary psychology against what he perceives as a disreputble extremist extrapolation. He has recently reportedly denied that MacDonald’s work is even evolutionary psychology at all. ‘Blaming the new science for MacDonald’s views, Tooby says,

is like asking doctors, “What do you physicians have to say

about Josef Mengele?”‘ A lengthy refutation of MacDonald’s work on which Tooby is currently at work is slated to appear on his website later this summer.

MacDonald may essentially be cursed simply by being a shy, reluctant public speaker whose trio of books on Judaism, published between 1994 and 1998, received little attention (except among rightwing extremist hatemongers, whose websites have been laudatory), but he may now regret the visibility his decision to participate in Irving’s trial has engendered. Academic work in which there is such a dramatic tension between scholarly freedom and the use of the work in the service of extremist hatred and divisiveness has long provoked heated ethical controversy on campus. I recall the very similar bitterness of the debate over the work on the genetic basis of intelligence done by Harvard professor Roger Herrnstein in the early ’70’s, EO Wilson’s sociobiology (also engendered at Harvard in the ’70’s), and the Bell Curve flap (Herrnstein again, with Charles Murray) several years ago. Critics always claim that these are bad science even if well-intentioned; prejudice presented as if it were undistorted scientific fact. It’ll be interesting to see how explicitly MacDonald paints himself as a victim of the “Jewish agenda” he sees at work against threats to its “eugenics program” in public defenses.

Read an earlier New Times LA article about MacDonald and his work here. And, thanks to Jorn Barger who commented that the above exposition was one-sided (I actually feel I’m not being unfair to MacDonald as much as noting with interest a one-sided groundswell of response), this link to MacDonald’s replies to the New Times LA publicity. MacDonald says in part:

Ortega quotes me as saying that the Jews brought the Holocaust on

themselves. This is just wrong. I claim only to have a theory of anti-Semitism,

not a theory of the Nazi Holocaust. In my book, Separation and Its

Discontents, I argue that perceptions of real conflicts of interest engendered

and exacerbated widespread popular anti-Jewish feelings in Germany prior to

and during the Nazi era, as they have in many other times and places. These

perceptions of conflicts of interest are related complexly to real conflicts of

interest. For example, exaggeration and even fantasies may color the

situation once the battle lines have been drawn between groups. Other

scholars have also argued that Jewish behavior—very often Jewish success—is

an important factor in anti-Semitism; see, e.g., Albert Lindemann’s Esau’s

Tears[Cambridge University Press, 1998]). My position is that we should not

simply assume that every instance of anti-Semitism is completely irrational.

Rather, we should suppose that in general there are indeed real conflicts of

interest between groups and that outbreaks of hostility are a complex

interplay of fantasy and reality. Anti-Semitism has taken many different

forms from simple dislike to economic boycots, pogroms, expulsion and

genocide.

And:

In the last chapter of The Culture of Critique I suggest that the

increasing ethnic division in the U.S. and other European-derived societies

resulting from high levels of immigration and the rise of multiculturalism will

lead to increased ethnocentrism on all sides and a decline in the

Enlightenment values of de-ethnicized individualism. I state only that this is

a dangerous situation and I do so on the basis of psychological theory and my

reading of the history of the Jews as well as a great many examples of ethnic

conflict in contemporary and past societies.

This is just a start; I imagine MacDonald would agree with me that a “soundbite”, or weblog, review cannot be thoughtful enough about these complex issues. If this controversy interests you, I’m sure you’ll delve further.

In connection with my post on this issue, Barger has also referred me to his page on Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor turned anti-Zionist civil rights campaigner in Israel. He has paid special attention to the efffects of Jewish fundamentalism on Israeli policy and politics. I’m just beginning to absorb this material. Thank you again, Jorn.

CokeSpotlight. Greenpeace and Adbusters kick off a massive campaign against Coca Cola’s environmental hypocrisy as a polluting sponsor of the first “Green” Olympics: ‘To be Number One in the world: that’s the

goal of The Coca-Cola Company. That’s

why Coke is the longest running

corporate sponsor of the Olympic Games.

It’s a partnership that has helped make

Coke the world’s best known brand, sold

in nearly 200 countries.

But there’s something different about the

2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney,

Australia. They will be the first Green

Games, a global celebration of sport,

culture, and the environment.

In the Green Games, Coca-Cola isn’t winning the race. Coke keeps

its products “always cool” with the help of HFCs, some of the most

potent global warming gases ever produced.’

Mental Health is Not an Issue…Yet. “Then, you realize you’ve asked the wrong question. You are asking how many of the downtrodden have to die. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about

the mentally ill. They’re crazy. Not until the mentally ill begin to see who is responsible for their continued suffering, and find that person, and show

up on his doorstep with their agony, and share it with him, will mental health care be available for all who need it.”

“…simply a mistake where a piece of type accidentally fell onto the page during production”, or (much more likely, it would seem) a clever culture-jam by a guerrilla Seattle Times employee?

I want one of these!

Alas, Inability to secure funding stream axes NewsWatch.

‘On Tuesday, May 30,

NewsWatch.org, a daily media

criticism Web site run by The Center

for Media and Public Affairs, ceased

operations. Described by Smart

Computing as one of the “best

little-known Web sites,” on the Web,

NewsWatch.org was launched a year

and a half ago to serve as a

“consumer’s guide to the news.”

Rather than look at the inside stories

behind the day’s news – who was up,

who was down and who did what to

whom – NewsWatch focused on news

content, examining inaccuracies,

distortions, lack of context and other

controversies of interest to the

consumers as well as the producers

of news.’

Scientists Excited by Rare Meteorite Find in Canada:

like “…sampling on the surface of a comet”. But why does Reuters confuse meteorites and asteroids?

A Spelling Test of fifty commonly misspelled words. I consider myself to be a strong speller yet I’m chagrined to say I only scored 86%.

Adult stem cells can produce a wealth of cell types, Science authors report. This exciting study by a Swedish team shows that, when grown within an embryo, adult neural stem cells can revert to a precursor state that can give rise to lineages of a variety of tissue types. The pluripotentiality of embryonal stem cells has long been recognized, but current ethical concerns have led to a ban on tissue from embryos. This discovery about the open-ended potential of stem cells from adults opens the way to therapeutic advances, such aas growing replacement organs, that do not require embryonic tissue. Of course, neural stem cells are among the most difficult cell types to obtain from living adults, so it would be nice if we discovered similar versatility in other types of adult stem cells.

Toshiba euthanasia laptop goes on display. “The patient got a needle in their arm, while the computer sat on the bed. The laptop

asked the patient twice if they knew what they were doing. The third time they had to

hit the space bar to confirm they wanted to die. Fifteen seconds later a message was

sent to a switching unit, which turned on a compressor.” [The Register]

New Scientist: Before the big bang. One cosmologist’s attempt to apply string theory to the thorny problem of the singularity at the origin of the universe has some surprising results:

“Our Universe is a patch of the inside

of a black hole,” amd there was a time before the Big Bang. Something like this notion is all over science fiction, however, from even before we knew about black holes. Does anyone remember the culmination of James Blish’s Cities in Flight series from the late ’50’s?

Survey: Online Therapy Bad Idea. I don’t think I’m just trying to protect my market niche as a psychiatrist when I say that I agree with this survey finding.

Little-known ventriloquist puts words into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ mouth.

Annals of the Age of Depravity (cont’d.): Mother Kept Son Locked Up for 30 Years.

‘”Why didn’t we report it? Because this was something between the two of them,” one person from the village was quoted as saying.’

The Travel Guide Says what? Words fail me.

“They’re Going to Eat What?” World nettle-eating challenge in Dorset UK; sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s, to be netcast live…

Wet, Windy Atlantic Hurricane Season Starts Thursday. I’ve always wondered. Do the hurricanes know they’re okay to come as of Thursday but not Wednesday?

The mysterious death of Carlos Ghigliotti, freelance infrared photography expert engaged by the House Committee on Gov’t Reform to investigate whether the FBI had fired first in the siege of the Branch Davidians. [Washington Post]

Superluminal Speeds [New York Times]

I’m neglectful by several days in saying this: R.I.P. Sir John Gielgud, whose voice was described as being like “a silver trumpet muffled in silk.” I’ll never forget his Prospero in Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books. Unfortunate that it appears he’s most destined to be remembered as Dudley Moore’s butler in Arthur!

The Solo Retreats From the Spotlight in Jazz. “I’m

often left wondering how it is that solos — and especially

that theme-solos-theme format — became such a necessary

part of jazz. Not everybody solos particularly well, after all,

and the number of bona fide stars whom you’d always want

to hear solo, because you identify with them, is at an

all-time low. Sometimes — too often — solos make listening

to jazz drudgework yet are nevertheless applauded, when

the real strength of the piece lay in some other part of it.” [New York Times]

New Scientist: Phantom cats revealed. Anaerobic bacteria introduced into the fibers of new carpets during the manufacturing process emit butyric acid. Many people find this to have an odor reminiscent of urine; customers, even in cat-free homes, raise vexing complaints that their new carpets smell of cat urine.

Haiku movie reviews. And a query engine for more comprehensive movie reviews.

On Left-Handedness, Its Causes and Costs. The New York Times organizes a discussion of the mystery of why some people are left-handed around the work of a geneticist who believes that about twenty per cent of the population lacks a specific dominance gene that makes others right-handed; people without the gene have a 50-50 chance of being right- or left-handed. Most interesting fact for me in this discussion: around 18% of identical twins have different handedness.

Amex Nixes X-Rated Exchanges. American Expres decided this month to terminate all of its adult website merchant accounts because of the unacceptable number of disputed charges arising from that sector. ‘…Many porn

surfers deny they’ve made the charges when confronted by a spouse — something

pornographers refer to as the “gak factor.” (Husbands run up a credit card bill at a smut

site, then go “gak” when their wives see the monthly statement).’ No matter; opportunity knocks — Visa will be there to pick up the slack.

JAMA for Java: Association of Coffee and Caffeine Intake With the Risk of Parkinson Disease: data from a prospective study of over 8000 Japanese-American men suggests that caffeine intake is associated with a lower Parkinson’s Disease incidence. [Journal of the American Medical Ass’n.]

Putin and Other Parasites by Stephen Kotkin. The Russian government can’t manage the failing Russian economy and society, because the Russian government is the biggest problem Russia has. In this light, the director of Russian studies at

Princeton University and the author of a forthcoming

book on “the Soviet collapse 1970-2000” tells us how to integrate this failing, worrisome Russia into the New World Order. Some of his advice: allow Russia an enhanced sphere of (economic) influence over the other former Soviet states; forge a tripartite mutual defense alliance with Russia and Germany; and exercise “China-like” considerations in foreign policy approaches to Russia.

For Memorial Day: A UNICEF report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children;
a newsletter from Swedish Save the Children on the use of children in armed conflict;
an under-construction site from the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, whose aims are

the adoption of, and adherence to,

an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

(CRC) prohibiting the military recruitment and use in hostilities

of any person younger than 18 years of age, and the recognition

and enforcement of this standard by all armed forces and

groups, both governmental and non-governmental;

and a Human Rights Watch mobilization to stop the use of child soldiers.

U.S. Uncovers New Evidence Against Pinochet. Finally, the Justice Dept. may have enough data to implicate Pinochet in the Washington car bombing that killed exiled Chilean socialist Orlando Letelier and U.S. peace activist Ronni Moffitt in September 1976. Since he had taken power in a coup that had overthrown Chile’s populist socialist leader Salvador Allende three years earlier, Pinochet had been obsessed with Letelier’s opposition. Just excused for health reasons from trial in the UK after the Spanish had tried to extradite him for civil rights abuses, he will doubtless never stand trial in the U.S. for the Letelier assassination even with the new evidence.

Utne Reader: Sidewalk Redemption: ‘I hang from an iron fence

a banner with the message “Confessions

Heard Here,” then sit beneath it with a

pen and notebook and wait to see what

happens. I have established some ground

rules: I will make it clear to anyone who

stops to talk to me that I’m writing a

story and plan to record their confessions

in my notebook. I’ll use only first names

or made-up names. I will not offer

absolution because I do not consider

myself empowered to do so. “I have

come to hear confessions” is all I will

offer; the interpretation of confession will

be up to the person before me.’

Cryptographic challenge: crack a “numbers station.” These mysterious shortwave broadcasts consist of a monotone human voice endlessly reading a series of numbers. There’s been some thought that these are a way for intelligence agencies to communicate with agents in the field, but no one’s sure. Reputedly, a civilian has never decrypted a numbers station message. Reputedly, the NSA has.

The Numbers Station Crack

Challenge is inspired by the RSA Laboratories Secret Key challenges which are designed to demonstrate the weakness of short key

lengths in commercial cryptography applications.

With the advances in networking that are available to everyone, an unprecedented amount of processor power can be rallied to crack

mathematical problems. Previously, only Governments that could afford Cray Supercomputers has access to this type of computational

power, and in the case of Cray the American Government forbade the export of such machines, effectively making them unavailable to

the rest of the world. Now with client based network cracking, almost any brute force cryptanalytic attack can be mounted with a more

than reasonable chance of quick success. Spectacular cracks have already been successfully mounted on problems that seemed

insurmountable only a few years ago. This can be done, the problem is, how can it be done? You are free to use any methods that you

can devise, using whatever you have at your disposal.

“World’s Hardest Movie Quiz”

Martha Graham Dance Troupe suspends operations due to dire financial straits. Insufficient support for one of the world’s preeminent dance companies. “This would never have occurred in France or Germany

or Denmark. They would not let this happen. The arts

flourish in this country because of the people who pay for it.

But it’s not enough.” [New York Times]

Susan Sontag plagiarizes?

Seventh-Grade Boy Held in Killing of Teacher in Florida: “…the boy had taken the pistol a week ago

from a dresser drawer in the home of his grandfather, who

owned it.” The boy had been ejected from the last day of class for throwing water balloons, and returned late in the day with a Saturday night special.[New York Times]

I generally like muckrakers, but the gentleman profiled in this article presents as an irresponsible, unoriginal attention-seeker. I knew him during his training; having had some pretty inspiring mentors back then, he appears to have been burdened ever since by the problem of his reach exceeding his grasp.

Salon.com: Who will care for the crazy? “The benefits provided by insurance companies for mental

illness are starvation rations. Reimbursement to providers for

face-to-face services have been cut in half over the past 10

years. Dr. John Iglehart in the New England Journal of

Medicine described typical benefits as consisting of ‘a

maximum of 20 outpatient visits and 30 hospital days each

year.’ “

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

–Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allan)

A friend suggests that, if we refer to weblogs as blogs, shouldn’t we call the links they contain blinks? If it catches on, you saw it here first. I think.

It makes intuitive sense that dietary cravings can indicate something about brain chemistry. For instance, a new study suggests that “alcoholics with strong cravings for carbohydrates may form a distinct

subgroup of patients with this disease. This type of alcoholic may drink to increase their serotonin levels, and may

increase their intake of carbohydrates if not drinking, to achieve the same effect, the researchers suggest.” Recognition of this alcoholic subgroup, if valid, might impact their drinking with therapeutic strategies that affect serotonin.

What To Do With Your Single, Precious Presidential Vote? Environmental activist Donella Meadows ends up not making much of an argument for her plan to “waste” her vote on Ralph Nader. Even if voting Green robs Gore of the chance to beat “George the Gerbil.”

Miami Herald op-ed piece calls for Repeal of The Second Amendment: “The right to bear arms made sense in the 18th Century to provide for the common defense

and afford citizens a guarantee against the encroachment of absolute monarchs. But today

we don’t rely on a militia to defend the country, and tyranny would involve a monopoly of

media, not muskets. Born as a bulwark of democracy, the Second Amendment is the last

refuge of gun fundamentalists and their well-financed lobbyists indifferent to the tragedies

their liberal gun laws produce. Who will be the first politician to stand up and shout:

‘Repeal!'”

Dennis Hans, freelance writer and occasional adjunct professor of American foreign

policy and mass communications at the University of South Florida, reports on the Merger of CBS and the Colombian government. [Common Dreams]

His knighthood is well-deserved, IMHO, but he had to wait two years to have it conferred until he was cleared of pedophilia charges.

CNN.com – Technology – Microsoft to delay Outlook patch : “Microsoft said it will delay

until the week of June 1 the release of a

major security update to its Outlook 98

and 2000 e-mail software. The delay will

allow Microsoft to make certain

last-minute modifications to the software

in response to feedback from customers.” The new, kinder, gentler, Microsoft?

There’s alot in Salon.com’s health column that’s fascinating this week, for various reasons. Take your pick:

Sound and fury Thousands of deaf

kids can hear, and speak, thanks to a

stunningly effective ear implant. So

why is the deaf community in an

uproar?

By Arthur Allen [05/24/00]

Into the closet Can therapy make gay

people straight?

By Barry Yeoman [05/22/00]

Ladies who spray If you sprinkle when

you tinkle, cut it out!

By Mary Roach [05/19/00]

Skin trade Are burn victims going

without so that supermodels can

engorge their bodacious bodies?

By Art Allen [05/19/00]

Very little catches my eye on TV, and very little caught my eye in Salon’s preview of the fall TV lineup. These items did, for different reasons. On ABC,

People Who Fear People “stars David Krumholtz as a paranoid guy

who thinks everybody is spying on him. Jon Cryer plays

his neighbor, who’s spying on him.” Sorry to be a stick-in-the-mud, but as a mental health professional I’m worried this will be another insensitive attempt to make a joke of mental illness. And it’s an old joke, a one-liner really: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” And, also on ABC, Gideon’s Crossing, ‘starring Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life on the Street and executive produced by

Homicide creator Paul Attanasio. The ABC

announcement describes Braugher’s character, Dr. Ben

Gideon, thusly: “The voice of reason, empathy and

wisdom in a world of medical chaos, bureaucracy and

hypocrisy … he is Disease’s mortal enemy.” ‘ As over-the-top as that is, this one makes me worry that Braugher, an estimable and charismatic actor, will repeat David Caruso’s mistake in leaving NYPD Blue and flounder in a star vehicle without strong ensemble support. And speaking of Caruso: David Duchovny, in reluctantly signing on for another season of The X-Files, praised Caruso’s courage for walking out on a lucrative TV contract. (To self-destruct on the large screen, and then crawl back to the TV world with his tail between his legs and complete the act?)

Scholars, artists and fans from around the globe gathered in Romania Thursday for the Second World Dracula Congress, four days of

lectures and debate on the blood-sucking legend.

‘Bob Auger of Electric Switch, a DVD production

company, says: “This is the first time DVD is being seen as it is meant to be seen.” ‘

This doesn’t surprise me at all: “Concern over the accidental planting of genetically modified seed on several farms in Europe reached fever pitch

last week. And now a company in the US has warned that the problem is probably commonplace…In tests done last

year, but not widely publicised, 12 out of 20 random American consignments of conventional maize seed contained detectable traces of

GM maize. Two of these contained almost 1 per cent GM maize…Low levels of mingling are inevitable.” One more Pandora’s box has been opened.

Creative Skills Can Develop With Dementia. “In some patients with dementia, specific musical and visual skills can be

enhanced, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco and Los Angeles report….Miller and his colleagues explain that ‘these processes have in common the recall of previously learned

information or images’ that permit them to continue ‘without the mediation of language.’

Importantly, while creativity continues, the quality of the creativity is different since it lacks an abstracting

or symbolic component, the researchers explain. In paintings, this results, for example, in realistic

depictions.” The researchers are fascinated by this glimpse into the machinery of creativity and the neurological locus of dementia. But, for the families devastated by the development of dementia in a loved one, this would be at best a poignant consolation prize, if you ask me.

House Vote on China Trade. Analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows the influence of PAC contributions on the China vote. If you simply divide the House members into two groups across party lines based on whether they voted for or against PNTR for China, you’ll find that supporters took in 76% more than opponents from members of the Business Roundtable; and that unions contributed 150% more to opponents than supporters.

Brain — Impaired Social Response Reversal. As if there was any question of the role of brain regions, especially in the frontal lobe, in the control of social behavior, the authors present a case of a patient who acquired hallmarks of antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathy, after a right frontal injury.

No one ever said neo-Nazi bomb-making killers were smart.

New Scientist: Stress express. I was taught that the link between stress and illness was the negative effect it had on the functioning of various components of the immune system. Now it appears that stress hormone levels may directly facilitate disease-causing pathogens in your body.

Video pill’s ‘fantastic voyage’. [BBC]

New Scientist: It’s not simply antibodies. We know less than we think we do about how vaccines work, and this ignorance is hampering the development of effective AIDS immunization. Once effective vaccines for other diseases have been developed, basic science research on their mechanism of action stops.

A rose by any other name is one step nearer: Presbyterian Church court approves gay ‘holy unions’

Local congregations are permitted to conduct religious ceremonies celebrating gay unions

if it is made clear they are not marriages, according to the highest court of the Presbyterian Church.

There’s something I find particularly outrageous about the killing of war correspondents by combatants. An Associated Press cameraman and a Reuters correspondent were killed in an ambush by rebel forces in Sierra Leone yesterday.

Brain scans of Gulf War veterans show brain damage. As compared to healthy veterans, those who came home from the war sick had loss of brain cells (on a new more sensitive imaging technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy) of a comparable magnitude to that found in degenerative neurological diseases, although affected areas were different.

“You need to ask yourself if you would be willing

to give up 5 percent to 25 percent of the brain cells in vital parts of your brain that serve as the relay station for all automatic

and subconscious functions of your brain.” Some researchers propose three Gulf War Syndromes with differing symptom patterns that roughly sort out according to etiology. These new MR spectroscopy findings were in veterans complaining of the most debilitating of the syndromes, Type 2, which appears to correlate with low-level nerve gas exposure during the war. Type 2 patients may have genetically lower levels of a blood enzyme that protects against nerve gas damage, thus making them more vulnerable to damage from low levels of nerve gas (something no one knew about when we sent them into battle in Kuwait, of course). In the new study the subjects with the greatest evidence of brain damage were the ones with the lowest levels of the neuroprotective enzyme.

Bullying for More Than Milk Money. An L.A. Times Tokyo correspondent tells an incredible story of what’s happened to schoolyard bullying in Japan – extortion to the tune of a half-million dollars in one case. School authorities and police knew about the problem but failed to step in. The bullies’ plot, which included killing their victim, making it look like suicide by forcing him to write a suicide note, was foiled only by the once-wayward son of a Japanese mobster seeking redemption. Although the drama and magnitude of this case grabbed headlines and prompted national soul-searching, Japanese social scientists say that extortion routinely accompanies schoolyard bullying in Japan. Picking on those cast as weak is significantly easier in a society with such an emphasis on group conformity.

“More than 20 years of Israeli spying operations in

Washington culminated in the interception of

e-mails from President Bill Clinton, intelligence

sources claimed last week.

The revelations come at a sensitive time as Ehud

Barak, the Israeli prime minister, is expected to

fly to Washington today for talks with Clinton

about the Middle East peace process.”[Times of London]

All this back and forth between the pharmaceutical industry and its detractors about whether selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants (Prozac [fluoxetine], Zoloft [sertraline], Paxil [paroxetine], Celexa [citalopram], Luvox [fluvoxamine], etc.) cause or contribute to suicidal feelings misses the point. A potential side effect of these medications is an intense kind of restlessness called akathisia that makes people feel so unbearably frantic that some may be driven to take their lives. Every mental health professional prescribing these drugs knows that, and it is useless for the pharmaceutical industry to argue that it is merely the patients’ depression, and not a drug effect, that contributes to the SSRIs’ suicide statistics (which indeed, as critics charge, may have been “spun” by the manufacturers to preserve profits). But the point is that the makers of these drugs have for the past decade or more aggressively marketed them to primary care providers (PCPs) over and above psychiatrists. The drug companies’ strategy is to persuade non-psychiatrists that they are so easy to prescribe that patients’ depression can be managed without needing to refer to psychiatrists or psychotherapists. Do we hear inadequate care here?? Most PCPs do not have the time or the expertise to track a patient’s suicidality adequately, and they are not sophisticated enough psychopharmacologically to recognize and address akathisia. (I know; I teach both suicide assessment and psychopharmacology and, at various times, have been approached by pharmaceutical companies to train PCPs,) I’ll bet that the proper analysis would show that any excess suicide mortality over the last decade or so in patients on SSRIs has a correlation with the proportion of SSRI ‘scripts written by non-psychiatrist MDs. ( No offense to the primary care physicians among you; you are victims of the no-holds-barred marketing tactics of Eli Lilly et al as well!)

But maybe it isn’t SSRIs at all. If there were a different reason over the past ten or fifteen years that depressed patients were committing suicide more (like the adverse impact on quality of mental health treatment caused by the penetration of managed care), this might be misconstrued as an SSRI effect. Since SSRIs became the first-line medications for depression during that time period, totally supplanting older antidepressants, treatment with medication for depression during that time period has been virtually synonymous with treatment with an SSRI.

Coup News Back on Fiji Site. “For the first several hours of the attempted overthrow of the government of the South Pacific island of Fiji,

one small website was feeding the world with news.

When it was inaccessible after that, fears were raised that the insurgents, led by coup leader George

Speight, had cut access to fijilive.com. As it turns out, it was probably a case of server overload. The site is back up, as is a mirror.” [Wired]

Geek.com Geek News – Intel’s new Xeons. “Intel announced limited availability of its newest Xeon

processors, running at 700MHz. The chips feature L2 cache sizes

of 1MB and 2MB, and unlike the older 550MHz Xeons that use

separate L2 cache chips, the L2 caches are built directly into

the chip die.” These chips run $1,980 apiece at present. Commentators note that the chips won’t be available in any quantity until the third quarter, making this a ‘paper’ rollout to offset Intel’s other woes in the press.

Black bear kills hiker in Smoky Mountain park, apparently without provocation. [I hike in black bear territory and had become accustomed to thinking of them as inoffensive, in comparison e.g. to the acknowledged threat when hiking in grizzly country.]

Images reveal lakes, snow, geysers on Jupiter moon Io. Galileo spacecraft flyby pictures depict an impossibly harsh, impossibly beautiful landscape (right).

Northwestern scientists shed new light on neurodegenerative diseases. A roster of apparently dissimilar neurodegenerative diseases are major challenges to neuropsychiatry: Huntington’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Creutzfelt-Jakob Disease and the other prior diseases (see below), cystic fibrosis. They all share one basic common pathway — they arise from the neurotoxic effects of the accumulation of misfolded proteins due to metabolic errors. Misfolded protein is insoluble because of its conformation change, and aggregates, and the aggregation takes down good protein with the bad in a snowballing effect. It turns out there are a class of “chaperone” molecules called heat shock proteins that function to prevent misfolding and detect already-misfolded proteins to prevent their further accumulation. Neurodegenerative diseases, new research suggests, represent the body’s losing race between the misfolding process and its supply of the protective heat shock proteins.Elucidating the role of these molecular chaperones suggests a possible avenue for prevention and remediation of this vexing class of gruesome and fatal diseases.

Who needs males?

Four museum curators share their lists of the top ten picks for the most influential visual artworks of the past 1,000 years. It would’ve been nice if the lists were hyperlinked to web reproductions of each piece.

Political scientist Daniel Bell’s experience teaching in Singapore teaches him that classical education and multiculturalism need not conflict. I’m not sure this makes the case persuaively in a way that translates into our own culture.

Scholars search for da Vinci’s DNA. Testing DNA found in smudges and

fingerprints in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and sketches may be a useful way to distinguish da Vinci’s work from that of his apprentices. An Italian art historian in Vinci has collected dozens of fingerprints from the master’s notebooks and drawings.

‘Dirty phone call’ acquires new meaning.

“Irradiating meat is the meat industry’s answer to filthy meat processing

practices that leave meat contaminated”: The union representing federal food inspectors joined a coalition opposing food irradiation (brokered by Public Citizen and including the Center for Food Safety, the Campaign for Biodemocracy,

Friends of the Earth, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Nuclear Information

and Resource Service, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine). The union is concerned that irradiation is central to a meat industry initiative to police itself and displace the role of federal inspectors. “Although the meat industry claims that irradiation will make

food safer, the health impacts of eating irradiated food are uncertain. New chemicals called

unique radiolytic products are created in the irradiation process. No testing has been done

to identify these chemicals, much less to determine if they are safe for human

consumption. Evidence indicates that chromosomal damage (among other problems) could

occur as the result of consuming irradiated food. Further, meat that is treated using

irradiation often gives off a very strange odor.”

Violence Policy Center reacts to planned NRA cafe and store in Times Square, NYC: “Today’s announcement by the NRA that they are opening an NRA cafe and store in Times

Square is an amazing example of how bizarrely out of sync the organization is with

mainstream America. It will go down in history as the worst marketing decision since New

Coke. What will their sign say, ‘Over a Million Killed?’ It will quickly become a protest

Mecca in the wake of the high-profile shootings that now define our nation, each of which

will be laid at the NRA’s doorstep.” —Josh Sugarman, VPC executive director and author of the 1992 book NRA: Money, Firepower and Fear

Creative arts a vital industry in New England. The Boston Globe features a new report indicating that “The ‘creative industry’ (nonprofit institutions such as museums and libraries, individual

artists, and arts-related commercial activities) makes up

3.5 percent of New England’s total job base – more than our software or

medical technology industries. It is growing at a remarkable rate of 14

percent each year – nearly twice as fast as the average rate of job

growth in New England.” The arts, apparently, are a very good investment to stimulate employment and economic growth.

McCaffrey and his lieutenants once more firing on unarmed civilians.

Annals of the Age of Depravity (cont’d.): Family friend swiped girl’s life preserver to save himself, Mississippi police say. The seven-year-old girl drowned. Her body was recovered three days later. The survivor will stand trial for murder if he doesn’t succeed in evading his suicide watch in the county jail.