Television can enhance children’s intellectual development, study finds EurekAlert

They’ve got it covered

Book shops are no

longer sweet, sedate, cerebral places in the calm, measured

business of selling knowledge. They’re battlegrounds for

publishers, piled high, battalions of their products coming after

you. Their weapon is the book cover.

Publishers think we’re all mugs and, by and large, that’s exactly

what we are. We judge books by their covers. We know what to

expect. The bookshop is almost colour-coded to make selection

easier. Bubblegum cartoon covers for girly relationship novels.

Cold-war thrillers, horror, sci-fi, all dressed in gothic black with

melodramatic gold lettering. It’s design shorthand. Publishers

have just a few seconds to catch your eye, as you

promiscuously scan the shop floor. Let your eye rest for a

second, and they’ve almost got you. Make contact, read the

blurb on the back and, most important today, clock the face of

the author. Raffishly lived-in like Paul Auster, or boho glam like

Zadie Smith: either way, you’re sold. It’s not enough any more

for wannabe bestselling authors to send in a mere manuscript. A

photo, professionally styled, is mandatory. The Guardian UK

Governments struggle to second guess terrorists’ next move: “As the dust starts to settle on the terrorist atrocities in the US, governments around the world are urgently reviewing their counter-terrorist measures. One of their biggest unknowns is whether terrorists are now likely to stick to the low-tech approach of 11 September, or whether they will turn to chemical or biological weapons.” New Scientist

Hacker rewrites Yahoo! news stories: “A computer security expert has revealed how he altered news

articles posted to Yahoo!’s web site without permission. The

incident highlights the danger of hackers posting misleading

information to respected news outlets, say experts.” New Scientist

What happens next? Six options beyond war and peace. Reason

This is robo-roach:” …surgically

implanted with a micro-robotic backpack that allows researchers to control its movements.”

Attack on America: An Islamic Perspective

In short, America isn’t anti-Islamic. Nor does it need to be. America and Allah are not at odds. Nor do they need to be. If the United States fails to alter the course of its foreign policy and if it continues to be perceived as anti-Islamic, Islamic terrorism may not go away with missiles and bombs. In that event, more than six million Muslims, now living in the United States, may suffer persecution that American Indians, African-Americans and American citizens of Japanese descent have experienced in the past. In that event, America will also fail from within. –Professor Ali Khan (Washburn University School of Law), The Jurist

The war effort gears up:

Kabul looted as order disintegrates: “As thousands of nervous Afghans flee Kabul and other big towns, reports have emerged of looting in the capital as law and order begins to break down.” The Times of London

Destined to Shadowbox With the Devil: “When is someone going to admit that the terrorists have already won, immobilizing the world’s greatest democracy and that much of what we are doing as a nation is simply stomping our feet in frustration? LA Times

The Hunt for bin Laden Gears Up on a Trail Gone Cold — ‘For his part, Mr. bin Laden is where he has so often been since he proclaimed his holy war in the mid- 1990’s and set out to kill as many Americans as he could — everywhere, and nowhere, the subject of countless rumors and speculations. The only thing certain is that each passing day gives the world’s most wanted fugitive more opportunity to move and to hide.

As of today, 24 hours after the Taliban announced their “final decision” to refuse his handover, this much was known publicly about Mr. bin Laden’s whereabouts: virtually nothing.’ New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

However, whom would you rather believe? “British intelligence agents have discovered the position of terror chief Osama bin Laden… PM Tony Blair’s official spokesman last night confirmed: “Bin Laden is in Afghanistan. We know he is there, put it that way.” ‘ News of the World

Or: Bin Laden ‘fleeing to Somalia’: “US officials believe Osama bin Laden is preparing to

leave Afghanistan to set up his terrorist operations in Somalia.” This is London

The Phantom Towers, a memorial Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere

U.S. Measures May Incite Domestic Terror: “These new measures may be necessary components to protect the United States from further attacks by foreign terrorists. But they will also likely fuel the fears and anger of domestic groups such as the Michigan Militia or the North American Volunteer Militia. In time, as the U.S. security apparatus looks for threats coming from outside the country, the United States may again face attacks from within.” StratFor

Rumors of War: “A collection of links to pages discussing the various rumors to come out of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States of America.” It brands claims as true, false, undetermined or indeterminate. Urban Legends reference pages

I’ll give you the punchline: email circulating telling you you’ll find something sinister if you enter the supposed name of one of the hijacked flights, “Q33NY”, in the Microsoft font Wing Ding, especially at a large size. What you’ll find is an airliner, “twin towers”, a skull’n’crossbones, and Star of David. There’s also been about a decade’s worth of concern about “NYC” in Wing Ding, which gives you the skull’n’bones, the Star of David, and a thumbs-up. Microsoft has felt compelled to issue denials that it had embedded hidden anti-Semitic messages in its fonts.

Zeldman:

Saturday, or was it Sunday, the TV networks began running commercials again. Carrot Top shilling a 1-800 number while cracking panty jokes in a laundromat. Babes With Guns, a very special season premiere.

We are blessed with a rich culture, woven from thousands of years of European, African, and Asian art, philosophy, and political thinking. But you wouldn?t know it to look at the junk we put on TV and export to the world.

Suddenly pop culture looks like excrement smeared by a mental patient.

Of course it always did. But suddenly the shallowness feels shameful. Am I the only one who feels this way? What dream have we been living in?

Somehow in my pursuit of happiness I failed to notice that children were dying in Iraq.

Somehow when car bombs exploded in London, or gunfire ripped the West Bank, I felt a moment of sorrow and disbelief, then went about my business ? never realizing that love was my business, the world was my business.

We use love to sell mouthwash.

The thing is, I am under a cloud ? literally. A cloud of pulverized metal, asbestos, and human beings blankets my city.

I find it hard to work, hard to think. Like my mother when she began to come down with Alzheimer?s, I find myself at a loss for names, a loss for dates, a loss for titles of books I?ve read.

I say, “that guy, that actor, who married that woman, actress, who was in Batman” when I mean Alec Baldwin.

I say “that fucker” when I mean bin Laden.

That one doesn?t bother me.

The thing is, like everyone, I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The thing is, I feel helpless as an embryo.[via wood s lot]

More on the bravery of the Flight 93 passengers, after analysis of the cockpit voice recorder.

And, folded into the same article, speculation that the assassination of the Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massoud by suicide bombers may have been the work of Al Qu’ida, and timed to throw the opposition into chaos to coincide with the American attacks. Recall, further, the reports of explosions in Kabul on the night of the 11th, about which I’ve seen no further followup after it became clear that the U.S. had not started a bombardment. But, with reports that Massoud had died that day (inaccurate; he lingered for several more days before succombing), I thought that anti-Taliban forces might be retaliating in Kabul. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Thinkers Face the Limits of a Just War: ‘Few moral philosophers except committed pacifists dispute that the United

States has just cause to use force in this case. But many emphatically reject

the use of the word “war” in anything but a metaphorical sense, noting

that in this case the enemy is not a state against which hostilities can be

formally declared and from which surrender can be sought.’

The moral philosophers are not the only philosophers grappling with the implications of the attacks and our response. Attacks on U.S. Challenge Postmodern True

Believers:

The destruction of the World Trade Center

and the attack on the Pentagon may have

similar effects, challenging the intellectual

and ethical perspectives of two sets of

ideas: postmodernism (affectionately

known as pomo) and postcolonialism

(which might be called poco). These ideas,

which have affected political debate and

university scholarship, are now being

subject to a shock that may lead in two

directions: on one hand to a more intense commitment, and on the other

— I hope — to a more intense rejection.

New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

For Bush, a Mission and a Defining Moment: ‘ “This,” he told them, “is the purpose of this administration.” …One of the president’s close acquaintances outside the White House said Mr. Bush clearly feels he has encountered his reason for being, a conviction informed and shaped by the president’s own strain of Christianity.

“I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do,” the acquaintance said. “It offers him enormous clarity.” ‘ [While I’m all for people finding themselves, how will the Islamic world (or for that matter our allies) face a war shaped by Christian zealotry?]

‘…Although the current moratorium on presidential criticism in the nation’s capital prohibits most on-the-record carping, there is off-the-record concern, expressed not only by Democrats but also by some Republicans.

They fear that there is something headlong and immature in some of Mr. Bush’s exhortations over the last few days. They wonder if he is making promises he cannot keep and threats he cannot back up.

They note it is impossible to know how ? and how much ? Mr. Bush has really changed, because efforts by the White House to control what gets said about him, and who says it, have been unusually aggressive.

Most of the people in a position to talk knowledgeably about Mr. Bush’s emotions are not talking at all. Those who do talk have often sought the administration’s permission, and they reel off the same adjectives, like focused and resolute, that White House spokesmen do.

Moreover, there are indications that Mr. Bush’s nonchalant, jocular demeanor remains the same. In public, his off-the-cuff language still veers toward the colloquial. In private, say several Republicans close to the administration, he still slaps backs and uses baseball terminology, at one point promising that the terrorists were not “going to steal home on me.” ‘ New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Sweeps Find Box-Cutters On Two More Airliners: “Federal investigators found box-cutter knives on at least two airplanes during sweeps conducted in the aftermath of the deadly Sept. 11 hijackings, including two stuffed into seat cushions on a flight out of Boston and one found in a trash bin of an Atlanta jetliner headed for Brussels…”

And:

Rumors of New Attacks Leave Cities on Edge — “In Atlanta, Richmond and now Boston, vague, unsubstantiated threats received since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack have presented authorities with the difficult task of sorting through raw intelligence and alerting authorities without panicking a jittery public. In each case, there have been warnings of possible violence followed quickly by retractions.”Washington Post

‘The harm done to innocents’ — “Most Americans who have lived or traveled in the Arab world can relate similar experiences: Arabs are entirely capable of differentiating between a people and the actions of its government, or the values of a people and the political agenda of a narrow minority of them. What confuses, and, yes, angers them is that we do not seem to return the favor.” Boston Globe

Bin Laden didn’t do it, says an Egyptian security analyst. American conclusions are based on inaccuracies in understanding of Islamic fundamentalism and of bin Laden himself. Al Ahram (Cairo)

In 1974, I spent several months in Afghanistan, and several weeks stuck in limbo in ‘no man’s land’ on the Pakistani-Afghani border in the Khyber (because of a visa problem that blocked me from official movement into either country). Part of my lifelong urge to make pilgrimmages to what the current cliché calls forbidding mountainous terrain. Of course you know I’m going to say this: I loved the country, and its people. I’ll try to dig up my slides and get some of them digitized and posted, if I can…

When blogging came of age Charles Cooper at CNET; Second sight: the atrocity through the eyes of webloggers Nick Denton, founder of Moreover, at The Guardian

E-bombs: “In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400.” Popular Mechanics [via MetaFilter]

This essay by the editor of The New Republic argues that the honeymoon after the attacks may be over, and political fault lines are reopening around the question, “Does America have the moral authority to go to war?” Widening the cracks, he immediately goes after The Nation for claiming that the attacks were about the U.S.’s support for Israel (“…downright bizarre”) or the sanctions against Iraq (“Longtime bin Laden watchers know he has never been especially concerned with the plight of the Palestinians… Nor has bin Laden been a big supporter of Saddam.”):

In bin Laden’s mind, America’s greatest offense–by far–is its military presence in his home country of Saudi Arabia. (The bin Laden-sponsored attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam occurred on the eighth anniversary of the dispatch of U.S. troops to the Gulf.) And that’s a harder line for Western leftists to peddle. Because bin Laden isn’t upset at the United States for bolstering Riyadh’s oppressive policies–after all, the Saudi government’s views on individual freedom and the status of women roughly mirror his own. Bin Laden is upset simply because non-Muslims live in the Holy Land around Mecca and Medina. His first priority is banishing Christians and Jews from Saudi Arabia. And his second priority is banishing Christians and Jews from every other Muslim country…

Bin Laden, after all, is an ethnic cleanser. And the United States is the only powerful country on Earth willing to take up arms to make sure that people of different religions and races can live together. The main difference between September 11 and what came before is that bin Laden desires ethnic cleansing on a scale far greater than the Hutus and the Serbs, a scale that has only one true twentieth century parallel.

If Fisk and The Nation really want to argue that America brought the World Trade Center attack on itself, they shouldn’t delude themselves. They are not defending the Palestinians’ right to a state or the Iraqis’ right to medicine. They are defending a Muslim’s right not to live with a non-Muslim. And in so doing they are renouncing this country’s most sacred principles–principles that saved countless Muslim lives in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s…

The Spinsanity site (“countering rhetoric with reason”) singles out malignant conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan for calling dissenting leftists a “fifth column”. For those who don’t know, this scurrilous term has connoted domestic traitors who covertly aid their country’s attackers or occupiers.

On the other hand, it occurs to me, some would say that, in automatically linking dissent to the cause of the enemy, Sullivan may be the true “fifth columnist” [grin]. The message that the terrorists have won if their attack prompts us to dismantle X or Y that is best about America has been bandied about this week. Of course, it ignores the fact that it was almost certainly not merely begrudging the U.S. its ‘best’ attributes like freedom and affluence (the closest Dubya’s speechwriters came in his address to the nation last night to offering any explanation) that motivated the carnage. As much or more, of course, it is some of our unacknowledged baser aspects — our bullying arrogance, our interventionism, our perceived support for corrupt oppressive regimes — that give the fanatics an axe to grind against us.

In another sign of the intolerance of dissent, the President of the University of Texas felt compelled to criticize the expression of just such sentiments by a UT journalism professor who had written an antiwar column in the Houston Chronicle.

Faulkner’s letter begins by stating Jensen made his remarks entirely in his

capacity as a free citizen of the United States, but that “no aspect of his

remarks is supported, condoned or officially recognized by the University of

Texas at Austin.”

Faulkner’s letter then turned to a more personal note.

“Jensen is not only misguided, but has become a fountain of undiluted foolishness

on issues of public policy,” Faulkner wrote in his letter. “Students must learn

that there is a good deal of foolish opinion in the popular media, and they must

become skilled at recognizing and discounting it,”

says Texas coverage of the controversy.

Back in June, the U.S. designated the “Real IRA” as a terrorist organization. Are we going to go after them along with the other infidels? American Embassy London [via MetaFilter]

Not War, Crimes. Says a former State Department attorney and professor of law at Hofstra, ‘The enormity of the attacks has almost inevitably led to war talk, among the people, opinion writers, and political leaders. “We’re at war,” President Bush remarked on Saturday. “There’s been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly.”

But the ultimate nature of the attacks is more akin to crime than to war, and should to the maximum extent possible be addressed as such.’ FindLaw legal commentary

And Phil Agre on a similar subject [must read]: War in a World Without Boundaries

An odd feature of the new war is the mixture of languages: George

Bush and his staff constantly switch between the military language

of war and the police language of crime. It is, for example, a war

to bring evildoers to justice. This development is relatively recent.

It was during the Clinton years, for example, that the FBI went

global. Congress vastly increased its funding and it opened offices

worldwide. This was reasonable enough, given the globalization of

crime along with the globalization of everything else. The drug war,

likewise, brought complaints that military forces were being used for

police activities. Before the 1990’s, though, the distinction between

military and police activities was relatively clear. The Korean

War was supposedly a “police action”, but it was obviously a war;

the “police” language was universally understood as a legal fiction

to escape the Constitutional demand that US military activity be

authorized by a Congressional declaration of war. Legal scholars

protested this development, but it has now been institutionalized.

Other wars have ended with criminal tribunals, but these tribunals

have been conducted under the law of war, not under peacetime criminal

law.

So something is taking form here — a “war” whose sole stated aim

is catching individuals who have committed crimes — and it raises

questions. The difference between war-talk and police-talk is

not trivial. When a war is over, the victorious party customarily

lets the rank-and-file soldiers go back to their lives; having

been subject to the laws of their nation-state, and they are regarded

as following orders. With a crime, however, one does not let the

soldiers go. To the contrary, one tries them as individuals for the

full extent of their activities and punishes them if they are found

guilty. In the United States, this punishment can include death.

In a war, either party is empowered to use nearly any means to detain

or kill the soldiers of other. Captured soldiers have certain rights,

but others do not. Criminals, however, have rights, and police are

heavily constrained in ways that soldiers are not. The distinction

between “war” and “crime” is particularly important for the attack

on the Pentagon, which would be an ordinary military action in a war,

but it is also matters for the ways in which the World Trade Center

attackers can be brought to justice.

Here, then, is the danger. Does Osama bin Laden, assuming for the

moment that he is the “commander” of the terrorist forces in whatever

sense is relevant, have “soldiers” who are just following orders?

Or is the United States setting the precedent that the winning power

in a war tries all of the losing power’s soldiers for capital crimes?

That would set back the rules of warfare by centuries. An odd feature of the new war is the mixture of languages: George

Bush and his staff constantly switch between the military language

of war and the police language of crime. It is, for example, a war

to bring evildoers to justice. This development is relatively recent.

It was during the Clinton years, for example, that the FBI went

global. Congress vastly increased its funding and it opened offices

worldwide. This was reasonable enough, given the globalization of

crime along with the globalization of everything else. The drug war,

likewise, brought complaints that military forces were being used for

police activities. Before the 1990’s, though, the distinction between

military and police activities was relatively clear. The Korean

War was supposedly a “police action”, but it was obviously a war;

the “police” language was universally understood as a legal fiction

to escape the Constitutional demand that US military activity be

authorized by a Congressional declaration of war. Legal scholars

protested this development, but it has now been institutionalized.

Other wars have ended with criminal tribunals, but these tribunals

have been conducted under the law of war, not under peacetime criminal

law.

So something is taking form here — a “war” whose sole stated aim

is catching individuals who have committed crimes — and it raises

questions. The difference between war-talk and police-talk is

not trivial. When a war is over, the victorious party customarily

lets the rank-and-file soldiers go back to their lives; having

been subject to the laws of their nation-state, and they are regarded

as following orders. With a crime, however, one does not let the

soldiers go. To the contrary, one tries them as individuals for the

full extent of their activities and punishes them if they are found

guilty. In the United States, this punishment can include death.

In a war, either party is empowered to use nearly any means to detain

or kill the soldiers of other. Captured soldiers have certain rights,

but others do not. Criminals, however, have rights, and police are

heavily constrained in ways that soldiers are not. The distinction

between “war” and “crime” is particularly important for the attack

on the Pentagon, which would be an ordinary military action in a war,

but it is also matters for the ways in which the World Trade Center

attackers can be brought to justice.

Here, then, is the danger. Does Osama bin Laden, assuming for the

moment that he is the “commander” of the terrorist forces in whatever

sense is relevant, have “soldiers” who are just following orders?

Or is the United States setting the precedent that the winning power

in a war tries all of the losing power’s soldiers for capital crimes?

That would set back the rules of warfare by centuries. Red Rock Eaters

Why the Spooks Screwed Up: “Bin Laden’s network is much harder to penetrate than previous terrorist groups.” Time

And Spike documents a particularly egregious case of foot-in-mouth disease:

“Anyone wondering how America’s intelligence community could have been so

spectacularly blindsided by last week’s terrorist attacks should look at an

essay written two months ago by former CIA officer and State Department

counterterrorism specialist Larry C. Johnson.

In a July 10 New York Times Op-Ed entitled (ouch!) “The Declining Terrorist

Threat,” Johnson snickers at the idea of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

“Americans…seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the

United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal,” Johnson

writes. “They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular

target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that

extremist Islamic groups cause the most terrorism. None of these beliefs are

based in fact.”

“[E]arly signs suggest that the decade beginning in 2000 will continue the

downward trend” in deaths from terrorism, the confident expert continues.

America’s irrational fears can be blamed on irresponsible politicians and

military and intelligence experts desperate to justify their agency budgets.

Also to blame (of course): sensation-seeking journalists.

Change Ahead for Troubled Boston Airport Agency. In trauma, people point fingers; trying by hindsight to take control of the uncontrollable and contingent. So you have to walk a fine line between that tendency and the need to investigate the roots of the disaster. As a Bostonian, I was wary of the assertions that Logan security had been particularly lax. Defensively, “It could’ve ben any major U.S. city.” But what can you say about Massport, the agency that runs the airport, where the security chief was a patronage appointee who had previously been the Massachusetts governor’s driver, and he succeeded a security chief who had been the driver for the previous governor’s wife? Where more than 100 airport security badges have gone missing in the past two years? In fact, now I’m hearing that, after planes were grounded in the wake of the attacks, suspicious passengers who may have been intending to hijack another flight outbound from Boston were allowed to debark with no scrutiny. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Hunting Osama: interview with Mark Bowden. The author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo says that American special forces have been training to go after bin Laden for years and are more than ready. And more on the shadowy world of special operations. This article suggests that our successful campaign against Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, about which Bowden wrote in his latter book, may be the clearest model for chasing down the terrorist perpetrators. Salon

True patriotism the opposite of jingoism: ‘True patriotism differs from jingoism the same way that healthy

parental love differs from the sick obsession of parents who live

their broken, frustrated dreams through their children. Time

and again it’s been the dissidents among us, those most likely

to be mislabeled “un-American,” who’ve been the true patriots

and done the most to make America a light unto the world. Now

is no different, as we seek to articulate a solution that goes

beyond war to eradicate terrorism at its roots.’ Independent Media Center, Los Angeles

Dept. of State International Information Programs: foreign press commentary on the attacks.

Transcript of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s press conference on World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. I’ve been very curious about the Black Muslim reaction but, more generally, the reaction in the largely African American inner city to the attacks and our impending war footing. Will the widespread black cynicism about being “cannon fodder” in the white man’s war that I recall from the Vietnam era, and which temporarily abated during the volunteer Army, rear its head again? Do the most disenfranchised and alienated in American society feel they belong to the ‘we’ who were attacked? Is the widespread grief, outrage, and vulnerability of other segments of our society felt as much in the ghetto? I’ve seen no coverage of this aspect of things. One reason it may be germane is the increasingly dominant role of hip hop in shaping youth style and attitude, both black and white.

To wit: Eerie image pulled from CD:

The cover for the upcoming CD from a popular hip-hop group portrays an eerily familiar sight.

Against a backdrop of morning skies, the towers of the World Trade Center stand engulfed in flame from the impact of twin explosions. Clouds of smoke spew from the upper stories, all but obscuring the tip of what was once the epicenter of the New York City skyline…

The cover design predates Tuesday’s twin attacks on the World Trade Center by months. Wired

‘Infinite Justice’ May Not Stand, Pentagon Says — “The initial

code name for the Pentagon’s response to attacks on the

United States, Operation Infinite

Justice, likely will be changed to avoid offending Muslims,

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday.

The issue arose at a Pentagon briefing when a reporter told

Rumsfeld that several Islamic scholars objected to the name

on the ground that only God, or Allah, can mete out infinite

justice in their view.” Second gaffe against Muslims in a week — cf. Dubya’s calling this a ‘crusade’ — leads to impatient Rumsfeld minimization. As Phil Agre suggests, maybe we should call it ‘Operation Holy War”?

US ‘planned attack on Taleban’ — “Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign

Secretary, was told by senior American

officials in mid-July that military action

against Afghanistan would go ahead by the

middle of October.” BBC

Pakistani sources report: Bin Laden already gone from Afghanistan: “The most wanted man in the US, Osama bin Laden has

silently left Afghanistan for an undisclosed destination and has

moved out of the Afghan territory at least 4 days before the

religious Shura of the clerics issued its recommendation to leave the

country.

Sources in Pakistan, known for their close contacts with Taliban as

well as some officials of the students’ militia confided to The News

that Osama bin Laden was no longer on the Afghan soil since

Monday.”

Where in the world has he gone, if so? Forbes details the global network of groups possibly aligned with bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, and notes some pertinent negatives:

Though accurate information about bin Laden’s grand alliance is hard to

come by, it is clear that it does not include many of the states that United

States regarded as enemies or potential enemies in the 1980s and 1990s.

Iraq, Syria and Libya, for example, are largely secular nationalist regimes.

While they abhor America, and no doubt rejoice at the murder of Americans,

they are mortal enemies of the kind of Islamic fundamentalism represented

by bin Laden and his allies. Iran, meanwhile, practices a Shiite brand of

fundamentalist Islam that is vehemently opposed to bin Laden’s version (the

extremist Wahhabi tendency). Over the past five years, in fact, Iran has been

financing a war against bin Laden and his Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Officials Told of ‘Major Assault’ Plans. In August, Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad passed on to FBI and CIA officials indications that up to 200 terrorists were planning a “major assault on the United States”, linked to bin Laden. Los Angeles Times Meanwhile, “America and the West are bracing themselves for

another potential ‘Day of Infamy’ this Saturday, when

accomplices of the hijackers are suspected of having

plotted new outrages.

The most solid evidence so far is the discovery that

five associates of the suicide gang had booked seats on

two internal passenger flights, taking them from Texas

to California, in two days’ time.” The Times of London

Secret plans for 10-year war; Generals rule out ‘D-Day invasion’ ‘… Most of the focus of the ten-year campaign plan, the

sources say, is on using military action as a potent

back-up to all the other strands of Operation Noble

Eagle.

However, President Bush, conscious of the demand for

“revenge” from the American public, might sanction

shorter-term military operation by special forces, or

airstrikes, but only if there is sufficient intelligence to

guarantee a sucessful outcome.’ The Times of London

The Taliban: Engagement or Confrontation? Hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 20, 2000. Download a .pdf of the hearing transcript here.

Psychopaths Among Us: Retired University of British Columbia professor of psychology Robert Hare is a world’s expert on psychopathy and developer of a gold standard rating scale for its recognition, and he’s in anguish.

“The PCL-R has slipped the confines of academe, and is being used and misused in ways that Hare never intended. In some of the places where it could do some good — such as the prison in the TV documentary I was yelling at — the idea of psychopathy goes unacknowledged, usually because it’s politically incorrect to declare someone to be beyond rehabilitation. At the opposite extreme, there are cases in which Hare’s work has been overloaded with political baggage of another sort, such as in the United States, where a high PCL-R score is used to support death-penalty arguments, and in England, where a debate is underway about whether some individuals with personality disorders (such as psychopaths) should be detained even if they haven’t committed a crime.”

Hare believes that a large number of people — perhaps 1:100 of the population — who are not violent criminals are nevertheless ‘subclinical psychopaths’ among us. [link courtesy of David Brake]

Recall my grumblings below about the DSM system of diagnosis (with regard to another controversial diagnosis, PTSD). Here‘s an article by Hare about the confusion between the sophisticated concept of the psychopath and the closest official DSM diagnosis, antisocial personality disorder.

The problems with DSM-III and its 1987 revision (DSM-III-R) were widely discussed in the clinical and research literature (Widiger and Corbitt). Much of the debate concerned the absence of personality traits in the diagnosis of ASPD, an omission that allowed antisocial individuals with completely different personalities, attitudes and motivations to share the same diagnosis. At the same time, there was mounting evidence that the criteria for ASPD defined a disorder that was more artifactual than “real”.

And this is more information, if you’re interested, on the concepts.

People like serial killers who cannot contain their urges to kill repeatedly for no apparent reason are assumed to suffer from some mental illness. However, they may be more cruel than crazy, choosing not to control their urges, knowing right from wrong, knowing exactly what they’re doing. In such cases, they fall into one of three types that are usually considered aggravating circumstances in addition to their legal guilt — antisocial personality disorder (APD), sociopath, or psychopath — that are neither insane nor psychotic. APD is the most common type, afflicting about 4% of the general population. The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 3% of all males in our society are sociopaths. Psychopaths are rare, found in perhaps 1% of the population.

“Resisting the conclusion that everything has changed is one way to help prevent it from being true.” — Michael Kinsley: Has Everything Changed? – Maybe not. “The notion that there are days when history swings on a pivot is irresistible and, to some extent, valid. The shooting of the archduke that started World War I ? the bombing of Pearl Harbor ? the Kennedy assassination ? Before: innocence and sun-dappled lawns. Afterward: knowledge, modernity, and darkness. Will Sept. 11, 2001, really turn out to have been one of those days? A horrible day, certainly, and?yes?a day that will live in infamy. But a day when life changed dramatically and permanently for everyone, at least in America? Maybe so, but there are adequate reasons to doubt, and excellent reasons to avoid leaping to that conclusion if it can be avoided.” Slate

Jeff Faux, president of the Economic Policy Institute, writes in The American Prospect:Three Things We Learned: “The attacks of last Tuesday revealed some truths about the American political economy that have been obscured in recent years.”

Victims of Mistaken Identity, Sikhs Pay a Price for Turbans: “Frightened by a wave of violence and harassment, Sikhs across the country are struggling to explain to an uncomprehending public that despite their turbans and beards, they are not followers of the Taliban and not in any way responsible for last week’s terror attacks. Although there are fewer than a half million Sikhs in the United States, they have attracted a disproportionate share of the anger following Tuesday’s attacks.” New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

This poem by W. H. Auden has been circulating in the wake of the terrorist attack. Many find it resonates uncannily with our state of mind.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street

Uncertain and afraid

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can

Unearth the whole offence

From Luther until now

That has driven a culture mad,

Find what occurred at Linz,

What huge imago made

A psychopathic god:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away,

The habit-forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air

Where blind skyscrapers use

Their full height to proclaim

The strength of Collective Man,

Each language pours its vain

Competitive excuse:

But who can live for long

In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare,

Imperialism’s face

And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play,

All the conventions conspire

To make this fort assume

The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash

Important Persons shout

Is not so crude as our wish:

What mad Nijinsky wrote

About Diaghilev

Is true of the normal heart;

For the error bred in the bone

Of each woman and each man

Craves what it cannot have,

Not universal love

But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark

Into the ethical life

The dense commuters come,

Repeating their morning vow;

“I will be true to the wife,

I’ll concentrate more on my work,”

And helpless governors wake

To resume their compulsory game:

Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf,

Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden

Unscripted, Bush Shoots From the Lip. His puppet-masters must be sweating bullets that they can’t keep him from the public as well as they usually do. International Herald Tribune

Afghan Clerics Urge bin Laden to Leave; White House Says Unacceptable “Afghanistan’s top clerics recommended today that the accused terrorist Osama bin Laden should be persuaded to leave the country, a development that the leader of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party described as “a ray of hope.”

The ruling, which ministers said is binding on the Taliban government, could almost certainly have been reached only with the agreement of the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

But the White House said this morning that the clerics’ edict “doesn’t meet America’s requirements” and again demanded that Mr. bin Laden be turned over to “responsible authorities” and that the Taliban close terrorist camps in Afghanistan.” New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]

Bush Advisers Split on Scope of Retaliation. It appears to be Cheney and Wolfowitz vs. Colin Powell, and the issue is whether to strike broadly and include toppling Saddam Hussein as an objective from the outset. Who would have thought that the commander of Desert Storm would turn into a model of diplomacy and restraint? New York Times

Novelists Reassess Their Subject Matter: “In the hours after the terrorist attacks last

week, many American novelists,

whether engaged in themes far removed

from the horrific events or not, asked

themselves if what they do had turned

irrelevant.” New York Times

Can belief in God kill you?

Religious beliefs are not always a source of comfort during ill health: they may actually increase your risk of dying.

A study of nearly 600 older hospital patients (95 per cent of whom were Christian) showed negative feelings evoked by religious beliefs sometimes predicted mortality.

…Several studies have demonstrated a reduced risk of death among those who attend church regularly, but the new research, published in today’s Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine negative aspects of religiousness. ABC

And Richard Dawkins asks if science is a religion:

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, “mad cow” disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion. And who, looking at Northern Ireland or the Middle East, can be confident that the brain virus of faith is not exceedingly dangerous? One of the stories told to the young Muslim suicide bombers is that martyrdom is the quickest way to heaven — and not just heaven but a special part of heaven where they will receive their special reward of 72 virgin brides. It occurs to me that our best hope may be to provide a kind of “spiritual arms control”: send in specially trained theologians to deescalate the going rate in virgins.

Given the dangers of faith — and considering the accomplishments of reason and observation in the activity called science — I find it ironic that, whenever I lecture publicly, there always seems to be someone who comes forward and says, “Of course, your science is just a religion like ours. Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn’t it?”

Thomas Friedman: “The terrorists actually want to provoke attacks on Arabs or Muslims in the U.S., because if the American communities start going after each other, if we see America fragment, then you destroy that special thing that America stands for. That’s what the terrorists want ? they want to be able to turn to your friends here and say, `Look, this is all a myth.'” (quoting Jordan’s King Abdullah.). New York Times

Pentagon said to eye nuclear attack against terrorists: ‘On ABC television’s “This Week” program Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld, who is notoriously tight-lipped with the press, avoided answering a question on whether their use could be ruled out. To a similar question, a Pentagon official also replied, “We will not discuss operational and intelligence matters.” ‘ Japan Times

The diplomatic sources said the Pentagon recommended using tactical nuclear weapons shortly after it became known that the terrorist attacks caused an unprecedented number of civilian casualties.

Who’s Who in the Terror War: “a who’s who of the countries in the terror war: which side they’re on and why, and whether they’re likely to endorse any American military campaign.” David Plotz, Slate Washington Bureau chief

Telesurgery realized: surgeons in NY perform cholecystectomy on woman in Strasbourg, France, via high speed data link and robot arms. New Scientist

After the Horror, Radio Stations Pull Some Songs —

Clear Channel Communications, the Texas-based company that owns about 1,170 radio stations nationwide, has circulated a list of 150 songs and asked its stations to avoid playing them because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Some listed songs would be insensitive to play right now, such as the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” and Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World,” but other choices, critics and musicians say, are less explicable because they have little literal connection to the tragedies.

These include “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles, “On Broadway” by the Drifters and “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John. Even odder, some songs on the list are patriotic, like Neil Diamond’s “America.” Others speak of universal optimism, like Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and others are emotional but hopeful songs that could help people grieve, like “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel, “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens and “A World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon. New York Times

U.N. Official: Opium Cuts May Hit Afghan Capability — “Until last year, Afghanistan was the world’s largest producer of heroin… Smuggling the drug to western markets was seen as a major source of funding for the Taliban… Afghanistan began cutting back opium production in the summer of 2000, following a Taliban view that it was unIslamic. But it also cut off a crucial source of funding that has undermined its military capabilities.” Reuters

Natalie Angier: Of Altruism, Heroism and Nature’s Gifts in the Face of Terror

Altruism and heroism. If not for these twin radiant badges of our humanity, there would be no us, and we know it. And so, when their vile opposite threatened to choke us into submission last Tuesday, we rallied them in quantities so great we surprised even ourselves…

“For every 50 people making bomb threats now to mosques,” he said, “there are 500,000 people around the world behaving just the way we hoped they would, with empathy and expressions of grief. We are amazingly civilized.”

True, death-defying acts of heroism may be the province of the few. For the rest of us, simple humanity will do. New York Times

Troops Deployed To Persian Gulf, starting with air force controllers. By the way, the ‘war on terrorism’ is called ‘Operation Infinite Justice.’

Attorney General Ascroft says that it is “pretty clear” that a “variety of foreign governments” were involved in supporting and protecting what he describes as “the networks that conduct these kind of events”; he’s not mentioning names but the incipient meme is of Iraqi involvement. Hard to know how to evaluate this new ‘spin’, since suspicions that Dubya means to finish off Bush Sr.’s Desert Storm project abound. TheBostonChannel

NPR Watch: The rumor is that guest host Neal Conan will be appointed next permanent host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Reasonable choice, IMHO, and it’ll be an improvement on the lacklustre (and sometimes rude) Juan Williams.

And: will those other NPR voices sound the same after you’ve seen what they look like? A Slate quiz.

In Disaster’s Aftermath, Once-Cocky Media Culture

Disses the Age of Irony : ‘Editors and writers predict that the prevailing sensibility of celebrity

idolatry and self-conscious knowingness will dissolve. Says Vanity Fair editor Graydon

Carter: “Things that were considered fringe and frivolous are going to disappear.” ‘ Inside How long will this post-frivolity last, d’you think?

And how long will bipartisanship and polite avoidance of dissent in Washington last, while we’re on the subject? The Washington editor of the libertarian Reason says not long:

If grief is bipartisan, however, action is inherently political. Everyone agrees that the perpetrators must pay and that we have to prevent such attacks in the future, but beyond that nothing is certain.

Whom should we attack, and how? How are we going to fix the obviously flawed security systems we have in place? How are we going to pay for it, and what civil liberties are we willing to sacrifice? How do you conduct foreign policy in a places vehemently opposed to U.S. actions and interests?

When the candlelight vigils are over and the camouflaged humvees are gone, people on opposite ends of the political spectrum will answer these questions in fundamentally different ways. How the nation resolves those differences may well be the true legacy of September 11, 2001.

And, from the Washington Post:

A host of suspicions and resentments make it likely, said many Democrats, that the fractiousness that has defined modern politics could soon reappear.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, have expressed concern that the necessity to give broad powers to the White House could go too far, robbing what they said was Congress’s constitutional authority to appropriate money and hold the administration accountable for policy decisions it makes to meet the crisis.

On a less philosophical plane, there is already private grousing about intelligence briefings — considered by some lawmakers to be inadequate — about the attacks and Bush’s intentions for responding. And while virtually every Democrat is publicly expressing support for Bush, there is considerable not-for-attribution criticism among lawmakers and political operatives about the sense of command he has conveyed in public performances.

A petition asking President Bush to publicly condemn hateful remarks made by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. As of my signing, 12,290 signatures since the petition was put up on 9-14. Not much of a chance Dubya will agree with the petitioners, but enough signatures would certainly place him in a dilemmatic position relative to the Far Right, no?

Rush Limbaugh, of all people, called Falwell and Robertson’s position “indefensible… Suggestions of this kind are one of the reasons why all conservatives get tarred and feathered with this extremist, bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic label or image that isn’t true. The words of Robertson and Falwell are not the words of all conservatives – they are the words of Robertson and Falwell.” [via MetaFilter]

Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view — “Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman,

suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the

suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and

the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the

mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the

world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the

Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special

overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the

Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of

Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing

Osama Bin Laden.

The two men have not been seen for some time.

Mughniyeh is probably the world’s most wanted

outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has

undergone plastic surgery and is unrecognisable.

Zawahiri is thought to be based in Egypt. He could

be Bin Laden’s chief representative outside

Afghanistan.” Jane’s Security

Martin Amis comments in The Guardian:

‘Their aim was to torture tens of thousands, and to terrify

hundreds of millions. In this, they have succeeded. The

temperature of planetary fear has been lifted towards the

feverish; “the world hum”, in Don DeLillo’s phrase, is now

as audible as tinnitus. And yet the most durable legacy has

to do with the more distant future, and the disappearance

of an illusion about our loved ones, particularly our

children. American parents will feel this most acutely, but

we will also feel it. The illusion is this. Mothers and fathers

need to feel that they can protect their children. They

can’t, of course, and never could, but they need to feel

that they can. What once seemed more or less impossible

– their pro-tection – now seems obviously and palpably

inconceivable. So from now on we will have to get by

without that need to feel.

…Our best destiny, as planetary cohabitants, is the

development of what has been called “species

consciousness” – something over and above nationalisms,

blocs, religions, ethnicities. During this week of incredulous

misery, I have been trying to apply such a consciousness,

and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the

perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then

species shame, then species fear.’

In the death zone: “If it comes to a ground war, I believe the western forces will

have a very slim chance of victory. The last army to win in

Afghanistan was that of Alexander the Great; everyone

else has got mauled and pulled out. The CIA made an

awful lot of maps when they were there, but a map is only

as good as the person using it, and there is no safe way to

get troops in. The Afghans are a formidable enemy. I

should know. We in the west pointed them in the right

direction and with a little bit of training, they went a long

way.” Guardian UK

Conspiracy Shows Signs of Following Classic Bin Ladin Doctrine:

“…(T)he entire operation seems to have followed classic al-Qaida rules. Advance teams may have arrived in the U.S. several years before the attacks to lay the ground work, build up a small local support network, collect information, rent houses, etc. These teams would be followed by the actual operational teams, who would learn their jobs as they waited to be activated.

The suicide squads seem not to have relied on cover identities at all, but used their own names, or at least consistent work names. Under these names they enrolled in flight schools, rented apartments, bought and rented cars. Some of the men seemed to have used the same Visa card, on which they rang up substantial charges, and gave the same postal addresses. This was also the same card that was used to buy plane tickets from the East Coast to California on September 11. As attack day drew near, the men may not have been as careful as they might have been about leaving a paper trail; they may have known that it wouldn’t matter.

As was the case in the East Africa embassy bombings, the teams appear to have operated almost completely on their own, meeting with their commanders only at key moments as the plot unfolded. The commanders alone would have known the full picture and how all the pieces were meant to fit together. They’re the ones Washington desperately wants to find, because they might provide the definitive link to bin Ladin, and–of more immediate urgency–could be the key to stopping any other attacks that may be in the making.

Sources: Time magazine, Associated Press, Reuters.” The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel

An architecture critic reflects on the Twin Towers: “Now that the Trade Center has become a martyr to terrorism, I suspect that architectural criticism of it will cease altogether. It has become a noble monument of a lost past. It is no more possible to know what will replace it as a symbol than it is to know what, if anything, will be built someday where the towers stood. But when the biggest thing in a city that prizes bigness becomes the most fragile thing, and the void has more weight than the solid, the rules of city-building change.” The New Yorker

“Whatever lessons we take from this dreadful attack, we should never forget that it was, after all, a faith based initiative.” — Wendy Kaminer in The American Prospect

“Authorities have grown increasingly certain — from intelligence intercepts, witness interviews and evidence gathered in hijackers’ cars and homes — that a second wave of violence was planned by collaborators. They said Sept. 22 has emerged as an important date in the evidence, but declined to be more specific.” New York Times

Unusual Trading In Chicago Might Have Been Terrorists “There are now widespread efforts by investigators and regulators to determine whether terrorists tried to profit from stock and option trading ahead of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” German and Japanese regulators, SEC regualtors and the Chicago stock exchange are investigating apparently suspicious trading just before the attacks, which might have indicated advance knowledge. The Boston Channel

Dan Hartung’s ongoing series “Understanding Islam” at lake effect is worth your while. Thanks, Dan. And Chuck Taggart at Looka! suggests fostering better understanding by eating at your local Middle Eastern restaurant.

Israel pulls back forces: “The Israeli military is to withdraw from all

areas under exclusive Palestinian military

and civil control.

The BBC correspondent in Jerusalem says

this amounts to a pullback of a few hundred

metres, but the move is a hugely symbolic

step designed to show Israeli goodwill.

The United States has been trying for

several days to bring calm to the Middle

East as part of efforts to build a worldwide

coalition against terrorism including the Arab

States.” BBC

News: Lethal worm spells double trouble — ‘A computer worm that spreads to both servers and PCs running Microsoft software

flooded the Internet with data Tuesday, but the FBI said that, as of yet, it sees no

link to last week’s terrorist attack.

Known as “Nimda” or “readme.exe,” the worm spreads by sending infected e-mail messages,

copying itself to computers on the same network, and compromising Web servers using Microsoft’s

Internet Information Server (IIS) software.

“It is extraordinary how much traffic this thing has created in a couple of hours,” said Graham Cluley,

senior security consultant for antivirus company Sophos. “As far as we can see, it doesn’t seem to

be using any psychological tricks because it’s all automated.” ‘ I thought things have been running abit slowly today, but I figured it was the increased traffic in the wake of the events of last week… ZDNet News

Nuclear Safety — “What happens if a suicide bomber drives a jumbo jet into one of America’s 103 nuclear power reactors? What happens if a fire fed by thousands of tons of jet fuel roars through a reactor complex–or, worse, through the enormous and barely-protected containment pools of spent nuclear fuel found at every such plant?

…if terrorism is real, then a clear-eyed view would suggest nuclear power is done for… A country that has nuclear power plants, it turns out, has handed over to ‘the enemy’ a quasi-nuclear military capability.” The Nation

Rumsfeld: Terrorism Isn’t Bin Laden Alone. Reassuring insight from our country’s leaders.

Source: Taliban Discussed Extraditing Bin Laden To Third Party; their condition was apparently international recognition of their regime. However, they also threatened to declare a ‘holy war’, or jihad, against the United States if Afghanistan is attacked by the U.S. [I’ve edited my original post, which said the Taliban had declared a jihad, which was how the article to which I linked had originally been headlined in early editions, subsequently amended. Rebecca Blood corrected me, saying, quite correctly, in part, “It’s important to read and report this accurately, … I feel that more and more reasonable voices are being lost.”]

A Reality Show for Your Desktop, but There’s a Catch:

Most people consider a person’s desk to be private space, but

“DeskSwap” makes the on-screen desktop public, laying bare its secrets.

The program is essentially a screensaver. But instead of the typical

screensaver fare — slide shows of cute critters and sun-drenched beaches

— the images displayed by “DeskSwap” are desktops.

Including yours. So when “Desk Swap” kicks in, the first thing it does is take

a snapshot of whatever is on your desktop and sends it to Mr. Daggett’s

computer, where it joins a queue of similar images that are then fed back

to your screen. A new one appears every 30 seconds or so.

There is an undeniable voyeuristic allure to viewing other desktops, akin to

rummaging through a co- worker’s papers and finding a pay stub,

medical bill or an incriminating memo.

After taking “DeskSwap” for a spin, Gene Kan, a developer of the

Gnutella file-sharing technology, said: “It appeals to the inner Jerry

Springer watcher in everyone. It was like `Survivor’ or `Cops.’ It’s a new

form of entertainment: reality computing.” New York Times

Stress From Attacks Will Chase Some Into the Depths of Their Minds, and Stay. The media have begun to speculate in articles like this from the New York Times (rife with commentary from psychiatric pundits like myself) about the extent of psychological trauma that will ensue from the attacks. This is the first event of any such scope so informed by familiarity with post-traumatic stress disorder, and as far as I’m concerned this is both a blessing and a curse. The problem is that this diagnostic concept remains a murky one and a moving target, and that what is in effect a PTSD-treatment industry, invested in its self-perpetuation, has grown up within the profession, with a treatment approach that places us all at risk of self-fulfilling prophecy.

With every iteration of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the profession’s official ‘bible’ of diagnoses and their criteria (we’re up to the second revision of DSM-IV now), the PTSD concept changes in scope. The previous notion, in DSM-III, that the traumatic stressor to which the sufferer had been exposed must have been “outside the range of normal human experience” was removed as unreliable and inaccurate. Instead, DSM-IV requires only that the person’s response to the stressor must involve “intense fear, helplessness, or horror.” How diagnoses are defined is informed not only by empiricism but by the balance between ‘lumping’ and ‘splitting’ tendencies in the zeitgeist of the moment, competing political interests, and the commodification of emotional distress to ensure psychiatry’s continuing “market share”), among other influences. Broadening the range of people ‘eligible’ for the diagnosis of PTSD makes a fundamental difference in our conception of what is a normal, expectable response to adversity, what we need assistance dealing with, whether adversity or stress are expectable and tolerable, how empowered and resilient we are as individuals or a culture, etc.

PTSD was originally codified to inform the psychiatric profession’s response to ‘shellshock’ or ‘combat trauma’ in GIs returning from the American foreign military involvements of the ’40’s, ’50’s, and ’60’s. Thereafter, it fused with attention driven by the women’s movement to domestic abuse and incest. At this juncture, in my opinion, the concept lost much of its specificity and utility to describe a specific range of psychological and physiological responses, to explain symptoms and inform treatment. Naive clinicians with politically correct sensibilities find it politically incorrect not to diagnose any psychiatrically distressed patient who has ever been touched inappropriately, or imagines and reports that they have been, with PTSD, and to attribute all the patient’s psychopathology to that abuse! (You’re all familiar, I’m sure, with the ‘false memory’ controversy, but this is only the tip of the iceberg with the profession’s confusion around and abuse of the PTSD concept.) Empirical evidence has begun to suggest that the responses of sufferers in the major categories subsumed under PTSD — combat veterans, victims of torture, sufferers of serious physical abuse, victims of natural or manmade disasters, survivors of incest and other prolonged sexual violation — are different, and that lumping them together within this ‘wastebasket diagnosis’ may be useless. Just as not every experience of sadness or fear should be subsumed under diagnoses of depressive or anxiety-disorder conditions and subjected to treatment, not all severe stress is a condition requiring medical or psychological treatment.

In fact, I’ve noticed, the articles you’ll be reading about our trauma response to the WTC disaster are starting to acknowledge one central, important distinction along these lines. The immediate stress response (so-called “acute PTSD”) may be normal and expectable. Empirical data provides no answer yet about whether the crucial factor in whether this progresses to the true psychiatric syndrome, “chronic PTSD”, is early intervention. Studies and commentaries within the profession have begun to question this central tenet, suggesting that early intervention may be harmful or at best neutral for the victims, although of course self-serving for the clinicians.

“One large survey of Americans’ mental health found that of those who

said they had been exposed to trauma, about 25 percent developed the

hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder. Experts said that figure might

provide a rough estimate for those traumatized by the New York and

Pentagon attacks.

Other researchers, including Dr. Edna Foa of the University of

Pennsylvania, have come up with higher numbers for the victims of rape

and other forms of physical assault, at least in the first few months after a

trauma. In such studies, which begin following victims immediately after

the event, up to 50 percent of the subjects showed acute symptoms of

post-traumatic stress a month later, when a diagnosis of post-traumatic

stress disorder can first be made. Three months afterward, the numbers

had dropped to about 35 percent. After a year, up to 25 percent

continued to experience difficulties.

But researchers say the people who develop lasting symptoms are not

always the same as those who show immediate signs of extreme distress.

And because of the tragedy’s size, its resemblance both to natural

disasters and to war, and its human toll, researchers say it is impossible to

generalize past findings to what lies ahead.”

Just as this curmudgeon has been railing in these pages about the peril we’re in if we give over control of our national emotional response to the politicians, we may be in parallel peril if we give it over to the ‘PTSD industry’. Just as the authorities in New York have had to stem the tide of volunteers streaming toward Ground Zero (whose motivation to help has alot to do with combatting their own felt helplessness in this way), we may have to stem the tide of mental health professionals streaming toward emotional Ground Zero in our psyches.

I’m sometimes accused of being peevish without proposing alternatives. I’m by no means saying there’s no role for well-informed mental health clinicians in helping shepherd us through both individual and national suffering at a time like this. Indeed, trauma response has dominated my psychiatric work since 9-11’s events. But let’s be careful not to pathologize the outrage, despair and helplessness, not to disempower the normal range of coping responses, and not to create rather than forestall a national epidemic of dependent patients with an abused diagnosis.

Whatever the perils discussed above, they are nevertheless a fate far better than turning our distressed over to the S*c*i*e*n*t*o*l*o*g*i*s*t*s.

Television viewers who turned to Fox News on Friday for coverage of the terrorist attack also saw a message scrolling across the bottom of their screens — National Mental Health Assistance: 800-FOR-TRUTH.

Unknown to the cable news channel, the phone number connects to a Church of S*c*i*e*n*t*o*l*o*g*y center in Los Angeles, where S*c*i*e*n*t*o*l*o*g*i*s*t*s were manning the phones.

While representatives of S*c*i*e*n*t*o*l*o*g*y claimed theirs was a good-faith effort to provide counselling and support, it is well-known that the cult wages war on the mental health profession and its ministrations. St Petersburg Times [Curious about my markup of the name of the cult? Especially with Google placing weblogs’ content at the top of search results, I don’t want a search for its name to readily reveal my critical comments. It is pretty clear that the group retaliates for unfavorable press. — FmH]

Thanks to a reader, another by Wislawa Szymborska: (and wonderfully translated):

Any Case

It could have happened.

It had to happen.

It happened earlier. Later.

Closer. Farther away.

It happened, but not to you.

You survived because you were first.

You survived because you were last.

Because alone. Because the others.

Because on the left. Because on the right.

Because it was raining. Because it was sunny.

Because a shadow fell.

Luckily there was a forest.

Luckily there were no trees.

Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,

A frame, a turn, an inch, a second.

Luckily a straw was floating on the water.

Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet.

What would have happened if a hand, a leg,

One step, a hair away;

So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended?

The net’s mesh was tight, but you; through the mesh?

I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough.

Listen,

How quickly your heart is beating in me.

(translated from the Polish by Grazyna Drabik & Sharon Olds)

“The arts aren’t just events to be gone ahead with or cancelled after a tragedy. One of the powers of great art is to try to make sense of difficult things. Toronto Globe & Mail critics look at the power of artforms – Dance, Music, Visual art, Literature, Theatre – to help people cope with tragedy.”

And The Boston Globe “asked people who create beauty to reflect on how work like theirs responds to the horrors of Tuesday”: those queried included John Harbison, Bill T. Jones, Oscar Hijuelos, James Taylor, sculptor Dimitri Hadzi, Sonic Youth member Kim Gordon, novelist Robert Parker, political humorist Kate Clinton, playwright Charles L. Mee, poet Robert Pinsky, musician/writer Jennifer Trynin, composer Deborah Henson-Conant, musical director Craig Smith, and Robert Brustein:

This is a time when art is most important because it complicates our thinking and prevents us from falling into melodramatic actions such as those we’re about to take. But this is the time when art is made tongue-tied by authority and when it’s a very small voice among hawkish screams. … The greatest thing that art can do in a time of crisis is to make us aware, not to turn us into our enemies.

Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg: When Words Fail: The Stilted Language of Tragedy: “In the wake of the attacks, though, official America needed something else: language that would reassert control of a world that had gotten terrifyingly out of hand. A high Victorian indignation serves that purpose well. It evokes the moral certainties of a simpler age, when the line between civilization and barbarism was clearly drawn, and powerful nations brooked neither insult nor injury from lesser breeds without the law. This may be the first war of the 21st century, as President Bush has said. But its rhetoric will be taken from the 19th.” LA Times

Add one more to the reasons I think it’s an ill wind blowing when Ira Glass’ name is mentioned. Named radio talk show host of the year by Time, he was, like, Howard Stern should’ve gotten the honor instead. He’s either being serious, and contemptible, or sarcastic, and ridiculous.

A Word On Statistics

“Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.

Unsure of every step: almost all the rest.

Ready to help, if it doesn’t take long: forty-nine.

Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: four – well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy: eighteen.

Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear of someone or something: seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure.

Cruel when forced by circumstances: it’s better not to know, not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight: not many more than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things: thirty (though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just: quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand: three.

Worthy of empathy: ninety-nine.

Mortal: one hundred out of one hundred – a figure that has never varied yet.”

–Wislawa Szymborska (1996 Nobel Laureate in Literature)

Here’s a Google search that will inform about conscientious objector status with regard to the US Selective Service and the military draft.

‘International terrorism has occurred with frightening regularity in recent decades. Over the years, a number of Atlantic contributors have considered why this is so and what can or should be done about it:

‘In “Thinking About Terrorism” (June 1986), Conor Cruise O’Brien argued that leaders in the United States and elsewhere fundamentally missunderstand why people turn to terrorism — and how to dissuade them from it. O’Brien went on to suggest that our current methods of combatting terrorism not only are bound to fail, but might even encourage attacks.

“Today’s world — especially the free, or capitalist, world — provides highly favorable conditions for terrorist recruitment and activity. The numbers of the frustrated are constantly on the increase, and so is their awareness of the life-style of the better-off and the vulnerability of the better-off….. A wide variety of people feel starved for attention, and one surefire way of attracting instantaneous worldwide attention through television is to slaughter a considerable number of human beings, in a spectacular fashion, in the name of a cause.”

‘Mark Edington’s “Taking the Offensive” (June 1992) argued that the United States and other countries should take a far more active role in stamping out terrorism. Excessive caution on the part of government leaders, he suggested, has prevented our military from taking measures to destroy known centers of terrorist training and weapons stockpiling:

“Whereas target countries must succeed every time in protecting themselves, terrorists have to succeed in their objectives only sporadically…. The defensive strategy toward terrorism has, in essence, made us sitting ducks.” ‘

[I’ve already mentioned, below, Mary Ann Weaver’s “Blowback” (May 1996) and “The Counterterrorist Myth” (July/August 2001) by Reuel Marc Gerecht (“An officer who tries to go native, pretending to be a true-believing radical Muslim searching for brothers in the cause, will make a fool of himself quickly.”)]

It is the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the opening of the holiest ten days of the year, dedicated to individual accounting and atonement — or, as I prefer to think of it, reconciliation. By tradition, we think of renewal and the rebirth of the world at the new year. It is a terrible and frightening new world in which we awaken as the year turns over, but, I pray, also a hopeful one. An Israeli friend told me that the fondest Rosh hashana wish of many there this year is, “May you have a boring year!” To all who choose to observe at this time: a happy new year…

Arafat orders Palestinian ceasefire — ‘The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has said he has ordered Palestinians to abide by a ceasefire with Israel.

In a message to the Israeli people that coincided with the Jewish New Year, he stated: “I have given strict orders for a total ceasefire and I hope the Israeli Government will respond to this call for peace and will decide to cease firing.” ‘ BBC

FBI warns of surge in hacking — “The FBI has warned of an increase in hacking attacks following last week’s suicide hijacking events in the US.

The cyber attacks were likely to be carried out by “self-described patriot hackers, targeted at those perceived to be responsible for the terrorist attacks”, said the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC).” BBC

Crowd in Ill. demonstrates at mosque as backlash continues against Arab-Americans, Muslims Police turned back 300 marchers — some waving American flags and shouting “USA! USA!” — as they tried to march on a mosque in this Chicago suburb late Wednesday…

“I’m proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have,” said (one jingoistic demonstrator). SFGate

Should Americans disturbed by this consider seeking out your local mosque and asking them if you can come and worship with them in solidarity?

Bush is Walking Into a Trap: “In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America’s need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated.” –Robert Fisk, Independent UK [via Common Dreams] And: Washington’s Call for War Plays Into Terrorist Hands: “A maddened U.S. response that hurts still others is what they want: It will fuel the hatred that already fires the self-righteousness about their criminal acts against the innocent.

What the United States needs is cold reconsideration of how it has arrived at this pass. It needs, even more, to foresee disasters that may lie in the future.” –William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune [via Common Dreams]

” On Tuesday morning, a piece was torn out of our world. A patch of blue sky that should not have been there opened up in the New York skyline.” Jonathan Schell, author of The Fate of the Earth, has continued long after it has become unfashionable to stare unflinchingly at the prospects for the use of weapons of mass destruction. “Among the small number who have been concerned with nuclear arms in recent years, it has been commonly said that the world would not return its attention to this danger until a nuclear weapon was again set off somewhere in the world. Then, the tiny club said to itself, the world would reawaken to its danger.” Like myself, he has found that Tuesday’s events bore much similarity in detail if not in scope to the recurrent nightmare of nuclear destruction dreamed by those who worry about it. Will it awaken us? Los Angeles Times [via Common Dreams] [I found it courageous, and nonetheless abit too brutalizing for right now, for him to suggest that, as bad as Tuesday’s loss of ‘two buildings’ and the accompanying lives were, we consider the possibility of losing ‘all of Manhattan’.]

I.S.P.’s Curb Terrorist Postings and an Anti-Islamic Backlash New York Times

Before-and-after (actually, “…-and-during”) satellite images of lower Manhattan SPOT

Nuclear warfare next, say leaders: “European and US intelligence, law enforcement and military officials are braced for fresh terrorist attacks – including the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.” Sydney Morning Herald

How to strike at the world’s most inaccessible land Guardian; War plans: the West’s options Sunday Times of London; US has forces in place to strike Afghanistan Times of India [via Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eaters]

Some Therapists Caution That Trauma Services Could Backfire: “…(I)n an open letter to their colleagues distributed this weekend, a group of psychologists questioned whether the ministrations of a therapist are what all people want or need now, at a time when stress, fear, anger, uncertainty and grief are entirely normal, and when the full impact of what has happened has not yet sunk in. And they cautioned that thrusting help on people instead of letting them seek it themselves might in some case do more harm than good.” New York Times

Other psychological dimensions of response, courtesy of Phil Agre:

<a href=”http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/256/nation/A_widely_shared_loss_leaves_few_unmarked+.shtml

“>psychological response to the attacks in Boston <

Disaster Mental Health Guidebook

Training Manual for Mental Health and Human Service Workers in Major Disasters

Helping Children Cope with Disasters and Trauma (video)

Primary Care Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Burden to the Individual and to Society

Comorbidity of Psychiatric Disorders and PTSD

Advice on Communicating with Children about Disasters

Law Enforcement Traumatic Stress

Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster

National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The Child Survivor of Traumatic Stress

Recovering From Disasters and Other Traumatic Events

information on bereavement

A letter from Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive, CNN, to Jim Romenesko’s Media News:

The suggestion that CNN used 10-year-old images to illustrate Palestinians celebrating the terrorist strikes in the U.S. [which I mention below –FmH] is baseless and ridiculous. The videotape was, in fact, shot Tuesday in East Jerusalem by a Reuters TV crew and included comments from a Palestinian praising Osama Bin Laden, who was not a Gulf War player. The more interesting story — it has the added value of being true — is that Palestinian officials have threatened journalists for taking pictures of these Palestinian celebrations.

Romanesko’s letters column is also full of outraged responses to Salon’s June 12, 2000 lampooning of the recent report from the National Commission on Terrorism on the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Other useful comments on media coverage of Tuesday’s events and their aftermath.

Thanks to readers who pointed me to the information on the Palestinian issue. At any time, but especially this time, our emotional reactivity can’t be allowed to swamp the need for sober assessment of the information…

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Nostrodamus predicted WTC attack? Not.