Author Archives: FmH

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About FmH

70-something psychiatrist, counterculturalist, autodidact, and unrepentent contrarian.

Clinton Praises Gordon Brown for Beijing Boycott

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“Hillary Clinton just reacted to the announcement from London that British prime minister Gordon Brown will not attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics. She said she ‘congratulated’ Brown on what she termed ‘an important decision’ and called on Barack Obama and John McCain to join her in urging President Bush to also boycott the ceremony.” (The New York Observer)

(Emphasis added.) ‘Beijing boycott’, I mouthed excitedly after reading the headline… Kudos to Clinton for getting out in front on this, but skipping the opening ceremony alone is an empty gesture. The call should be for an outright boycott of the entire Olympics. [The piece is accompanied by what has to be one of the most unflattering pictures of the unphotogenic Clinton I have seen in awhile. Zombified, no?]

Cause for alarm

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…[T]he most ingenious alarm clocks on the market – from the pleasantly surprising to the downright sadistic: “Finally, perhaps the ultimate in snooze-punishments, the SnuzNLuz is a ridiculously monikered but utterly dastardly way of stopping anyone from getting ‘just ten minutes more’. Press snooze and the clock will connect to your bank account and start making donations to a pre-chosen charity or organisation. In order to spur you on all the more, it is suggested that you make the beneficiary of your generosity a cause – political, ethical, whatever – you do not support in the slightest. If you sleep in, they’ll receive donations of your hard-earned cash. You want to hit them where it hurts? Get out of bed.” (Guardian.UK)

The Federman Collection at Spineless Books

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“Federman’s masterful and economical utilization of strange loops, mise-en-abime, and other metafictionalist maneuvers will be received by readers versed in writing of this type with a smile of familiarity and a nod of admiration. Like Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, Federman has internalized this type of writing to the point where the use of innovative and challenging narrative techniques such as metalepsis and hypodiegesis never seems contrived.” –Jeffrey R. di Leo

US Army toyed with telepathic ray gun

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Recently declassified DoD document details developments in maturing nonlethal technologies for warfare: “Some of the technologies are conceptual, such as an electromagnetic pulse that causes a seizure like those experienced by people with epilepsy. Other ideas, like a microwave gun to ‘beam’ words directly into people’s ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called ‘Frey Effect’ – using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person’s ears – has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers’.” (New Scientist)

A number of the schizophrenic patients with whom I work, some of whom have similar explanations for the voices they hear in their heads, would be interested in the report, which is available here (pdf). ‘Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you’, the saying goes. Perhaps it should be ‘Just because you are paranoid means they are out to get you’?

Robot aliens?

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Does TV sci-fi get it right?: “Some aspects of the [Battlestar] Galactica universe may be as bogus as other science-fiction creations (such as spaceships with artificial gravity that instantly jump from one star system to another). But when it comes to the idea that the first intelligent aliens we meet may actually be machines, astronomers say the show is definitely on the right track.

‘There are two kinds of encounters with aliens you can have,’ said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute. ‘Either you pick up a signal, or you pick them up on the corner. But I think it’s safe to say that in both instances they will be synthetic. They will be artificial constructions.'” (MSNBC)

Drug Makers Near Old Goal:

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A Legal Shield: “The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.” (New York Times )

A very bad idea for anyone other than Big Pharma, in my opinion. The drug companies are sitting pretty if pro forma approval by an overwhelmed agency that has not effectively regulated in decades is the sole legal standard.

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

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“They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.” (New York Times)

You know I am enslaved to you, serving up tidbits ’round the clock, day in and day out, dear readers…

Unrecognized Heroes

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“Amid all the bad news surrounding Nouri al-Maliki’s failed offensive against the Sadr militia in Basra, no one has noticed that about thousand people did the right thing. Maliki asked the army and police force to break a cease fire and attack their countrymen and fellow Shi’ites. About a thousand of them, including 100 officers, refused.

No one in the media will call these men heroes. For them, deserters on our side are always either traitors or cowards. Just as deserters on the other side are always loyal and brave. Fuck that. If you are given an inhumane, destructive order, and you decide to put down your gun and walk away, you are a hero.” (Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk)

Eating Octopus

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An ethically dubious proposition? “It seems that you can’t go to a chic restaurant nowadays without encountering octopus on the menu. Like its cephalopod cousins, octotpus is best cooked according to the “two-minute or two-hour” rule. You can either grill the octopus quickly, imbuing it with a meaty smoke flavor, or you can braise it for hours until its tentacle chewiness gives way to a pleasing tenderness. Serve with some bold Mediterranean flavors, like tapenade, paprika or oily beans.

Now I happen to really enjoy eating octopus. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s an ethically dubious proposition. The problem is that octopi are really, really smart. Dr. Jennifer Mather and Roland Anderson have done some interesting research on the surprising cognitive talents of these short-lived, utterly unsocial, yet rather cunning invertebrates. They’ve demonstrated, in a series of experiments and field studies, that octopi play with toys, have short and long-term memory, exhibit rudimentary tool use and have distinct, individual personalities. See here for a nice summary of their work.

What do you think? Is it wrong to eat such an intelligent creature? I’m pretty certain that octopi are the smartest species I consume. While I like all farm animals, and I’m pretty disciplined about only eating humanely raised beef and poultry, I struggle to imagine a chicken or cow using tools. I thought David Foster Wallace, in his essay “Consider the Lobster,” made a pretty compelling case that the ability of a creature to experience pain should alter the moral calculus of eating that creature. (That said, I still eat lobster every chance I get.) But shouldn’t the intelligence of a creature be even more important? After all, intelligence correlates with so many other variables that are clearly relevant to the ethics of food.” (Frontal Cortex)

The Elusive Allure of Messiaen

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“Originality may be overrated in the arts. All creators emulate the masters and borrow from one another. Big deal! The composer and critic Virgil Thomson routinely debunked what he called the ‘game of influences,’ which he considered ‘about as profitable a study as who caught cold from whom when they were standing in the same draft.’

But the French modernist master Olivier Messiaen, who died in 1992 at 83, was truly an original. No other music sounds quite like his, with its mystical allure, ecstatic energy and elusive harmonic language, grounded yet ethereal. Rhythmically his pieces slip suddenly from timeless contemplation to riotous agitation then back again, sometimes by the measure. In the introduction to his 1985 book on Messiaen the critic Paul Griffiths calls him ‘the first great composer whose works exist entirely after, and to a large degree apart from, the great Western tradition.’ ” (New York Times)

Guitar Licks That Resonate and Lyrics That Linger

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What Billy Bragg is listening to. “There are some albums that take you back to your early teens — before they invented Guitar Hero III — when you’d get by with your bedroom mirror and a tennis racket for a guitar. This would be my tennis racket album of the year.” I usually find these New York Times “listening with…” pieces interesting; I just wish they discussed more than 5-6 selections. (New York Times )

Right at the End

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William F. Buckley’s last gift to conservatism may have been his opposition to the Iraq War. “Soon after Bill Buckley died, William Kristol published a column called “The Indispensable Man” in the New York Times. He celebrated Buckley as the founder of the conservative movement, and his tone was not only celebratory but affectionate. And surely Kristol was right: Buckley was indispensable. Without his leadership there would have been no conservative movement. Yet at the end of his life, Buckley believed the movement he made had destroyed itself by supporting the war in Iraq.” (The American Conservative via walker)

Man After My Own Heart

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I just thought I would give a plug for the assembled writings, at Texts and Connections, of my incisive online acquaintance Steve Silberman. I have linked to a number of these articles when they have appeared in Wired online in the past. Silberman and I have corresponded online and share alot of interests and sensibilities, although he has rubbed shoulders with them (the members of the Grateful Dead; other psychedelic, counterculture and Beat luminaries; Oliver Sacks and other neuropioneers; among others) while I just worship them from afar.

If anyone notices the online appearance of any new Silberman materials before I do, please send me a link and I will probably be impelled to take note of it here.

‘Gelwan’ Discoveries

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Those of you with more common family names, or with appreciable extended families, may have a hard time seeing the point of this post. But, as I’ve noted before, there are very very few Gelwans. I have always wondered, or you might even say obsessed around, how/if those I find are related to me. I have very little in the way of extended family; I guess this preoccupation of mine reflects an envy of those with large extended families and a thirst for deeper family connection, especially so that my children might come to feel embedded in a broader web.

I subscribe to a Google alert for new Gelwan references on the web, and just received a link to this page (gendrevo.ru). It appears to me to be from a Russian genealogy site in which survivors post remembrance pages for their relatives who died in the Holocaust. On my paternal side, the generation of immigrants were my grandparents, in the early 20th century; my father’s older siblings and he were born in the U.S. between 1910-1915. I have always assumed that Gelwan was an Ellis Island anglicization of something else and thus that researching my family’s roots would become squirrely because the family name of anyone related to me might not have precisely the same pronunciation or spelling. It was explained to me that, as the part of the world from which my ancestors emigrated shifted back and forth between Slavic and Germanic dominance, between Cyrillic and Roman alphabets, so too did the rendering of family names. I would have to pursue the Gelvans, the Gelmans, and even the Hellmans for relatives. [I may have made this up, but I think I learned somewhere along the way that we are actually distantly related to the Hellman’s mayonnaise family…]

The flip side of that coin is that literal Gelwans might not be related to me. For example, there is a Deborah Gelwan in the public relations industry in Sao Paulo, Brazil who is referred to on the web. When I was a child, a Brazilian tourist with the last name Gelwan, possibly from her family, arrived on our doorstep, having looked up Gelwan in the phonebooks on arriving in New York City. It appears that my parents and the visitor determined that it was unlikely we were related (although I cannot imagine how they did this, as my parents spoke no Portugese and rumor has it this visitor spoke no English). I’ve written to Deborah, without getting a response. I would at least love to figure out if these South American Gelwans descended from Eastern European immigrants. I am aware that eastern European Jews did go to South America in the diasporas, but I am not sure about Brazil per se.

I have even discovered two other Gelwans in the New York area where I grew up, interestingly enough both physicians as I am: Jeffrey, a gastroenterologist and Mark, an ophthalmologist. We’ve spoken by phone but cannot establish a common background. I assumed that it might merely be an accident that we share our name, that Gelwan might be a final common pathway of anglicization from diverse unrelated family names in eastern Europe.

I was told that my family originated in Riga, Latvia. Given that, I’ve written to Vladimir, or Wladimir, Gelwan, who I learned was the principal dancer in the Latvian National Ballet and who now runs a ballet school in Berlin, suggesting that we may be related, but have never gotten a reply back. (What is it with these nonresponses? Someone writing me from afar suggesting they might be my relative, with such a rare name, would immediately pique my interest and would surely get a response, although that might just be me. Do you think the recipients might have worried that my messages represented some kind of con?) I have seen a picture of Vladimir Gelwan on the web and can even imagine a certain family resemblance. I have determined that I will drop in on him if I am ever in Berlin. [Do I have any readers in or near Berlin?]

Given the waves of upheaval that repeatedly washed over eastern Europe in the 20th century, with ever-changing political hegemony over various regions, large scale displacement of populations, the Holocaust, the destruction of records, the changing of names, etc., conventional genealogical research is not possible. It is not as if there is an established family tree, with records waiting around for the taking, as is the case for at least some families with western European origins. My father’s older brother, now deceased, once returned to eastern Europe to try to find some of our roots. Despite a reputation for being extremely resourceful, he apparently had no success at all. Lamentably, I cannot find any notes from his research; otherwise I (acknowledged as someone with no lack of resourcefulness myself!) might pick up the trail where he left off, despite the passage of time having added fifty further years of obfuscation.

But now, here are remembrances literally of Gelwans! And they come from Poland and Riga. So it seems excitingly credible that these remembered Gelwans are somehow relatives of mine, but I am at a loss as to where to go from this point. The entries in this registry were made by a surviving sister, Miriam Bergman, in the mid-’50’s. Bergman is a common name, and I suspect it would be impossible to locate this woman or anyone connected to her. Do any readers have some suggestions as to how I could proceed in pursuing this?

[Perhaps one day someone googling their family name will be linked to this post and wonder how they might be related to Eliot Gelwan. Hurry up, Google, crawl this post and index it!]

Iraq Veterans Testify at Their Own ‘Winter Soldier’

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Organizers Modelled Event After Vietnam Investigation. “On three frigid days in early 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Detroit hotel to indict the most contentious American war of the 20th century. In measured tones, occasionally quivering with emotion, they described what the war had done to them as much as what the war had done to the country… Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they called their investigation the Winter Soldier project, after a line from Thomas Paine’s famous denunciation of “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.”

…On March 13, Iraq Veterans Against the War, an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, [convened] at the National Labor College just outside of Washington to say, in so many words, that it’s all happening again…

The critique that the Winter Soldier investigation presents is both subtle and incendiary. Throughout the course of the war, the public has become agonizingly familiar with its excesses, most notably the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the deliberate killing of civilians at Haditha. Winter Soldier, according to the veterans’ group, won’t expose the next big Iraq scandal. What it will do instead is argue, through testimony from soldiers and Marines who fought the war, that standard military behavior in Iraq can look more like Abu Ghraib or Haditha than the public perceives…” (Washington Independent)

I’m sorry I am late in noticing this. As readers of FmH know, I think that the witness of conscience against American military adventurism is a high purpose and deserves to be propagated widely.

The good ad man

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A remembrance of Paul Arden, advertising guru who struggled with the moral culpability of advertising and advertisers, and wrote self-help books on how to deal with the impact of commercialism. “A good ad man might be something of a contradiction in terms, but today, in tribute to Arden, let’s think the opposite of what we think.”

I am reminded of one of my culture-jamming heroes, former ad executive Jerry Mander, author of the brilliant 1977 book I promote every chance I can, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.

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Untying the ‘ribbon culture’

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“A brilliant new book [Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Public Awareness, by Sarah E.H. Moore] explores what the relentless rise of awareness-raising ribbons – kitsch fashion items that express the wearer’s fear of disease or empathy with victims – reveals about our morbid, narcissistic society…

The more that awareness ribbons have become a must-have accessory, the more they have become All About Ourselves. ‘Awareness’ of a cause has become self-awareness of our own anxiety and mortality, and the search for meaning turns ever more intimately inwards.

The increasing orientation towards the self has been theorised by several influential thinkers, including Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism (1979), Anthony Giddens in Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), Ulrich Beck in Risk Society (1992) and Frank Furedi in Therapy Culture (2004). It is understood to be a product of the breakdown of traditional institutions and relations of solidarity, which lead to a more fragmented, risk-conscious society, in which the quest for meaning takes on a more individualised, uncertain form. Critics such as Lasch and Furedi view this process as a predominantly negative one, leading to a fearful, isolated outlook that rests on a diminished sense of the individual and society, while the Giddens school of thought presents it in a rather more positive, liberatory light.” — Jennie Bristow (sp!ked)

The Science of Fairy Tales

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“Kids of any age love to read fairy tales because the storyline never limits the possibility that anything could happen. Curses, spells, and handsome princes reign in worlds beyond the reader’s imagination.

But are the most magical moments from some of our favorite stories actually possible? Basic physical principles and recent scientific research suggest that what readers might mistake for fantasies and exaggeration could be rooted in reality.” — Chris Gorski (LiveScience)

Man After My Own Heart

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I just thought I would give a plug for the assembled writings, at Texts and Connections, of my incisive online acquaintance Steve Silberman. I have linked to a number of these articles when they have appeared in Wired online in the past. Silberman and I have corresponded online and share alot of interests and sensibilities, although he has rubbed shoulders with them (the members of the Grateful Dead; other psychedelic, counterculture and Beat luminaries; Oliver Sacks and other neuropioneers; among others) while I just worship them from afar.

If anyone notices the online appearance of any new Silberman materials before I do, please send me a link and I will probably be impelled to take note of it here.

The U.S.’s First Black President?

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“Will Americans vote for a black president? If the notorious historian William Estabrook Chancellor was right, we already did. In the early 1920s, Chancellor helped assemble a controversial biographical portrait accusing President Warren Harding of covering up his family’s “colored” past. According to the family tree Chancellor created, Harding was actually the great-grandson of a black woman. Under the one-drop rule of American race relations, Chancellor claimed, the country had inadvertently elected its “first Negro president.”” (New York Times Magazine)

Design & Mystique of the Japanese School Uniform

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“The U.K., Malaysia and Ireland have nice school uniforms, but how come Japanese school attire seemingly takes it to another level, leaving the students looking like little sailors and marching band leaders? Having worked as a public school English teacher in rural Fukushima and downtown Tokyo, I’ve been amazed by the variety of uniforms as well as the ways students customise them as far as they are allowed. PingMag shows you interesting details in fashion and the social performance that accompany this apparel to a point where the traditional Japanese school uniform has developed beyond the schoolyard and into pop culture.” (PingMag)

Do pencils point to the Holy Grail of physics?

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Scientists create material one atom thick: “The foundations of the universe have been glimpsed in Manchester by scientists who have created the thinnest possible material.

Flat, parallel sheets of carbon atoms in the graphite of pencil lead have been peeled apart by the scientists to yield a sheet a single atom thick that has peculiar properties which made the fundamental feat possible.

…Today, in the journal Science, Prof Andre Geim of Manchester University and his colleagues at The University of Minho in Portugal, say they have used [the material] to measure an important and enigmatic fundamental constant of nature – the fine structure constant.

Working with Rahul Nair and Peter Blake he made large suspended membranes of graphene so that one can easily see light passing through this thinnest of all materials.

The 2.3 per cent of light that it absorbed could then be used to calculate the constant, which shows the interaction between very fast moving electrical charges in the material and light, and it is close to 1/137.” (Telegraph.UK)

Would Mugabe Relinquish in Return for Amnesty?

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The Guardian reports: “Following the party’s electoral reverses, senior aides to the Zimbabwean president approached the MDC.

They said Mugabe was prepared to step down in return for an amnesty from prosecution for crimes such as the Matebeleland massacres in the 1980s and other guarantees.

However, it was unclear whether the approach was a delaying tactic while Mugabe weighed up his options under considerable pressure from different factions within Zanu-PF’s politburo.”

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(Video) Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

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“Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids — and spells out five (and really, he’s got six) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer. This talk comes from TED University 2007, a pre-conference program where TEDsters share ideas.

To sum up, let children:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA / Drive a car”

(DivineCaroline)

I’m not sure I would go fully 6 for 6 with my kids…

Time to Stop Caricaturing Chimps

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“They have been used to sell everything from tea bags to bicycles and designer watches but the days of showing chimpanzees in TV commercials could be numbered, if a group of leading scientists gets its way.

The primatologists, who include the world-famous Jane Goodall, have attacked the advertising industry for exploiting chimps as ‘frivolous subhumans’ who can be viewed as objects of fun and ridicule for the sake of commercial gain.

Dressing up chimps in human clothes or making them perform everyday activities gives people the impression that they are not a species in danger of extinction…” (Independent.UK)

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Philosophical Psychopathology

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“This text is a benchmark volume for an emerging field where mental disorders serve as the springboard for philosophical insights. It brings together current research by Owen Flanagan, Robert Gordon, Robert Van Gulick and others on mental disorders of consciousness, self-consciousness, emotions, personality, and action and belief as well as general methodological questions about the study of mental disorder. Topics include the problem of despair, multiple personality disorder, autism and the theory of the mind debate, and the effectiveness of psychotherapy. An introduction shows how to interpret philosophical psychopathology as an interdisciplinary field and locates the contributions in the book conceptually and in terms of the surrounding literature. Psychopathology promises to clarify and illuminate a host of philosophical issues. The 12 chapters focus chiefly on issues in applied philosophy of mind (personal identity and self-consciousness, voluntary action and self-control, cognition and practical reasoning), in the science of mind (the medical model of mental disorders, philosophy of science and psychiatry, psychopathology and folk psychology), and in the ethical and experimential dimensions of psychopathology.” (Blackwell Press)

Marian Wright Edelman: Honoring King is Not Enough

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“Too many of us would rather celebrate than follow Dr. King. Some of us have enshrined Dr. King the dreamer, but have ignored Dr. King the disturber of all unjust peace. Many celebrate King the orator, but ignore his words and warnings about the need for reordering the misguided values and priorities he believed to be the seeds of America’s downfall. Many remember King the vocal opponent of violence, but not King who called for massive nonviolent civil disobedience to challenge the stockpiling of weapons of death and the wars they fuel.” (Huffington Post)
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Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

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“…[W]hat if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later? A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile.” (New Scientist)

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More

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“None of … the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit… if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.” (New York Times [thanks, Mark] )
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Male rock fans likely to vote Republican: survey

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“The Jacobs Media’s Media/Technology Web Poll IV of more than 27,000 respondents cited stronger than expected interest in the November 2008 election among fans of rock, classic rock, and alternative radio stations.

It also found that John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, was the top pick for the Oval Office for men and classic rock partisans — those people who tune in to stations playing music from the ‘original classic rock era’ of 1964 to 1975, comprised of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd.” (Yahoo! News)

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Time and Mind

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(Time and Mind)

English Heretic

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“It is our task at English Heretic, ostensibly, to maintain, nurture and care for the psychohistorical environment of England. Availed of the services of some of the country’s very finest occult archaeologists, astral geographers and mystical toponymists, we aim to help people decode and realise the alchemical ciphers and conspiratorial interplay of the buildings and landscapes around them.

Whether it be via the transcript of an imaginal ordnance survey, documentary evidence of a psychogeographic derivé, or technical guide on passage through a liminal gateway, we aim to provide a comprehensive set of resources for both novice and experienced inner landscape investigators. With these tools at their disposal we hope to encourage more people to undertake voyages to exciting, uncanny and often terrifying interdimensional spaces.”

Sidewalk Psychiatry

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//www.candychang.com/artdesign/pages/image/sidewalk_whosef.jpg' cannot be displayed] “While doing some habitual walking and thinking one morning, Candy thought it would be nice to have some help along the way. Pedestrians in the city often find themselves walking in deep thought. A routine trip can prompt reflections on everything from future goals to last night’s dinner conversation. As people sacrifice personal time for hectic schedules, these casual occasions for reflection become all the more important.

Sidewalk Psychiatry encourages self-evaluation in transit by posing critical questions on the pavements of New York City. Now your daily ponderings and emotional problems can be prodded and treated on the go – and, best of all, it’s free of charge!” (candychang.com via boing boing)

Rupert Sheldrake stabbed at conference while talking about thought transference

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Police arrest suspect after attack at lecture: “…Sheldrake had been talking about how thoughts can be transferred by staring into another’s eyes. During the lecture in the main ballroom on La Fonda’s second floor, an Asian man left the room and when he returned, he didn’t take a seat but stood near the podium with his eyes closed like he was meditating, Edwards said.

The attack came when Sheldrake called for a break about 3 p.m. Edwards said he started to leave the room when he heard a commotion. By the time he looked back, he said, an Asian man was being held on the floor by four people while a fifth held a knife in a napkin. Mecham said the knife was a folding type that hunters typically use.

Edwards said Sheldrake had a 2- or 3-inch cut on the front of his left thigh, just above his kneecap…” (Santa Fe New Mexican)

This was as much of the account as was included in Boing Boing, at which point in my reading I assumed that the assailant was probably suffering from schizophrenia. One of the cardinal, terrifying, symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia is thought control or, specifically, thought insertion, the experience that one’s thoughts have been inserted into one’s mind by another, that one is not in control of one’s own thoughts and does not have privacy in their mind. It is often accompanied by the symptoms of thought withdrawal or thought broadcasting. Although there is some dispute about what the cardinal features of schizophrenia are, these symptoms are core in the schema of illustrious German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider, and have come to be known as Schneiderian signs. When I went from the Boing Boing excerpt to the more complete account in the New Mexican, the following illuminated the man’s plight further:

“Hirano had been attending the 10th International Conference on Science and Consciousness. Other attendees said he had been acting oddly. They said he confronted Sheldrake earlier this week, telling him he heard voices and saw demons.”

These frightful schizophrenic symptoms are experiences in need of an explanation to the sufferer. Often, the explanations are delusional. Delusions are outlandish, irrational but comforting theories to explain the bewildering and horrifying experiences, since any explanation is better than having none at all. Once hit upon, delusions are rigidly adhered to. A delusion is, in this sense, not a core symptom of schizophrenic experience but a compensatory effort on the sufferer’s part, to my way of thinking.

Someone who claims familiarity with the techniques of thought insertion, claims of which by the psychotic sufferer have usually been scoffed at by listeners, is immediately suspect as responsible for the sufferer’s symptoms.

Occupational Eponymy

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A huge list of aptonyms, names which suit their bearers’ occupations or roles. As readers of FmH will recognize, I am charmed by and have written about aptonyms before here, although I did not know the (dare I say? apt?) term. Again, my favorite was a psychiatric conference on violence I attended several years ago at which the three keynote speakers were Schouten, Swearinigen and Blood. (via Language Log) I am sure FmHers have their own wonderful examples.
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Pinakothek

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Writer Luc Santé has a weblog ‘about pictures’… “Subjectivity is my middle name, a trick memory is my pack mule, and self-contradiction is my trusty old jackknife.” (Pinakothek) [From Wikipedia: “A pinacotheca is a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or ancient Rome. The name is specifically used for the building containing pictures which formed the left wing of the Propylaea on the Acropolis at Athens, Greece…(The word) is used for a public gallery on the continent of Europe, as at Bologna and Turin. At Munich there are three galleries known as the Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne.”]

Are We Really That Ill?

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“America has reached a point where almost half its population is described as being in some way mentally ill, and nearly a quarter of its citizens – 67.5 million – have taken antidepressants.

These statistics have sparked a widespread, sometimes rancorous debate about whether people are taking far more medication than is needed for problems that may not even be mental disorders. Studies indicate that 40% of all patients fall short of the diagnoses that doctors and psychiatrists give them, yet 200 million prescriptions are written annually in America to treat depression and anxiety. Those who defend such widespread use of prescription drugs insist that a significant part of the population is under-treated and, by inference, under-medicated. Those opposed to such rampant use of drugs note that diagnostic rates for bipolar disorder, in particular, have skyrocketed by 4,000% and that overmedication is impossible without over-diagnosis…” — Christopher Lane, professor of English at Northwestern University and author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (The New York Sun op-ed)

A plea, with which as a practicing psychiatrist (even though I have no desire to be out of a job!)I very much agree, for reining in rampant overdiagnosis, setting the bar higher to qualify for having a mental illness, and “resurrecting the distinction between chronic illness and mild suffering.” Lane quite rightly observes that if everyone is mentally ill then no one is.

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer

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Possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims: “Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users. The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security.” (Wired News)

Free Copyrighted eBooks

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Free Downloads in PDF Format at Wowio: “Want a free ebook copy of a Kurt Vonnegut novel? Free ebook site Wowio has five of them, along with lots of other copyrighted fiction, literature, comics, and other works. The site offers the wares through sponsorships, and only limits your downloads to three books per day, 30 per month. The two caveats are a somewhat limited selection (as you might expect) and that the site’s U.S.-only due to licensing restrictions. Otherwise, it’s not a bad place to check for fresh content for your PDA, cell phone or computer screen. For more free page-turners, try the top ten sites for free books and the 100 best free Project Gutenberg books.” (Lifehacker) Do FmH readers do ebooks? Or do you continue to prefer flesh and blood?

Five Things* You Need to Know to Understand the Latest Violence in Iraq

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“The traditional media is incapable of reporting what’s going on in Southern Iraq.” (AlterNet)

*(Only question I cannot for the life of me figure out is whether this, Dubya’s explanation, is one of them:)

“My first reaction to watching the Iraqi government respond forcefully and to make it abundantly clear that — I think the exact — I can’t remember the exact words of the Prime Minister, but “criminal elements” I know were a part of his declaration — would be dealt with. I thought that was a very positive moment in the development of a sovereign nation, that is willing to take on elements that are — you know, that believe they’re beyond the law.”

Related:

Bush: Iraq is Returning to Normal

“Some … seem unwilling to acknowledge that progress is taking place,” Bush said in a speech at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. He accused war opponents of constantly shifting their critique, adding: “No matter what shortcomings these critics diagnose, their prescription is always the same — retreat.” (McClatchy )

Pot? Kettle? Black?

And:

American Enterprise Institute’s Fred Kagan:

“The civil war in Iraq is over…” (Salon)

British TV company accused of bringing epidemic to isolated Indians

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//www.survival-international.org/lib/img/gallery/User_Galleries/news/news/matsigenka-man.jpg' cannot be displayed]“A fierce controversy is raging in the Peruvian Amazon over the activities of a film crew working for the British TV company Cicada Films. Local Indians, government officials and independent scientists have accused the film-makers of visiting very isolated Indian communities, despite being warned not to. The isolated Indians reported later that the visit provoked an epidemic of respiratory disease that left four people dead and others seriously ill.” (Survival International)

Five Things* You Need to Know to Understand the Latest Violence in Iraq | War on Iraq

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“The traditional media is incapable of reporting what’s going on in Southern Iraq.” (AlterNet)

*(Only question I cannot for the life of me figure out is whether this, Dubya’s explanation, is one of them:)

“My first reaction to watching the Iraqi government respond forcefully and to make it abundantly clear that — I think the exact — I can’t remember the exact words of the Prime Minister, but “criminal elements” I know were a part of his declaration — would be dealt with. I thought that was a very positive moment in the development of a sovereign nation, that is willing to take on elements that are — you know, that believe they’re beyond the law.”

Related: 

Bush: Iraq is Returning to Normal

“Some … seem unwilling to acknowledge that progress is taking place,” Bush said in a speech at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. He accused war opponents of constantly shifting their critique, adding: “No matter what shortcomings these critics diagnose, their prescription is always the same — retreat.” (McClatchy )

Pot? Kettle? Black?

And: 

American Enterprise Institute’s Fred Kagan:

“The civil war in Iraq is over…” (Salon)

Anyone Speak Kurdish?

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I’m always on the lookout for obscure references to “gelwan”. Can anyone translate this one? (Scroll down to it): “Di gelwan merc�n dijwar de ew bi d�v gotina kurd�ya resen de geriya , ew gotin di t�rik�xwe de parast
�tov�w�di nav gel de belav kir.” (Kurdistan National Assembly – Kone Res – Bilbil� �iyay�Botan)

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right

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“‘He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’‘ Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.’

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, ‘like what’s going on here?’ Diaz says. ‘He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?”

Diaz replied: ‘If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.” (NPR)

‘Either You Get It Or You Don’t…’

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Peggy Noonan: “I think we’ve reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don’t. There’s no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don’t. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don’t, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will.” (WSJ)

The Hilary Deathwatch

Christopher Beam, Chadwick Matlin, and Chris Wilson: ‘…So the question now is not just “How dead is she?” but “When will she realize it?” ‘ (Slate)

Democratic Race Over?

“Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won.” (Reuters commentary)

Leahy: Clinton Should Drop Out

“Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to,” he said… “As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make.” (CBS News)

Dodd calls on Democratic leaders to halt battling

“Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd says the war of words between Senate colleagues Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is undermining Democrats’ ability to win the presidential election.

… He says that after primaries in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana, the national leadership needs to push the party to get behind a candidate.” (Newsday)

And:

Approximately 15,900 results from a Google search on ‘”Hilary Clinton” withdraw|”drop out” ‘.

Earth Hour

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“On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.”

A history of the hangover

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Inigo Thomas:

“Hangovers were for a long time associated with stock market crashes; the 1929 crash has been written about as if it were the hangover after the wild 1920s. Whether or not traders are more likely to hit the bottle after precipitous falls in the value of their shares is hard to say—not least because it isn’t clear what’s going on with markets. Are the fallen masters of the universe at Bear Stearns drinking away what remains of their portfolios? One hopes that an enterprising sociologist is doing fieldwork in the bars near the bank’s headquarters.” (Slate)

Is autism the symptom of an "extreme white brain"?

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“In several previous posts, I’ve discussed Simon Baron-Cohen’s theory of autism as a symptom of an ‘extreme male brain’ (e.g. ‘Stereotypes and facts’, 9/24/2006), and also Mary Bucholtz’s hypothesis that nerdity is defined by ‘hyperwhite’ behavior (e.g. ‘Language and identity’, 7/29/2007). I’m ashamed to say that it never seriously occurred to me to cross-pollinate these two theories, until….” (Language Log)

The Long Defeat

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David Brooks:

“The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near... Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance…” (New York Times op-ed)

Japan: URL’s Are Totally Out

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“Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL’s. The replacement?

Search boxes! With recommended search terms!

It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who’s going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like “gmail” and “netflix” into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn’t even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

But, I ask you: could this be done in the USA? Wouldn’t search spammers and/or “optimizers” ruin this within seconds? I did a few tests with major name brands and they’re almost always the top hit on Google (surprisingly, even Panic). But if Nabisco ran a nationwide ad campaign for a hot new product and told users to Google for “Burlap Thins” to learn more, wouldn’t someone sneaky get there before they do?” (cabel.name)

Solution elusive for awaking in surgery

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“One thing is clear: Although some physicians have been known in the past to dismiss reports of awareness as simply a bad dream, the consensus is that it exists.

Anesthesia awareness – regaining some level of consciousness during surgery – is thought to occur in perhaps one or two out of 1,000 surgical patients in the United States, a total of 20,000 to 40,000 cases a year. The bulk of them do not feel pain.

Still, for some it is so disturbing that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and must undergo counseling.

For general anesthesia, patients typically are given a mix of drugs – including one to “knock them out” and often another called a paralytic.

This relaxes the muscles to make surgery easier. But in the rare case that a patient starts to wake up – not able to speak – the paralytic effect can be horrifying.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Mickey Edwards: ‘Dick Cheney’s Error’

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“For at least six years, as I’ve become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration’s repeated betrayal of constitutional — and conservative — principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I’ve known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush’s transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney’s belief in “the military option” and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of “those about whom we should be greatly concerned”?

It is Cheney’s all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public’s disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: “So?”

‘So,’ Mr. Vice President?” (Washington Post op-ed)

Giles Fraser: A funny kind of Christian

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“His thirst for scapegoats shows how poorly George Bush understands the meaning of Easter.

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ’s passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of.

Two weeks ago, the most powerful Christian in the world vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding on detainees. “We need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists,” said George Bush in a passable impersonation of Pontius Pilate. “This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.”

Throughout his time in office, the president has frequently been photographed in front of the cross. Yet as his support for torture demonstrates, he has understood little of its meaning. For the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is supremely a moral story about God’s identification with victims.” (Guardian.UK)

Scents and Sensibility:

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John Lanchester on what the nose knows:

“Consider product A, in which

layers of cedar and raspberry strike a sharp upfront note, while clove and creamy notes add body while contributing an exotic, sumptuous character that conveys luxury in its essence. Might there also be a trace of rubber, though?

And then there’s B, with

its aroma of underripe bananas, and the way the fruitiness opens up on my tongue with a flick of bitterness that quickly fades to reveal lush, grassy tones.

Product C, on the other hand, is

fruity (with a high-profile role for the deliciously garbagey, overripe smell of guava) plus floral (powdery rosy) plus green (neroli and oakmoss).

These are descriptions of, respectively, a chocolate, an olive oil, and a perfume, but you couldn’t possibly guess that. I’ve never caught traces of red fruit in a dark chocolate, I don’t even know what neroli is, and, as for underripe bananas in olive oil, I’m more likely to catch the Sundance Kid in Bolivia. That doesn’t mean that the people who can taste these things are bluffing; rather, they have a vocabulary of specific sense references that I haven’t acquired. (To complicate matters, sometimes these people actually are bluffing.)” (The New Yorker)

"Ethical but slightly deceptive"?

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Salon shows how to read WSJ for free: “In his Salon Machinist blog, Farhad Manjoo shows how to read any article in the Wall Street Journal online (one of the few online papers that charges money for a subscription) for free. As a bonus, he includes an explanation about why this is ethical (though he admits it’s ‘slightly deceptive’).

Remember that the Journal is set up to disarm its pay gate if it thinks you’re coming from Google News or Digg. In order to get free access, then, you’ve got to convince the Journal that you’ve clicked on a link on one of those sites. How to do that?

The technical name for this is ‘referer spoofing’ (with the misspelling). Spoofing is an easy thing to pull off in Firefox — all you’ve got to do is download this add-on, refspoof.

When you’ve installed that app, you’ll see a new toolbar.

Now follow these steps:

* Go to WSJ.com.

* In the refspoof toolbar’s ‘spoof:’ field, type ‘digg.com.’

* Also in the refspoof toolbar, click the R icon, and select ‘static referrer.’

* That’s it. Click around the site; the WSJ thinks each click is coming from Digg. The WSJ is now yours for free!” [via boing boing]

Kiddie psychopaths?

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English furor: “Gary Pugh, the director of forensic sciences for the British police has sparked controversy after he suggested that children as young as five who display ‘future offending traits’ should be placed on a DNA database so they are more likely to be picked up if they commit crime in the future.

Pugh is almost certainly talking about children who have what are known as ‘callous-unemotional’ traits, described somewhat less politically correctly as ‘kiddie psychopathy’.

These have indeed been found to weakly predict future antisocial behaviour, but the picture is more complex than it seems and, as we’ll see, they aren’t a good basis on which to base future crime fighting efforts.” (Mind Hacks)

"…the closest many people will ever get to seeing what large parts of a dinosaur actually looked like, in the flesh…"

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“Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota’s state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.

Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus named Dakota, a duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in southwestern North Dakota in 2004, is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron. It’s among just a few mummified dinosaurs in the world, say the researchers who are slowly freeing it from a 65-million-year-old rock tomb. (Discovery News)

Finality over Fairness

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The Supreme Court denies right of appeal to a condemned man who may well be innocent, clearing the way for his execution. (He is an African American, of course, convicted of murdering a white police officer.) Most of the non-police eyewitnesses on whose testimony his murder conviction was based have recanted, some filing sworn affidavits saying they were coerced into giving the evidence which corroborated his guilt. One of the remaining witnesses is the principal alternative suspect, and there is considerable sworn testimony implicating him. Yet the Supreme Court is denying Troy Davis further appeals on procedural grounds, because the evidence of police coercion was not introduced soon enough. You can send a letter to the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles advocating for fair treatment for Davis, or download a petition from this advocacy site. (Amnesty International)

E. J. Dionne Jr. :

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“Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.

The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard.” (Washington Post op-ed)

Whether it is a ‘bailout’ or not has become as much as a charged buzzword as whether it was an ‘invasion’ or not, whether it is an ‘amnesty’, or whether we are in favor of ‘choice’. Whichever side of the debate one is on, one should decry the mind-numbing use of buzzwords to replace nuanced discourse.

Happy Ostara

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It is the vernal equinox for all my readers in the northern hemisphere (both of you?) and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere (anyone following FmH from south of the equator?). The earth’s axis is perpendicular to its orbital plane and the north and south poles are equal distances from the sun today, so that day and night are of equal length (equi-nox) It is the pagan festival of Ostara in the north and, if there are pagans south of the equator, Mabon, observances which reflect the sense of balance inherent in this astronomical event.

“The name Ostara goes back to Jacob Grimm, who, in his Deutsche Mythologie, speculated about an ancient German goddess Ostara, after whom the Easter festival (German: Ostern) could have been named. Grimm’s main source is De temporum ratione by the Venerable Bede. Bede had put forward the thesis that the Anglo-Saxon name for the month of April, Eostur-monath, was named after a goddess Eostre.

…In the book Eight Sabbats for Witches by Janet and Stewart Farrar, the festival Ostara is characterized by the rejoining of the Mother Goddess and her lover-consort-son, who spent the winter months in death. Other variations include the young God regaining strength in his youth after being born at Yule, and the Goddess returning to her Maiden aspect.” (Wikipedia )

This year, we have the added exact coincidence of the full moon with the equinox. The sun and moon are, symmetrically, opposite each other, the axis of the earth and the solar-lunar axis orthogonal, and thus the coincidence with Easter, which the early Church grafted onto the pagan equinoctal observance (while removing the nod to the Goddess). Easter, and the equinox, of course, celebrate rebirth and the promise of renewal as well as balance. These are embodied in the symbol of the egg, smooth, round and full of potential ready to burst forth. Rumor has it that on the equinox you can balance an egg, pointy side up. Do it at midnight, when the moon is as close to overhead as it will get at your latitude and the tidal forces are balanced.

And with sadness, at this change of the seasons, I have to note the passing of the man for all seasons. R.I.P. Paul Scofield.

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Race to the End

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So, in the same 24-hour period, Barack Obama argues for the viability of his candidacy on the basis of the US being a post-racial society (Washington Post); and the Supreme Court strikes down by a 7-2 vote the capital murder conviction of a Louisiana man on the grounds that the prosecution’s peremptory jury challenges were blatently racist (New York Times). Oh, and Clarence Thomas writes the dissenting opinion. Could it be that he wants to keep racial bias viable in American society thinking he would not have his job but for affirmative action? [Should I fall on my sword, as Geraldine Ferraro did, for saying that? — FmH]

Calls Mount for Olympic Ceremony Boycott

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Moves to punish China for its handling of Tibetan protests gain momentum:

“France’s outspoken foreign minister, former humanitarian campaigner Bernard Kouchner, said the idea ‘is interesting.’

Kouchner said he wants to discuss it with other foreign ministers from the 27-nation European Union next week. His comments opened a crack in what until now had been solid opposition to a full boycott, a stance that Kouchner said remains the official government position.” (AP )