Dotcom casualties litter skid row: “It’s always being thought that staff from failed e-commerce ventures

had gained marketable experience, however ropy the business plan

of the firms they worked for was.

However Associated Press has uncovered evidence to the contrary

after visiting the soup kitchens and homeless shelters that lie on the

flip side of the American dream. Depressed database programmers

and the like have joined drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill

as society’s hard luck cases.

Nearly 30 unemployed high tech workers are among the 100 men at

shelters run in San Jose by charity InnVision, according to Robbie

Reinhart, director of the charity, who said the high cost of housing in

the area in contributing to the problem.” The Register

Found magazine. If you’ve every found anything that gave you an epiphany about the owner who lost it — “love letters,

birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do

lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins,

telephone bills, doodles, anything” — Found wants to hear about it from you.

A compendium of news from the XVII World Neurology Conference:

Left-Right asymmetry found in emotion. “Theories that dubbed math- and

art-types as left- and

right-brainers have long grown

out of fashion in academia, but

new research suggests a

surprising role for brain

asymmetry in emotion.” Preeminent neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, a skeptic about emotional asymmetry, was surprised by his findings: essentially, the right hemisphere is more active in reacting to experiences with negative emotional valences and the left hemisphere to those that are more pleasant.

Mad leader disease threatens world: “Neuroscientists need to develop tools to identify mental

illness in world leaders, the president of the World

Federation of Neurology told thousands of neurologists

assembled at the opening ceremony of the World Congress

of Neurology last night.”

Putting numbers into words: “The brain circuits for

mathematical approximations

and for exact calculations

have been shown to be

separate and distinct. The

architecture for the former is

specialized and also appears

to exist in monkeys, but the

latter is embedded in language

systems and may be uniquely

human.”

Lip service to phantom limbs: “German researchers

may have found a way

to prevent the cortical

reorganization that

occurs following

amputation, and block

the phantom limb pain

associated with it.”

BioMedNet [registration required]

Studying the Autoimmune Disease Puzzle:

“For reasons that researchers are just

beginning to understand, women are at a

much greater risk than men of falling prey

to an autoimmune disease, in which the

body’s immune system turns paranoid and

begins to attack one or more of the body’s

organs.

The list of autoimmune diseases is long and

varied, composed of more than 80

disorders afflicting virtually every sector of

mortal flesh and function: the liver, the

kidneys, the adrenal glands, the ovaries,

the pancreas, the skin, the joints, the

muscles, the myelin sheaths that buffer the

nerves, the salivary ducts that spit, the tear

ducts that weep.”

One recent finding that mother and fetus exchange body cells that can persist in each other’s circulation in a state called “microchimerism” may hint at the increased incidence of autoimmune responses in women, and in their children. DNA analysis of postpartum autoimmune disease victims indicates they have increased amounts of their child’s DNA in their system. It may be that, if a child’s histocompatibility genes (“tissue type”) are very different from the mother’s, her immune system cleans the fetal cells out with efficiency. The increased risk may be in the cases where the child is genetically just a little bit different from the mother, confusing the immune system about whether it’s recognizing self or other. And:

Preliminary evidence even suggests that there is such a thing as multigenerational

microchimerism, in which a woman with an autoimmune disorder can blame both

her mother and her children for her misery. In these bizarre instances, the woman

harbors circulating cells from her mother and from her offspring that turn out to

be more compatible in their HLA palette with each other than either is with the

mother in the middle.

Theoreticians also suspect a role for the reproductive hormones, given the correlation of risk with the childbearing years and the effects of the changing hormonal environment of pregnancy — sometimes ameliorating, sometimes exacerbating — on various autoimmune diseases. But hormonal treatments are not entered into lightly. Another exciting study succeeded in curing mice of Type I diabetes (the autoimmune kind) by injecting a substance that programmed the white blood cells involved in the immune response for cell death. My question: what happened to the mouse’s immune defenses after a treatment of such ferocity? New York Times

Useful Legacy of Nuclear Treaty: Global Earphones: “Though the Senate voted two years

ago to reject a treaty that bans

nuclear testing, one of its provisions is alive

and thriving: the global network of sensors

meant to listen for clandestine nuclear blasts. Though still under construction, the

International Monitoring System is already

yielding a wealth of science spinoffs, detecting violent winds, volcanic eruptions

and the crash of meteoroids from outer space.” New York Times

An Artificial Insemination Referendum? Single women in Slovenia could be barred from becoming pregnant by artificial insemination.

“The advertising industry will shortly reveal how it’s going to bombard

cellphone and PDA users with commercials. The Wireless Advertising Association convenes in downtown San

Francisco on 26 June to unveil its technical infrastructure for

beaming promotional material to handhelds and phones. The body

has already produced metrics and definitions for adverts to GSM

phones.” As The Register comments,

“RCTLE

DYSFNCTN?

U

NEED VGRA NOW!”

Maureen Dennis et al: Understanding of Literal Truth, Ironic Criticism, and Deceptive Praise Following Childhood Head Injury. Abstract:

“Children with closed head injury (CHI) … may have difficulty with comprehension tasks involving first- and second-order intentionality, such as those involved

in understanding irony and deception. We studied how 6- to 15-year-old children, typically developing or with CHI, interpret scenarios involving literal truth, ironic

criticism, and deceptive praise. Children with severe CHI had overall poorer mastery of the task. Even mild CHI impaired the ability to understand the intentionality

underlying deceptive praise. CHI, especially biologically significant CHI, appears to place children at risk for failure to understand language as externalized

thought.” Brain and Language 2001, 78(1)

Genes link to social attitudes: ‘Attitudes to ethical issues such as abortion and the death

penalty are partly determined by genes, researchers claimed

yesterday.

It used to be thought that such attitudes were wholly learned

from parents, friends, teachers and cultural environment. But the

new study by Canadian scientists surveyed 336 pairs of adult

twins and found a genetic influence in 26 of 30 subjects

investigated.

Genes appeared to be most influential in views on abortion,

voluntary euthanasia, the death penalty and organised religion,

racial discrimination, immigration and “getting on well” with

others.’ The study used the tried-and-true method of comparing correlations between identical and fraternal twins. Since presumably all twins reared together share environmental influences, the closer concordance between identical twins is considered attributable to their identical genes. The Guardian UK

Todd Gitlin comes closest to capturing the helpless alarm I feel at American disdain for intelligence, and the continual affront to a thinking person that comes with living in such an environment. This essay, The Renaissance of Anti-Intellectualism, is a thoughtful extension of the trends discerned in Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and their culmination in the ascendency of Duh-bya. I spent the whole interminable campaign, as my social circle and readers of FmH know, sputtering ineffectually about how the electorate had to see how stupid the man is, only too late coming to realize that they did, and love him for it.

But the Bushes are men of social credentials who went to the right

schools and passed through them without any detectable mark.

They represent aristocracy with a populist gloss, borrowing what

they can from the evangelical revival, siding with business and its

distaste for time-wasting mind work, holding intellectual talent in

contempt from both above and below. Pleasant enough for the

pundits, they have been able to count on a surplus of populist

ressentiment. That Bush fils, country-club Republican, could gain

stature (and keep a straight face) in his presidential campaign

for proposing an “education presidency” and denouncing an

“education recession” tells us something about the closing of the

American mind that Allan Bloom did not dream of. The Chronicle of Higher Education [via wood s lot]

TaxRebatePledge.org: “The idea for this site is simple. Congress recently

passed a tax cut bill that included a tax rebate. In the

next few months, each taxpayer will be receiving a

check from the government for $300. The only thing

TaxRebatePledge.org is asking you to do is pledge that

when you receive your tax rebate check, you will

donate that money to an existing organization that is

engaged in the fight against Bush and his agenda.

That’s it. We don’t want you to send us your tax rebate.

We don’t want to tell you who to donate your tax

rebate to; we’ll leave that to you to decide. We just

want you to promise that you will use this tax rebate to

fund the fight against Bush and his agenda!”

Barbelith: Books: Harry Potter and Capitalism:

One of the things that reveals Harry Potter as pure escapist fantasy, rather than – as

with the best (children’s or not) fantasy – an attempt to imagine a different

organization of the world and our relationship to it, is the use of magical artefacts

purely as commodities. The wizard world is our world, but with better stuff. The

sweets are better. Football is better, because it’s on broomsticks. The postal

service is better, because there are cute owls who don’t go on strike. This is not

creating an alternative way of looking at the world; it’s inventing gimmicks. Just as

some apparently anti-capitalist actions fall back into a capitalist model through a

reliance on “ethical shopping”, Harry Potter is “magical shopping”.

This is a little overblown; I would worry about the author if I thought it was likely she is actually reading children’s books with any real children. It reminds me of the scene in Jack the Bear (which I just watched with my son) in which the impeccably-credentialed grandfather (a blacklisted victim of McCarthyism) tortured his grandson, the main character, by refusing to let him win at chess ‘for his own good’, while the boy yearns for his absent father after multiple traumas and losses.

The time my son and I have spent sharing the Potter books is not going to make him a good little capitalist consumer any more than it will make him a Satanist. Sounds pretty obvious to observe that the values don’t come so much from the specific books as the overall cultural and ethical context of the upbringing. For some more hopelessly earnest thoughts about the effects of children’s literature, see Herbert Kohl’s Should We Burn Babar? This, however, goes the extra distance with impassioned prescriptions for how to use storytelling constructively.

Scientist finds fungus that eats through compact discs. So far only in the tropical climate of Belize, “the fungus had burrowed into the CD from the outer

edge, then devoured the thin aluminium layer and some of the

data-storing polycarbonate resin.” Telegraph UK

The two child killers of toddler James Bulger, in a British case eight years ago that cut to the heart of that vertiginous feeling that the ‘civilized’ world is going to hell in a handbasket, are close to 18 and parole, with new identities planned to protect them from public sentiment which is overwhelmingly opposed to their release. BBC

Are you quirkyalone?

Europe Sees Bush’s Trip Exceeding Expectations … which would not have been hard. On the other hand, his diplomatic naiveté seems to have been in full flower in dealing with Putin. New York Times

U.S. hostage ‘may be dead’, says military, according to accounts pieced together from other recently released hostages of the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines. “(They) say they are fighting for Muslim self-rule in the south of the

mainly Catholic Philippines but the group’s main pursuit has been kidnap for

ransom.

Last year, it abducted scores of people, including Western tourists from a resort

in nearby Malaysia. Local officials say the group secured about $20 million in

ransom.” CNN

I’ve blinked in the past to articles reporting that piracy still flourishes on Asian seas; here are more details of how they operate, including reviving the time-honored practice of making their prisoners ‘walk the plank.’ MSNBC

Ban on Execution of the Retarded Is Vetoed in Texas. The governor explained that there were already safeguards against the execution of the retarded and that, anyway, Texas had not executed a mentally retarded person. Critics say six inmates with IQ’s of 70 or below have been executed in Texas since 1990. Li’l George, as he expounded during his European trip, seems to share Gov. Perry’s confusion in thinking that the U.S. judicial system “protects people who don’t understand the nature of the crime they’ve committed.” The law allows an insanity defense if the nature of the crime is not understood by reason of mental illness, but mental retardation is not a mental illness and does not in itself qualify a defendent for the insanity defense. Instead, mental capacity should be considered as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Advoocates of a ban on the execution of the retarded argue that it is as morally unacceptable as it is to execute a minor. New York Times

Et 2, Jesse?

Talk-to-Yourself Radio: With Phil Hendrie Nothing Is as It Seems. Many consider him the funniest man on radio, if they get the joke, which is a send-up of the American talk radio universe as a whole.

“Those 2 percent used to dash off angry letters to the editor for your local

paper,” he said. “Now they practically run the country because of the platform

radio has given them.” Hendrie makes a living pushing them off the stage, one at

a time.

Listening to Hendrie talk about his audience is to a hear a man who embodies

both a Jeffersonian optimism about the intelligence of the average citizen and a

Menckenesque pessimism about the intelligence of the average citizen. New York Times Magazine

Listen to Hendrie in streaming audio here [via MetaFilter]

“Welcome. For the second year, the Surfrider Foundation is

publishing this State of the Beach report. Why? Because

inside you’ll find the disturbing truth about the current health

of our beaches. And it ain’t pretty.

This report assesses the state of America’s beaches by summarizing each

coastal state’s availability of information and status in these areas: General beach description,

Website access,

Beach access,

Surf zone water quality,

Shoreline structures,

Beach erosion,

Beach nourishment,

Surfing areas.”

And here is the full text and tables of The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)’s annual survey of water-quality monitoring and

public notification programs at U.S. beaches. The survey, published in August 2000, is

based on information reported for 1999; contains beach-specific information in online maps.

Press release from the Seattle Independent Media Center announces its pyrrhic victory in the government’s case against it, about which I previously wrote here.

“Today, in a case involving internet press freedom, the US Government withdrew a previously-issued court order

directing the Independent Media Center in Seattle to hand over computer server logs. The April 21 order instructed

the IMC, a not-for-profit internet-based news organization, to hand over logs and other records pertaining to the

IMC’s coverage of anti-globalization protests in Quebec City. The government’s retreat represents a victory for the

IMC, where volunteers and a national legal team had been preparing to challenge the order in court.”

The release goes on to describe that the Government made its case (about the theft from Canadian police of documents detailing George Bush’s travel itinerary around the Summit of the Americas in Quebec in April) without the server logs from the IMC’s site, where an anonymous journalist had posted the documents. Nevertheless, they allowed the order to stand, continuing to absorb the organization’s volunteer legal resources, only withdrawing it on the eve of the IMC’s planned court filing in response.

Robert Novak on George W’s Greens: “Intense secrecy inside the Bush administration and blanket denials that

there are no disagreements cannot hide the truth. For weeks, a contingent of greens inside the

administration has been pressing the president to look more and more like Al Gore. Bush has been forced to fight his own advisers in order to maintain his rejection of the Kyoto

treaty and his call for more science to determine the true causes of climate change.” Yahoo!

The nuclear power industry’s “attempt to rehabilitate the image of nuclear power is understandable,

since not a single nuke has been ordered in the US since 1973. To

overcome opposition, the industry will have to overcome not only

economic obstacles but its own reputation as the quintessentially scary

technology. Several recent events have given the industry what they see

as an opportunity to make a comeback,” notably the California energy shortage and concern about global warming … and the Shrub in the White House. Alternet

OnStar system reports accident the car’s owner tried to flee and conceal Risks Digest [via Red Rock Eaters]

Work or die. Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly proposes torturing heinous criminals in a gulag-style work camp in Alaska as an alternative to the death sentence.

My Cat Hates You

Failure at nonconscious goals explains negative ‘mystery moods’: “Have you ever been in a bad mood that you couldn’t explain and wondered what put you in a funk?

A researcher at Ohio State University found that such negative “mystery moods” can occur when people fail at a goal that they didn’t even

know they had.” EurekAlert!

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Happy Father’s Day: Can Fatherhood Be Optional? New York Times Op-Ed

In This Death Penalty Case, the Choices Were Too Few: “On Tuesday, the federal government is scheduled to conduct its second

execution in less than two weeks, after there were none for a

generation. Juan Raul Garza will be put to death for several drug-related

murders he committed a decade ago. One could argue that Timothy McVeigh’s

exceptional crime made him a likely candidate for execution in any society that

employs the death penalty. But the Garza case forces us to confront troubling

questions about not only the general fairness of a capital punishment system that

has a disproportionate impact on African-Americans and Hispanics, but also the

fairness of depriving Mr. Garza of a basic protection that every other federal

inmate on death row has received.” New York Times Op-Ed

Timothy Garton Ash: Joining the Continent to Unite the Kingdom: “Europe used to worry about the German Question.

Now it has a British Question. Will Britain at last fully commit to Europe?

And, with the growing autonomy of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, what

will remain of the old United Kingdom? … (H)istorians may look back on this election as the beginning of a new

Britain: a federal kingdom of Britain, within a larger federal Europe. New York Times Op-Ed

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Happy Bloomsday!

“Really creepy”: Watching Movies With Julianne Moore. “This used to terrify me, just terrify me,” said

Julianne Moore, popping a Milk Dud into

her mouth and staring at the television

screen with happy, fearful anticipation. “It’s

like a mother’s lullaby, only really creepy.

Look at the Dakota, how terrifying it looks,

and yet normal at the same time. I used to

live a block from there on 71st Street.

Wow, I love the beginning of this movie.”

While Ms. Moore can be very analytical,

particularly when discussing the

performances in the film and the way Mr.

Polanski’s direction accentuates them and

pulls viewers through the story, more often

she is simply caught up in the experience of watching the film again. “Wow, isn’t

that great?” she will say after a shot that impresses her, or, “Look at that, did you

see that?” after an acting moment that strikes her as particularly subtle and

difficult. For her, watching Rosemary’s Baby is a pure pleasure, and watching it

with someone else is a cause for sharing the pleasure, not for beating it to death

at every turn with analysis.” [After all why bother?] New York Times

The NY Press‘ film critic sends up The Sopranos whle extolling new British “gangster-horror film” Sexy Beast [via Robot Wisdom] While Sexy Beast sounds interesting, the faux-populist rant about The Sopranos seems largely incoherent anti-elitism to me. And just who does he think reads the NY Press; Daily News readers??

“These Bush years need some truth-tellin’. Needs some critiquin’.” — Cornel West. How to Be a Better Playa. An invitation-only “Hip-Hop Summit”, with rappers and record executives counseled by African American elders including Cornel West, Congressional representatives, and Louis Farrakhan, resolved to turn hip-hop’s dominant cultural position into political clout through a hip-hop political action committee, moves to get out the hip-hop vote, the creation of a hip-hop think tank at Columbia University… Nagging doubts about the genre’s capacity to transcend gangstah-ism and misogyny remain. Washington Post [via Robot Wisdom]

Goldfish Bowl Sends 26 People to Hospital

Red Planet Viewer’s Guide: Earth and Mars Converge. At its June 13th opposition, it’ll be the closest it’s been in the past 12 years. “At opposition, Mars will no longer be a morning star — it’ll be a dazzling ‘all-nighter’, rising near

sunset and reaching its highest point in the sky at midnight. Modest telescopes will reveal normally

invisible details including Martian clouds and icy polar caps.”

Vitamin C a Carcinogen?

Schizophrenic Executed In Ohio Despite Protests: “The state of Ohio, ignoring protests

internationally and at home, on Thursday

executed a man depicted by his lawyers as a

schizophrenic too mentally ill to understand what

was happening to him.” Reuters Here’s a California Criminal Law Review paper on Mental Illness and the Death Penalty.

Guided Tours of Hell. Writer Denis Johnson’s attempt at nonfiction is reviewed by author Ted Conover, who it appears must not like Johnson. He damns the writing with, at best, faint praise, and he dwells at length on negative aspects of Johnson’s self-revelation in these essays. It works; I didn’t like Johnson much either after reading this review. New York Times

Sony Admits It Used Employees as Bogus Fans — “Still reeling from revelations that its

advertising department had concocted

a phony film critic and used him to promote

four Columbia Pictures releases, Sony

Pictures Entertainment has now admitted

that two of its own employees posed as

ordinary moviegoers in on-the-street

interviews to promote another Columbia

release last summer.” New York Times Should moviegoers take this evidence of an unprecedented degree of manipulation and mindfuck with complacency, or has anyone proposed a boycott of Sony/Columbia pictures? The lawsuits viewers are bringing, claiming they’ve been damaged by being so misled, will probably be thrown out as frivolous, but if a significant change in the company’s profit/loss data were identified publicly as a consequence of the company’s actions, would other companies’ film executives take pause before they crossed a similar line? Do we believe there haven’t been similar instances of manipulation by others already?

The Spike Report pointed to this New York Times story on the Daily News’ Scramble to Woo Back Grocery Ads cancelled after it ran a series of articles on the filth and health code violations in many of New York City’s supermarket chains. To repair the damage with such an important group of advertisers, The News produced at its expense yesterday a glossy four-page “advertorial” supplement with laudatory content about the supermarket industry. Supermarket executives consider themselves the wronged parties and experienced the advertising supplement as their due. One demanded the firing of the reporter and editor responsible for the critical series as a condition to resume advertising. New York Times

San Francisco man becomes first American to grasp significance of irony. herdofsheep.com [via David Brake]

A Bit About Words — the columnist considers recent objections to something I do in my writing, the use of ‘they’ for a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. “Since feminist writers drew our attention to the fact that the English language has

deeply ingrained male-biased conventions, those of us with a conscience have tried to find a way of compensating for our lack of a pronoun which applies

equally to male or female referents.” I believe that such sensitivity is important, and that the form as well as the content of good writing can be consciousness-raising. I’ve considered and rejected other proposed alternatives as less preferable to ‘they’. Surprisingly, the objection that this use of ‘they’ is an inelegant modernism is countered in this essay with examples of this usage by preeminent English-language writers dating back five centuries. [via Daily Dean] And more commentary on linguistic artifice. This time from Safire, about, er, archers [via metaforage]

Power failure here in Brookline, Mass. last evening. It hit the neighborhood sometime before we got home from playing in the sprinklers in the park on the first really hot day of the summer season. The power wasn’t restored ’til sometime after 4 a.m. this morning, my laptop’s batteries were run down, I’m not up to wireless posts from my Palm device yet. And, anyway, we liked playing in the dark. That’s why you got no new entries here yesterday.

“Arguably the most interesting and disturbing program on cable television these days…” “A disembodied

late-middle-aged face dominates your tv screen: expressionless

dark eyes under a huge forehead, mouth pursed in what’s either a

smile or a grimace–you never know…. it never

leaves the screen and its expression never changes. … The show’s other component is the soundtrack, which consists of

relentless stream-of-consciousness monologues… in a central or eastern

European accent, against a disturbing ambiance of

satanic-industrial clangings and wind-tunnel moanings.” NY Press [via Robot Wisdom]

Huntington’s disease: Italian discovery may suggest a new approach for developing therapies: “Like a good parent, a protein called huntingtin helps to safeguard key nerve cells in the brain. When the huntingtin protein is defective, however,

certain neurons can become damaged, resulting in Huntington’s Disease, a debilitating and fatal form of brain degeneration characterized by

physical, mental and emotional disturbances.” EurekAlert!

The biggest beat of all: “If you’re really into dance music, you probably know two-step garage. If you’re not — if the difference between house and techno seems like little more than

the punchline-ready distinction between country and western — maybe you’ve seen it referenced in a magazine. Maybe it meant something, or maybe you

just wrote it off as another example of dance music’s tendency to spit out new genre names as signifiers of readymade revolution. Either way, two-step is a

legitimately distinctive new style that owes a lot to drum ‘n’ bass and the futuristic minimalism that dominates American pop and R&B. But its debt extends

equally to every other strain of dance music that has cropped up in the past 25 years. Giddy disco, soulful house, mechanistic techno, rhythm-crazed

hardcore, bouncy Jamaican dancehall, big-bottomed Miami bass, gin-sipping G-funk, glitchy ambience — they’re all there.” Salon

The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports. “For travellers who are really on a budget and are looking for a way to skim a few bucks off their travelling expenses, why not consider sleeping

in an airport? Many airports are actually better than local lodging. And to top it off — it’s free! Your friends and family may look at you funny

when you return with your airport stories, but that’s only part of the fun.”

‘The More Things Change’ Dept: With Shiver of Fear, Russians Sense a Return to Police-State Ways. “It is not an easy thing to quantify, much less to prove.

But among intellectuals and activists here who advocate a

democratic Russia in the Western mode, a gnawing concern is

arising that the relative freedom from state surveillance and

restriction that citizens have relished in the last decade may be

drawing to a close.” What do you expect after choosing a former KGB officer who was director of the Federal

Security Service as President? At least here in the U.S. we’ve got a bumbling ne’er-do-well businessman instead… And:

China is conducting the largest crackdown on

Internet cafés since the Web came to the country, the Internet

edition of the Shenzhen Legal Daily reported Thursday… The crackdown hits the main way rural Chinese reach the web. International Herald Tribune

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting focuses on Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. The Sunday Times commented, “A blazing example of what online journalism should be, using a website’s freedom to set the agenda and its limitless space to explore the issues.”

Burning now an option to clean up ocean oil spills previously thought incombustible — Every time there’s been a major catastrophic oil spill, you could’ve found me wandering around with a numbed look (different from my usual numbed look) and wondering with anyone who would listen to me why they couldn’t dispose of the oil slick by igniting it. Now,

“…researchers have shown in laboratory experiments that some open water oil spills previously thought to be

incombustible potentially can be cleaned up via burning, the most efficient, rapid and environmentally friendly option…. When feasible, it is an

inexpensive technique that can have a very high efficiency of removal, possibly greater than 99 percent. The burning is very rapid and any

resulting ecological damage is less severe compared to conventional oil removal methods.

However, the window of opportunity for using burning is often limited by wave and wind conditions and by the proximity of the spill to

populated areas. In addition, over time, oil spilled at sea becomes mixed with water forming an emulsion that is difficult or impossible to ignite.

Now, Penn State researchers have widened the applicability of burning by showing that diesel fuel emulsions up to 80 percent water and crude

oil emulsions up to 35 percent water can be ignited. In laboratory experiments, they demonstrated that positioning an external radiant heat

source near the spill facilitates ignition. In addition, they have developed simple charts for use as a quick reference to determine the minimum

external heat source needed to facilitate burning.” EurekAlert!

Phil Jackson’s Book Club: “Nietzsche may not seem like typical bedside reading for Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA’s dominant center, but unorthodox Lakers coach Phil Jackson thinks

there’s something in Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is to enrich Shaq’s game, both on and off the court. Jackson drives his team toward mastering

the spiritual and physical components of the game and each season supplies a recommended reading list to his team, matching a specific book–from

philosophy and biographies to mysteries and literary fiction–with each player and assistant coach. Phil Jackson shared his recommendations with

Amazon.com.”

Putting Digital Pen to Paper: “The president and CEO of Anoto wants to make sure you’ll

always have a digital copy of anything you write, even if

it’s on a Post-it note… By combining a digital pen with a

Bluetooth wireless radio link, a miniature

camera and a piece of paper marked with

a faint pattern of coordinates, (he) has developed a way to

record handwriting and transmit it as a

fax, e-mail message or a text message

via wireless phone or personal digital

assistant… ‘You will use this pen the way you use any

other pen. The only difference is that you will

always have a digital copy of anything you write.’ The Industry Standard

Q: How do you pass off a cancer-reducing

mobile add-on? “The cancer issue – quite rightly – won’t go away. For every study

concluding that phones pose no risk, there is another saying they

can cause brain tumours… The controversy continues over reports that mobile phone

manufacturers have patented cancer-reducing add-ons, when they

claim there is no risk to humans from the phones.” The Register

Since being mugged in Toronto

two years ago, his past has been a blank. And no one

has come forward to identify him. Is there anybody can tell me who I am?

“I, a person suffering from amnesia, in the City of Vancouver,”

begins one of the more unusual affidavits to come before the

Canadian courts in recent years. It was a statement of a man

who may or may not be 26, who may or may not be British, and

who may or may not be named Philip Staufen. All he knows, in

the words of the affidavit, is the following: “I am a white male,

Caucasian, about five feet, nine inches. I weigh 150lbs. I have no

visible marks on my body. I have no memory of any events prior

to waking up in the hospital in November of 1999.”

The man stumbled into Toronto general hospital with a bloody

face, a damaged nose, a British accent with perhaps a hint of

Yorkshire in it, and very little else. No wallet, no identification

and no idea who he was. His hair was dyed blond and his

clothes were from brands available anywhere in the world, with

no identifying labels. When the hospital authorities insisted he

provide a date of birth and name, any name, before they could

treat him, he came up with the first name that flashed across his

mind, Philip Staufen, and the first date he could think of, June 7

1975.

The Guardian UK

New Cell Standard: Goodbye, WAP? “The world’s leading mobile phone makers and operators introduced an industry-wide initiative

Wednesday that they hope will bring true Internet functionality to next-generation cell phones and lay the

ghost of past failures.” Wired

Palm to split — official. The troubled company will rid itself of either its software or its hardware business, says CEO. He just won’t say which yet. And, dealing with the glut in inventory of existing models caused by the sudden downturn in the PDA market just as it rolled out a new range of products, Palm gave attendees at a developers’ conference in Orange County free wireless-enabled Palm VIIx’s and a free month’s subscription to Palm.net. The Register

Dr. Laura Does It Again, Offends Tourette’s Sufferers: “Poor Dr. Laura. The queen of talk-show

intolerance is learning — the hard way — that the

Internet will hold her accountable, one angry

bulletin board posting or e-mail after another.” ABC News

“Next time you use your StarTac,

remember Patrice Lumumba.

The full story behind the Congo’s

bloody mineral trade… Tantalum – the refined extract of Columbite-tantalite (coltan for short)- is a hot product. It’s used in everything

from mobile phones made by Nokia and Ericsson to computer chips made by Intel, according to the Industry Standard. The

Congo supplies 7% of the world’s tantalum, and demand is only growing. Almost all the Congolese tantalum comes from

rebel-controlled coltan mines where they maintain brutal control over the local population. According to the Industry

Standard, the rebels have earned millions of dollars from western technology companies who have so far done little to

avoid purchasing “conflict” tantalum. A recent UN report called the companies trading minerals in the Congo ‘the engines

of conflict in the DRC.’ ” NoLogo

Adbusters: July 4th — “Where yesterday flew the Stars-and-Stripes, today will fly the

Brands-and-Bands. Some will wave it at the head of parades, some will

swap it for Old Glory in front of the Wal-Mart or City Hall, some will unfurl

it from highway overpasses. Some have even promised to paint it on the

side of their houses.”

The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis: ‘…the study of hypnotic phenomena is

now squarely in the domain of normal cognitive science, with papers on hypnosis published in some

of the most selective scientific and medical journals. Of course, spectacles such as “stage hypnosis”

for entertainment purposes have not disappeared. But the new findings reveal how, when used

properly, the power of hypnotic suggestion can alter cognitive processes as diverse as memory and

pain perception.’ Scientific American

Dead Man Talking: “When all that’s left of your loved one is a voice on an answering machine, how can you hit delete? … People have been struggling to deal with the artifacts their late lamented leave behind at least since humans began to bury their dead… But it’s the unearthly outgoing announcements on the answering machines that have given ‘Hi, I’m not here right now’ new meaning. Washington Post

Veteran U.S. Envoys Seek End to Executions of Retarded; they ‘say the practice puts the

United States at odds with the rest of the

world, creates diplomatic friction, especially

with European allies, tarnishes America’s

image as the champion of human rights and

harms broader American foreign policy

interests.

Calling the execution of the mentally

retarded a “cruel and uncivilized practice,”

the diplomats say that it subjects the United

States to “daily and growing criticism from

the international community.” ‘ New York Times

‘I tawt I taw’ a bunny wabbit at Disneyland: New evidence shows false memories can be created EurekAlert! [thanks, Tom]

Hackers Lay Off Death Video. No signs yet of hacker interception of the video feed of McVeigh’s death. Wired

They Think They Feel Your Pain. “Munchausen’s by Internet” is easier than the real thing, and just as compelling. Wired

Daring Marketers Add Fizz To Fruit, Milk, Cereal, Yogurt. Believe this publicity and brace yourself for an onslaught of carbonation in all sorts of food ranging from coffee to fruit and breakfast cereal. An adherent suggests that a small carbonation box will be the next must-have kitchen appliance. It’s Pop Rocks for the new millennium.

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in ’74 — “The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February,

2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable

brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient

in cannabis.’ AlterNet

In Virginia, Young Conservatives Learn How to Develop and Use Their Political Voices: “boot camp for young conservatives who aspire to power.” New York Times

David Horowitz is at it again: The AIDS epidemic is the fault of gay activists Salon

America’s newest celebrity dies in Terre Haute; media coverage is inane.

Review: The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy

by Noreena Hertz argues that

“a combination of globalisation, and the growing power of major

corporations, mainly American and European, is rendering democratic

governments impotent to influence key decisions that affect the lives of

ordinary people. So far, so conventional. But she takes the argument one

step further. In surrendering to the global capitalists, governments are

themselves debasing democracy, making it quite useless for people to

vote. People sense their powerlessness and the redundancy of ballot-box

politics, and take to the streets of Seattle, Davos, the City of London,

or wherever.

So direct action usurps democracy.” The Guardian UK

A Mind for Consciousness: Can we find specific neuron groups in our brains that are the seat of consciousness? Can we get at this with an animal model, when it’s not even certain animals are ‘conscious’ in the required sense? Hero worship of a neuroscientist tattooed with the Apple logo… Scientific American

AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills. The American Film Institute’s list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.

A Vegas for veterans: “The planned World War II monument looks like a white elephant. Why not

focus on rebuilding lives rather than a feel-good memorial?” Arianna Huffington in

Salon

Time for justice in Oklahoma: “Although it was an unfortunate tragedy, the Oklahoma City bombing was

not — as it has been labeled in the media — the worst act of domestic

terrorism in peacetime America. If body count, property destruction and

the generational effect on human life is the measure, then the worst act

of domestic terrorism in peacetime America was the 1921 massacre of an

estimated 300 mostly African-Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma.” Tompaine.com

The Untamed Sounds of ‘Outside Music’; listening to music that “exists outside just

about everyone’s cultural radar.” New York Times

Court Rules on Heat – Sensor Searches. A home marijuana grower was convicted after a search occasioned by a heat-sensing device detected the heat of his grow-lamps through his walls. Now the Supreme Court upholds his contention that the search violated his privacy; that it was more like an unreasonable search and seizure than it was like merely seeing something from outside the house. This surprising pro-privacy ruling came from a 5-4 majority which crossed ideological lines, uniting Scalia (who wrote the opinion) and his shadow Clarence Thomas with liberals Ginzburg, Souter and Breyer. The cynical, conspiratorial me suspects that they shuffled the alliances on this one — relatively inconsequential, in that it doesn’t hamper law officers with heat-sensing equipment too much to get a warrant for such a search — to deflect criticism about how fundamentally inflexible and divided the Court is. New York Times

The Court also ruled that, while a child born to an American mother is automatically a U.S. citizen, no such automatic right devolves upon a child born to an American father. As NPR put it, this was the first time in decades that the Court ruled along lines of a gender stereotype.

Can he do that? “An increasingly

controversial Texas

judge orders a man not

to have sex until he’s

married.” This is the same district court judge “who made a name [yes, the colloquial name for a relative of the donkey. -ed.] for himself earlier this month after ordering registered sex offenders to identify themselves with signs in their yards.” Salon

Questions for Jeffrey Baxter: Crossover Artist: Explains how he got from a “tokin’ , takin’ it to the streets” Doobie Brother to a Republican chauvinist national missile defense advisor…

Would you give up rock ‘n’ roll to save the world?

Of course. I have been blessed to grow up in a country where I can pick up a

guitar and be able to pay the rent. But I could certainly have a full-time job in

the national security area and still play the guitar. A lot of people in Washington

play music.

Who on the Hill has chops?

Orrin Hatch is a very good songwriter. Congressman Collin Peterson is a good

guitar player and a really fine performer. Chris Cox is a fine lyricist.

Does he care how seriously the interviewer takes him? Be sure to read all the way to the end of the interview for Baxter’s cocky putdown of him. New York Times I wasn’t aware of “Skunk’s” new role, but here’s a Google search on “Jeffrey Baxter” and “missile defense” for some context. He’s identified these days as a missile defense consultant to the Defense Dept. and the Lawrence Livermore Lab, he’s got ties to conservative “freedom-fightin’ ” California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and he’s a boardmember of the “Safeguarding America For Everyone Foundation” which lobbies for the deployment of NMD. In a 1999 New Republic article entitled “Bottom of the Barrel”, the California Republican party is described as “desperate enough” to attempt to draft Baxter as a Congressional candidate. [Oh, well, how much can you expect from a Doobie?]

The mind, the body – and how to talk yourself out of an illness. Because of accumulating data about the physical substrate of mental activity, essayist Robert Matthews thinks Susan Aldrich, whose new book Seeing Red and Feeling Blue he’s reviewing, had a brilliant insight in asserting that talk therapy must cause brain changes when it works. But this has been apparent to psychiatric practitioners and theorists for a long time, and research evidence is not new. Matthews is right about one thing, though; that , although these challenges to Cartesian mind-body dualism are compelling, it is a deeply engrained attitude in commonsense consciousness. But positing instead an unsophisticated holism is little better. Telegraph UK

Mobile Messaging: Not in the USA. “Yes, people in Europe and Asia can’t live without their short message service.

No, people in America can’t have it.” Lack of intercarrier interoperability and the pricing structure of cellular use in North America are the culprits. Wired

What is an emotion? “More than 90 definitions have been offered over the past century, and there are almost as many theories of emotion—not to mention a complex array of overlapping words in our languages to describe them. (Prof. Robert) Plutchik offers an integrative theory based on evolutionary principles. Emotions are adaptive—in fact, they have a complexity born of a long evolutionary history–and although we conceive of emotions as feeling states, Plutchik says the feeling state is part of a process involving both cognition and behavior and containing several feedback loops.” American Scientist Here’s an interesting table with various psychological theorists’ differing ideas about what the basic emotions are.

Medicine men threaten court action over traditional cures. ‘African medicine men are taking European scientists to

court to stop them “stealing” their traditional cures.

Healers from Zimbabwe have teamed up with others in

Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda to protect 10,000 native

treatments including toad secretions.

They are demanding a share in any of the profits made by

the drug companies now planning to exploit them.

The move comes after Lausanne University announced its

plan to market the snake tree bean bark lotion as a cure for

athletes foot.

According to the Daily Record one healer, Wimbiru Mhofu,

said: “I was born using this and the Europeans stole it.” ‘ Ananova

Can You Believe This? Study Examines Why Young Urban Women Have Sex — ‘the vast majority of young women who participated in the study

report that they have sex because they “like” or ”love” the person

they choose to have sex with. About one-third said the main reason that

they had sex was that they “liked having sex.” ‘

Why the Dysons keep faith in their genes: “Anyone yearning to settle down and live happily ever after should look for

a Dyson. New scientific research has revealed that over the past 800 years

members of the family have proved the most faithful and fertile partners in

Britain.

Dr Brian Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, studied the

DNA of 10,000 men with a broad cross-section of British surnames as part of

a project to map genes in Britain and Ireland. He identified the families likely

to have the highest proportion of identical DNA patterns in their Y

chromosomes – that is, those thought to have one common ancestor – and

discovered that, of the names surveyed, the Dysons had a remarkable 80 per

cent of men who shared the same pattern.

The Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son, so if a wife

becomes pregnant as the result of an adulterous fling she will bear a child

with the family name but not the family Y chromosome.” Telegraph UK

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Americans ‘becoming more superstitious’: “A Gallup poll has revealed that more Americans now

believe in phenomena than they did 11 years ago.

It found that more people now believe in haunted houses,

ghosts and witches. The only phenomena to have seen a

decrease in belief is devil possession which went from 49%

in 1990 to 41%.” Ananova

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Nowhere to hide: “We can tell you if you’re guilty or innocent. You can’t fool the lie detector that knows what you are thinking.”

You have just been arrested on suspicion of murder. You’re sweating it out in the interrogation room with a pair of beefy detectives. But your lips are sealed–you know your rights.

Then with a smirk they slip a thing like a hairnet covered in dozens of tiny electrodes over your head and sit you down in front of a computer. Pictures of the crime scene begin to flash up on the screen interspersed with multiple-choice questions.

Flash! A photo of a brick wall. Flash! “What lies behind this wall?” Flash! “Cement and blacktop?” Flash! “Sand and gravel?”

Flash! “Weeds and grass?”

You said nothing. You were even trying not to think. But sorry buddy, your brain just gave you away. It couldn’t help but show an electrical start of recognition at the image matching the memory of hurdling a wall and wading through a backyard of weeds as you fled. New Scientist

News Analysis: A Mideast Lull That May Not Last. Dismal outlook on the fragility of the cease-fire. Among other things, Sharon and another Israeli cabinet minister chose this moment to intensify efforts to undermine Arafat. Israeli critics say the statements were orchestrated, as one put it, “…to prepare public opinion, in Israel and around the world, for a

large-scale military operation that will topple the Palestinian Authority and lead

to Arafat’s expulsion.” Israel demands that Arafat “arrest en masse Islamic militants he released from detention earlier this year,” which he refuses to do. Paradoxically, hawkish Israelis see Arafat’s being able to restore calm as an indictment, not a credit; it proves, ending polarized debate, that he has indeed been in control of the Intifada and responsible for the bloodshed all along. In an atmosphere of such eroded trust, it is hard to see how any brokered agreement on security arrangements could hold for long with the difficulty of taking the next step of reopening political negotiation. New York Times

I join Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom in saying about this photo, “Don’t miss — can’t describe.”