The Ultimate Cereal Guide for Geeks. “Hard-working computer geeks know nothing delivers bursts of
instant energy with such caloric efficiency better than
sweetened cereal. Joab Jackson gives his review of the best
and worst cereals ever to grace the late-night lips of
malnourished programmers.” He follows the lead of Neal Stephenson, who sang the praises of Cap’n Crunch in the Cryptonomicon — rating five other cereals (have you noticed how many kinds there are out there on the market shelves these days??), he finds none stack up to the Cap’n. Baltimore City Paper via Alter.Net
Americans Uneasy About ‘Designer’ Kids. “A poll of 1,015 Americans reveals that although most feel it is
okay for parents to choose to have a child who can “give cells”
to a sick sibling, they largely oppose allowing parents to choose
to have an attractive or gifted child. Most also feel parents
should not choose whether to have a boy or girl.”
Managed Care Patients Denied Heart Attack Care. “Researchers have confirmed what critics of
managed care health plans long have suspected: heart attack
victims insured by such programs are less likely to get the
treatment they need.” Reuters
“His new translator
tells you what you
need to know about
the philosopher —
and why you need
to know it”: Being Martin Heidegger. “Why is there something instead of
nothing,” asked philosopher Martin Heidegger, and he
asked it again and again throughout his life. But,
considering his at times nearly incomprehensible response to
his own question and his affiliation with the Nazis during
the 1930s, there are more than a few who have since
plaintively wished, “Why couldn’t there be nothing instead
of Heidegger?” Salon
Piecing Together Alzheimer’s: December 2000. “The stunningly complex biochemical puzzle that underlies
this crippling disease remains incomplete, but parts that
seemed unrelated just a decade ago are now fitting into
place.” Scientific American
Are we Dumbing Down? The Guardian‘s special supplements dedicated to the issue over the past
three Saturdays. “Commentators romped through several decades of intellectual
history, television, cinema, exams, the press and literature.” If the issue concerns you, the cornucopia here includes:
Is America bad for us? How is it possible to maintain cultural difference in a
world run by US corporations?Why today’s protesters have to be smarter The wising-up of dissent. Making
yourself heard is harder than everThe death of custom ‘The remnants of what was at least in part an urban culture
“of the people” are being destroyed.’ Richard Hoggart, 1957. That was then. How do things stand now, in the era of Kentucky Fried Chicken and
Rupert Murdoch?Dubious divisions What does the dumb debate mean for groups that are often
excluded from ‘high art’ yet dominate the landscape of popular culture?The whole whack: for better or worse, we have unzipped the
very idea of what culture actually is.From sages to celebrities What does it mean when we stop listening to
intellectuals and pay heed to pop stars?Sex: The decline of modesty. Violence: Thug culture is becoming the norm for the mass of young British men, with its roots in films and classroom failure. Pop: Being dumb may be the essence of pop music,but there are
many varieties of dumb. Still, things are pretty bad.Books: Pulp fiction: commercial realities are reducing the
chances of truly innovative novels seeing the light of day.The problem with poetry is that you have to read it. Art or product? It may be pointless to say Hollywood is dumb, but vitality and variety are under threat. Zones of pure play: Why video games are good for you. The highs and lows of film: It’s too simple to argue that the movies dumb down
over time. High and low coexist in different periods, sometimes within
individual films – a cultural history of cinema
from Sunset Boulevard to The Phantom Menace.Going, going . . . Moaning about cultural decline is as old as the hills;
the long history behind the current dumbing down crisis.The Bluffer’s Guide to Culture Buffs Having problems getting to grips with all
this hi-lo stuff? We are. Here’s a handy guide to the expertsClassical music Can we only listen to music in bite-sized chunks these days?
Food How come we have wider food experience than our
parents but less food knowledge?Sport From local hero to pay-per-view demi-god:the money
culture that has turned sportsmen into superstars.An A-Z of cultural terms What is culture anyhow? A bunch of artworks? An
activity? A habit? A product? A battlefield? A corpse? This A-Z of cultural
terms might help you find out…The invention of popular culture. We had to create high
culture before we could have low culture.Architecture: We have squandered the legacy of modernism and destroyed the notion of public duty Had enough already? Then all too likely you’re part of the attention-deficit
generation.
Review of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation by Robert Provine. ‘What a weird trick has been played
on our linguistic species to express itself with such stupid “ha ha ha” sounds. Why
don’t we leave it at a cool “that was funny”?
These questions are old, going back to philosophers who have puzzled over why one
of humanity’s finest achievements–its sense of humor–is expressed in such an
animal-like fashion. There can be no doubt that laughter is an inborn characteristic.’ We share laughter with the apes; it appears to be associated with a playful attitude, and is distinct from smiling, which encodes affection and appeasement instead. Laughter is not as much as we think a response to a joke; naturalistic studies show that people laugh more frequently in response to situations that are far from humorous. Laughter’s purpose seems to be to solidify social relations by signalling mutual liking and well-being. A group of people laughing together — more often men than women, BTW — broadcast solidarity and togetherness often at the expense of the outsider. “Provine expands on this theme with the observation
that women laugh more in response to men’s remarks than the reverse. The asymmetry between the sexes starts early in
life, between boys and girls, and seems to be cross-cultural. The man as laugh-getter also turned up in an analysis of
personal ads, in which Provine found that women generally sought partners with a sense of humor, which male
advertisers claimed to have in great measure.” Scientific American
The Wait for an E-book Format. Everyone admits that e-books are the wave of the future, but we’re not even close to establishing standards that’ll allow any e-book to be read on any device. Publishers Weekly
Emperor Without Clothes Dept.: Literary criticism in the Disneyland cloisters; a year at Yale for a British PhD student in literature:
“I write the sentence down in my notebook, like everyone else in the seminar. The ode must traverse
the problem of solipsism before it can approach
participating in the unity which is no longer
accessible. When I have pieced it together, I realise
he is talking nonsense. I am struck by the thought
that literary criticism – at least as it is practised here
– is a hoax. And the universities that offer it, and the
professors who in America earn large salaries
teaching it, are fraudulent, wittingly or not.”
Gang-Bangers: A Deadly U.S. Export. The gang members we deport back to their countries of origin have it all over the homeboys. Time
Bush Team Prepares ‘Scorched-Earth’ Plan. “The battle to win 270 votes in the electoral college has taken on a unique calculus. Florida remains crucial, but the close outcomes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon are critical in what one Republican operative called a “scorched-earth strategy” GOP officials hope to avoid implementing.
The strategy is to challenge Gore’s close wins in Iowa, Wisconsin and, perhaps, Oregon. If successful in Wisconsin with 11 electoral votes and either Oregon or Iowa, with 7 each, Bush could then, under this scenario, still win in the electoral college without Florida’s 25 votes.
That depends on keeping New Mexico in the Bush column. If New Mexico flips back to Gore, Bush would have to overturn the outcome in all three other states–Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon–to make up for the loss of Florida.” Washington Post
Forget Florida—Flip the Electors! by Matthew Miller, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. He’s basically saying that tit-for-tat litigation airs dirty laundry about the U.S. electoral system that would be better off not known. He prefers Gore take the (constitutional) high ground for the country’s sake. “Would a handful of Republican electors switch and vote for
Gore? I don’t know, but as a Gore supporter I’d rather risk
his losing this way than see the nation implode on its current
path. Even 271 party hacks could not help but feel the weight
of history in ways that would lead most to go beyond partisan
interest to consult their consciences.” Of course, there isn’t a ghost of a chance of this happening (unless Gore promises a handful of these hacks ambassadorships or something); I’m answering my own question I asked on election night. And it’s not self-evident at all that this is a “crisis”, or that the nation will “implode” at all if it continues down its current path. Slate
BuzzWhack: The Buzzword Compliant Dictionary. “dedicated to demystifying buzzwords.” One of the features on this site I particularly enjoy is the Whack of the Week, in which they highlight a press release or web site that’s incomprehensible. Here‘s one:
PictureTel Corporation is focused on reinventing the rules for intuitive, content-rich remote communication, including the
launch of evolutionary PC-based integrated collaboration systems. We are harnessing the power of the broadband
revolution to deliver a range of IP-based, interactive communication solutions and will continue to accelerate solution
development and innovation to enable new models for communication and productivity.
(buzz.whack.er: n. A person who receives some degree of pleasure in bursting the bubbles of the pompous.)
What did Aum Shinrikyo have in mind? Excerpt from Ian Hacking’s thoughtful essay in a recent London Review of Books about Underground, Haruki Murakami’s new book on the sect’s 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Underground. Thinking about this “terrorist act” is fascinating and important, and thinking about Murakami writing about it is a concept in itself!
Battle Plans: a friend of mine sent me this — a call to action from J.J.Johnson, a spokesperson for the radical right, who feels he’s watching a coup d’etat by Clinton forces determined to steal the election from its rightful winner and stay in power unjustly. He lays out the plans for “freedom fighters” to oppose it. Scary stuff; read on and wonder, with me, how many people will feel similarly, and how many will listen to them. My friend said: ” If Gore wins
through a recount, the militia movement will grow radically, but mostly
they will gripe. If Gore wins through a court decision, then God help us
all – these guys will make McVeigh’s hit look like a practice run.”
The Sage of Fortune Cookies. “A quest to discover why the ubiquitous little messages so rarely predict the future anymore leads through a
byzantine world of secrecy and suspicion to an unlikely oracle.” LATimes (requires free registration)
13 Myths About the Results of the 2000 Election “Propaganda is flying left and right.
To combat this barrage, we present a point by point analysis of
some key myths in the media today, substantiated with footnotes.
Please read, copy, and forward to friends, relatives and colleagues!” Red Rock Eater Digest
Who Should Concede? “Politicians and pundits are eager for Vice President Gore to quickly
concede the presidential election to Gov. Bush and bring closure to
Election 2000.
A key argument is that Republican candidates who came close in the past —
especially Richard Nixon in 1960 and Gerald Ford in 1976 — gracefully
accepted defeat for the “good of the country” and Gore, a Democrat, now
should do the same.
Though this argument is gaining momentum, it is based on bogus history.
The real history is that Republicans since Nixon have played extraordinary
hardball and have only conceded when they were faced with clear defeat in
the popular vote. Ford was behind by 1.7 million ballots in 1976.
Indeed, it has been the Democrats who have routinely turned the other
cheek and kept quiet when they discovered evidence of GOP dirty tricks
aimed at rigging the outcome of presidential elections. These cases go
back to Nixon’s runs in 1960 and 1968 and are as recent as the 1992
match-up between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.” Consortiumnews
Hidden Data Transmission Using Electromagnetic Emanations. ‘Your computer produces electromagnetic “emanations” that in some
cases contain enough information to reconstruct, for example, the image
on the screen. These emanations can sometimes be detected at a distance,
even across the street, and this fact has given rise both to legitimate
computer security research and to urban myths. One of the urban myths,
which takes various forms, is that Microsoft has secretly used emanations
from personal computers to look for pirated software. (This is)
a message about this myth from probably the foremost authority on the
subject.’ Red Rock Eater Digest
Brain Repair Companies Sharpen Their Drills. “A local anesthetic, a small drill-hole in the
skull and a syringe full of new cells may one day be all it takes to
repair brain damage.” Regenerating damaged tissue with neural stem cells offers promise to reverse the deficits of stroke, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s etc. Tissue transplanted from aborted fetuses has been used successfully in reversing the worst symptoms of a handful of Parkinson’s Disease patients, but the ethical problems caused by depending on fetal stem cells has led to a quest for other sources, including “immortalized” human cell lines, nonhuman mammalian sources and, recently, cadavers. Companies are lining up to commercialize the approach once it is clear it is safe and effective. Here’s a primer on stem cells from the National Institutes of Health; and information from the American Association for the Advancement of Science on stem cell research and applications.
Right nostrils provide clues to brain
illnesses. “People’s right nostrils are better at evaluating strange new
smells, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, say Swedish
scientists.
While familiar smells appear to be sniffed equally by both
nostrils, it is the right that takes the lead when the nose is
challenged by a new odour.
The research has implications for the diagnosis of
neurological disorders because it suggests that only one side
of the brain is involved in processing unfamiliar smells.
By testing patients’ reactions to different scents, doctors might
be able to diagnose which side of the brain has a problem,
the researchers said…” Independent
Just can’t get enough A German researcher who found that heart rate and cortisol concentrations surge when habitual gamblers place money bets but not when playing for points claims this proves gambling is “addictive” in the physiological sense. New Scientist highlights the controversy over this claim given many scientists’ refusal to accept that a behavior can be physiologically addictive, that “you can’t have an addiction unless you take a substance.”
If the findings of the scientific paper (in the journal Biological Psychiatry) are well-described here, the assertion that it “proves gambling is addictive” is absurd. All that appears to be shown is that, when people do something pleasurable, they demonstrate some of the physiological changes associated with pleasure or gratification. In essence, the research proves that such a behavior is “addictive” only in the way we use that term in lay conversation, to mean merely something we enjoy doing alot. The more precise notion of addictiveness involves (a) physiological tolerance (as the person continues to use the substance, it takes higher and higher doses to have the same effect); (b) physiological dependency (when denied the substance at the expected interval, a physiological withdrawal reaction ensues); and (c) the drug-seeking activity is preoccupying and dominates the person’s behavior pattern.
Assertions such as the following, from the article, are risible: “…Such findings might reduce the
culpability of people who have committed crimes. If lawyers
can attribute their clients’ crimes to physiological cravings
rather than acts of free will, they may receive lighter
sentences. ” Even though all craving of pleasurable activity has a physiological basis, by no stretch of the imagination does it diminish someone’s free will by any notion of autonomy and choice I’m aware of in the behavioral sciences! New Scientist
Now you tell me — is this a related item or not? Contract bridge enhances the immune system, according to a preliminary study
by researchers at UC Berkeley. EurekAlert!
Along the same lines as what Iceland has done (see below), but on a bigger scale, Estonia sells its gene pool.
(The) Estonian people, in case you didn’t know, are just perfect. Quite
steady, as they have been settling in their present location for at
least 5,000 years, but not too isolated from the rest of the world.
Their family trees can normally be traced back into the 17th
century. More than a third of the people old enough to take a
degree have done so, and the life expectancy is 70 years.Most importantly, they have willingly accepted the deal. Opinion
polls suggest that more than 90% of the 1.445 million Estonians
are ready to part with 50ml of their blood and a detailed account
of their medical history. A law regulating the details of the
procedure is expected to pass parliament without problems.What seems to have won over the Estonian politicians was the
hope of becoming world leaders in something for the first time.
Guardian
“We love our small friends — we value their lives.” The Rat & Mouse Gazette.
Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect
Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect
Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect
Improbable but no longer unthinkable solutions to the Presidential election impasse.
Amnesty in Africa: How does Amnesty International persuade a state to change its ways? Prospect
AIDS-related virus spreads through kissing. “A form
of the herpes virus that causes an
AIDS-related skin cancer appears to
spread through kissing. Herpes virus 8 was discovered six years
ago and causes a skin cancer called
Kaposi’s sarcoma. In the United States,
the cancer occurs almost exclusively in
people with AIDS.” Researchers from the University of Washington have demonstrated that gay men infected with herpes 8 shed the virus far more often and at much higher concentrations in saliva than in anal or genital secretions. The implication, that oral-to-oral contact can be the route of transmission, needs further research confirmation. The obvious public health concern is that kissing is largely ignored in “safe sex” protocols. Transmission via the oral route makes sense when you realize the similarity between herpes 8 and the Epstein Barr virus, another herpes virus whose oral spread causes mononucleosis (“the kissing disease”) and which has been implicated in a malignancy of its own, Burkitt’s lymphoma. AP
His parents despaired of ever curing his rare phobia until they appealed for help in the local newspaper. A hypnotherapist came to the aid of this 8-year-old Gloucestershire (UK) boy and cured him of his fear of ketchup.
“Researchers in Iceland claimed yesterday to have pinpointed a gene for schizophrenia, stirring hope and anxiety among millions
of sufferers of what has been called ‘the worst disease affecting
mankind’.
The discovery is one of the first fruits of the controversial effort
by Icelandic entrepreneur Kari Stefansson’s firm deCODE to use
the medical records of the entire nation to ferret out disease
genes.’ You will recall that deCODE has given the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche the rights to commercial exploitation of its findings in return for financial backing. deCODE is applying for patent rights to the discovery and, for the moment, there is no scientific publication forthcoming; neither Roche nor deCODE is willing to even say on what chromosome the genetic locus resides. While it is implausible that one genetic defect can cause all the manifestations of this disease, it is well established that there is a heritable component. This discovery might lead to an understanding of just what the inherited vulnerability is, to ways of identifying vulnerable individuals before they develop symptoms, and perhaps to new drug strategies for treatment or even prevention. Guardian
Surf like a Bushman. Foraging theory, developed to understand animal hunting behavior and the strategies of hunter-gatherer humans, can be used to understand modern data foraging on the web. Two Xerox PARC researchers have been doing field studies of information-hunting-and-gathering and applying their observations about optimal foraging theory to search engine design. New Scientist This analogy between food and information appears to be a fruitful one for web designers as well — so eat your fill here!
A reason why some women can wrap men around their little
fingers has been suggested by a language expert: they use five
different tones when communicating verbally and men can
understand only three.
“Men only have 10 per cent of women’s speaking ability,” says
Alan
Pease, author of the book Why Men Don’t Listen and Women
Can’t Read Maps. ‘He says that women use 60 to
80 per cent of their brains to communicate, which is why they
excel in the area. Such verbal dexterity means that they are better
placed than ever to compete for new “knowledge economy” jobs.’ The Times of London
Wag the Human. Review of Stephen Budiansky’s The Truth About Dogs. Did we domesticate the dog or vice versa? ”If biologists weren’t victim to the
same blindness that afflicts us all, they probably wouldn’t
hesitate to classify dogs as social parasites.” The reviewer has a sentimental complaint that “when Budiansky deconstructs the
so-called love and loyalty that dogs have for their owners,
he reduces it all to selfish biology.” New York Times And Britannica.com has this interesting review article considering the range of animal intellect and emotion from the vantage point of several recent books. We do seem to be seeing a reawakening of interest in ethology, a generation after Conrad Lorenz. “Through
evolutionary theory, genetics, neurophysiology, and
experimental procedures, many scientists are providing
strong evidence that animals feel and think in ways akin
to humans.” The controversial Peter Singer perhaps takes this furthest. His Great Ape Project seeks to “include the nonhuman great apes within the community of equals by
granting them the basic moral and legal protection that only human beings currently enjoy, … to work for the removal of the
nonhuman great apes from the category of property, and for their immediate inclusion within the
category of persons.
Our long-term goal is a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes.”
Are We All Aliens? The new case for panspermia.
Alcoholic by Nature: The attraction of ethanol may have evolutionary origins in the selective advantage it conferred on our frugivorous primate ancestors. But it appears to be an evolutionary trait gone wrong. Biologist Robert Dudley of the University of Texas speculates on this. The Times of London I was reminded of the thinking of Andrew Weil several decades ago in The Marriage of the Sun and Moon. Proposing that the attraction of mind-altering substances is innate, he said that the natural psychoactives our ancestors used were healthier than modern purified and extracted ones. The impurities acted to self-limit consumption to manageable amounts, because one would get sick from ingesting too much. Consider the contrast between chewing a coca leaf and freebasing cocaine. (Here‘s a less-than-laudatory 1998 essay on Weil’s reasoning by the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Arnold Relman MD.) [One of the best things in Marriage…, IMHO, was the essay on the ‘right’ way to settle into the euphoric buzz you get from hot peppers such as jalapenos.]
A chance observation of an analogy to the physical world may mean that someone is closing in on the solution to the Riemann hypothesis, one of the world’s greatest unsolved mathematical problems, which relates to the distribution of prime numbers. New Scientist
‘Happy’ Kristallnacht: Hate e-mails bombard Jewish group. The emails were sent via a server in the US. Nando Times
Most Promiscuous Species Have The Highest WBC Counts.’A new study indicates that evolution of the immune system may be directly
linked to the sexual activity of a species. A comparative analysis of 41
primate species demonstrates that the most promiscuous species have
naturally higher white blood cell (WBC) counts — the first line of defense
against infectious disease — than more monogamous species.
The findings are reported in today’s issue of the journal Science.
“Our findings strongly suggest that the most sexually active species of
primates may have evolved elevated immune systems as a defense
mechanism against disease,” says (the) principal investigator.’ UniSci [via Robot Wisdom]
Lions Maul Man Offering Alms. ‘A Sri Lankan man was seriously injured
when he jumped naked into a lions’ den at the national zoo,
apparently offering himself up as a feast for the big cats,
officials said Monday.
“The man…had written a letter before jumping into the enclosure saying he wanted to
give ‘alms’ to the lions,” said (the director) of the National Zoological Gardens…’
31 Eyewitnesses See Mile Long Aerial Craft in Yukon. “There are only
30,000 residents in the entire Yukon and at least thirty-one eyewitnesses near Pelling Crossing saw an aerial craft
estimated to have been nearly a mile long hovering silently about 300 feet above the ground.” A summary report with drawings by the eyewitnesses has just ben assembled by a UFO investigator, and a transcript of an interview with one of the witnesses is published here. Earthfiles
Astronomers find planet around Spock’s “home star”. “According to some Star Trek lore, the
planet Vulcan, homeworld of Mr. Spock, is
a rocky, arid planet orbiting the nearby
star Epsilon Eridani. Now, astronomers
say they’ve found a planet orbiting the
star – but it doesn’t exactly match the
description of Vulcan.” exn.ca
Gut reactions: Scientists discover ‘second brain’ in the stomach. “Scientists are claiming to have discovered a second
brain – in the human stomach.
The breakthrough, involving experts in the US and
Germany, is believed to play a major part in the way
people behave.
This ‘second brain’ is made up of a knot of brain nerves
in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100
billion nerve cells – more than held in the spinal cord.
Researchers believe this belly brain may save
information on physical reactions to mental processes
and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may
also be responsible in the creation of reactions such as
joy or sadness.” Ananova
Poland: Committee Warns against Revival of UFO Sect. ‘A national sect-monitoring
committee has issued a warning about the revival of an “apocalyptic
Polish sect” called Antrovis. It sees salvation in the landing of UFOs
on a southern Polish mountain and has been linked to the alleged
disappearances of individuals.’ The sect allows as how, when the saucers land, all terrestrials who are not sect members will be exterminated. Central Europe Online
Retailers’ Siren Song. “…your buying habits are being
mapped almost as closely as the human genome,
manipulated like Pavlov’s dog, and seduced like the
American electorate every fourth November.” Why not know what they know? Training about their insidious uses of consumer psychology may help stop you from being ‘had.’ Kiplinger’s
Bush is behaving like the U.S. version of
Milosevic, ‘telling Al Gore
“to hurry up and concede before the people find out I
really lost the election.” ‘
The man who says he wants to be “a uniter, not a divider”
and that he “trusts the people,” doesn’t give a damn that
some 20,000 voters in Florida were disenfranchised one
way or another – and the numbers keep rising. Or is it that
he figures if the country’s and world’s eyes are diverted
away from Florida, he can somehow save his baby
brother [Florida Governor] Jeb’s hide?Jeb seemed mighty uncomfortable as he stood before the
cameras at a press conference Wednesday, rolling his
lower lip over his upper, his beady eyes darting about as
he announced he was recusing himself from the election
certification commission. State Attorney General Bob
Butterworth, a Democrat, was visibly shaken.Does Butterworth know something we don’t? As the
state’s chief law enforcement officer, could he be
wrestling with bringing charges against Jeb and all the
constitutional officers engaged in this debacle?Jeb promised George W. that he would deliver Florida to
him. What he left out of that statement was how he
planned to accomplish that. An investigation and a reform
of Florida’s election law are surely in order.Florida has a long history of election fraud. So it takes a
grand stretch of the imagination to believe that so many
Florida voters and election officials are bumbling idiots,
when the funny business stretched from north to south and
east to west.Perhaps Floridians and the nation should have paid more
attention to the 1997 election fraud in Miami. That ended
when Mayor Xavier Suarez’s election was overturned
because of fraud involving absentee ballots. City
Commissioner Humerto Hernandez, along with 13 other
elected officials and volunteers, were convicted and
sentenced to 364 days in prison for their roles in helping
to steal the election for Hernandez.Now we learn that Suarez sits on the executive committee
of the Miami-Dade Republican Party and, in this year’s
election, was specifically involved in recruiting absentee
voters and helping to fill out absentee ballot forms. Do
you smell something rotten here?
Two breaking scandals drive Bush’s rush to
claim presidency. “Thursday afternoon the Bush
campaign scrambled frantically to seize the presidency as
it came closer to slipping out of its hands. Cabinet
appointments were announced, plans for a victory
celebration were underway, and old Bush associates were
called in to lend an air of authority.
The rush was necessary because of two breaking scandals
now nipping at Bush’s heels that could ultimately render
him ineligible for the office or heavily damaged as
president.
Bush has been accused of a deception in a Texas jury
questionnaire that has been characterized as perjury. He is
also under fire for refusing to release his military records,
despite numerous requests from the press and from
veterans groups who have provided documentation that
Bush deserted his National Guard post duty from May
1972 to May 1973.” Online Journal
Hubble Sees Bare Neutron Star Streaking Across Space. “It’s as big as Manhattan Island, is 10 trillion times denser than steel, and is hurtling our way at speeds over
100 times faster than a supersonic jet. An alien spaceship? No, it’s a runaway neutron star, called RX
J185635-3754, forged in a stellar explosion that was visible to our ancestors in 1 million B.C. Precise
observations made with the Hubble telescope confirm that the interstellar interloper is the closest
neutron star ever seen. The object also doesn’t have a companion star that would affect its appearance.
Now located 200 light-years away in the southern constellation Corona Australis, it will swing by Earth at
a safe distance of 170 light-years in about 300,000 years.”
Penguin-Toppling Claims Studied. Pilots are ridiculed for the claim that, when they fly over penguin colonies, the “curious birds topple over like dominoes as they stare up at the aircraft.” Now British Antarctic Survey researchers plan to spend a month studying the veracity of the phenomenon. Washington Post
Salon interviews Denis Dutton, founder of the Arts and Letters Daily website, and now starting up the online publishing house
Cybereditions, offering up out-of-print “worthwhile scholarly books” as etexts, HTML downloads and print-on-demand paperbacks.
In contrast to the plurality system of voting used in most American elections, Instant Runoff Voting, an election reform rapidly gaining attention throughout the US, allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate
without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it
ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the
voters. Center for Voting and Democracy
Judges have power to overturn elections. “Under a 1998 court ruling, Florida judges have broad authority to invalidate
elections or order new elections in cases in which fraud, or even unintentional error,
results in flawed outcome.” Tampa Tribune
Alexander Cockburn on Gridlock: . “So it all came out right in the end: gridlock
on the Hill and Nader blamed for sabotaging
Al Gore.
First a word about gridlock. We like it. No
bold initiatives, like privatizing Social Security
or shoving through vouchers. No
ultra-right-wingers making it onto the
Supreme Court. Ah, you protest, but what
about the bold plans that a
Democratic-controlled Congress and Gore
would have pushed through? Relax. There
were no such plans. These days gridlock is the
best we can hope for.” And Cockburn continues with a good summary of the reasons Greens voted Green rather than “sneaking back to the Gore column.” CounterPunch
Nader and La Follette: History Repeats Itself. Should Nader’s run be cast in the same tones as Robert La Follette’s 1924 campaign as an independent against “a conservative Republican and an only marginally less conservative Democrat”?
Described as an antiracist educator, organizer and writer, Tim Wise of Alter Net writes an Open Letter to the Pioneer Fund, delighted to discover he shares their interest in “the proposition that people of different
ethnic and cultural backgrounds are, on the basis of heredity, inherently
unequal and can never be expected to behave or perform equally” , as their charter proclaims. Wicked tongue firmly ensconced in cheek, he wants them to fund his investigation into the reasons for Causasian genetic inferiority, as demonstrated by their “disproportionate drug use, binge drinking, and propensity for serial murder.”
It may be that nothing can wean whites from their insatiable appetites for
drugs and alcohol. If so, then just as your founder, Wickliffe Draper, once
said blacks were “genetically inferior,” and “ought to be repatriated to
Africa,” so too will you surely be brave enough to call for a full-fledged “back
to Europe” movement, so as to rid the U.S. of millions of narcotized
Caucasian parasites.As one of your grantees, Richard Lynn says, it might even be necessary to
“phase out” inferior cultures: a prospect that might apply to whites if they’re
unwilling or unable to clean themselves up. Such is the price of progress.
Wanted: Homeland for 300 Webheads. ‘Most college students don’t tend to say things like “Whether or not we see a
nation of liberty on this planet could hinge largely on my competence.” Then
again, most college students aren’t self-proclaimed royalty… He doesn’t use slang or even
contractions, and he signs his correspondence “Yours in Liberty.” His chief
hobby is improving his qualifications for princehood by studying political
philosophy and keeping up with international news.’ By one writer’s count, the web is home to 118 self-defined virtual “micro-nations” with self-declared sovereignty. And some of them are looking for territory in the actual world. Alter Net
Here, in full, is a dispatch from Phil Agre (Red Rock Eaters mailing list owner), who has rapidly pulled together alot of concerns about the Florida vote situation:
[People have been sending me a flood of material about the Florida
vote, so much that I can hardly keep up with it as I’m typing here.
The situation is a mess, and it just gets worse. I’ve gathered URL’s
for a great deal of relevant information, and I urge you to pass
it along to everyone who can use it. I’m getting so much material,
the situation is evolving so fast, and the relevant Web sites are so
overloaded, that I cannot guarantee that I have summarized everything
100% accurately, or that the URL’s all still work. I’ve done my best.Earlier I passed on a report that a locked ballot box had been discovered
in a Democratic area. Now the cnn.com Web site reports that, according
to “Miami-Dade County election officials”, this box contained no ballots:http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/ballotbox.found/
There is a lot of vague talk about other missing ballot boxes, but this
is the only one that has been formally reported to my knowledge.But the missing ballot box was hardly the only problem, or the worst.
For example, there are the misleading “butterfly ballots”. Here is an
article from the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Palm Beach County:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000123102,00.html
This article is being continually updated. The Sun-Sentinel Web site is
overwhelmed, so keep trying.You can see an image of the misleading ballot on these pages:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elections/palmbeachballot.htm
http://cnews.tribune.com/news/image/0,1119,sunsentinel-nation-82373,00.html
The Democrats are asserting that this ballot design was illegal under
Florida law:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-ELN-Florida-Ballot-Confusion.html
Bob Kerrey is calling for a new vote in Florida:
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/07/results/
The problem has two aspects. First, statistical arguments and massive
anecdotal evidence suggest that the misleading ballot produced easily
enough bad votes to throw the election. Second, one of the authors of
the Sun-Sentinel article just said on public radio that something like
20,000 more ballots than one would statistically expect were discarded
in the strongly Democratic areas where the misleading ballots were used.There is a brief statistical discussion of the issue here:
http://cuwu.editthispage.com/2000/11/08
This page should include a dramatic plot of the voting data, but it only
seems to appear under certain browsers. Here’s another URL for the plot:http://madison.hss.cmu.edu/palm-beach.pdf
Here are some more articles on the subject:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001108/el/eln_ballot_confusion_1.html
http://www.time.com/time/campaign2000/story/0,7243,60132,00.html
I have enclosed another statistical discussion by Jeff Harris, a former
official at the Office of Management and Budget now working a public
policy consultant in Los Angeles. I have also enclosed a message by a
friend, also in Los Angeles, who was involved in an investigation of a
rigged election out here. He knew about the 1988 case in Florida, and
I found his message interesting. People have made further claims about
the 1988 election that they aren’t willing to put their names on, so I
won’t repeat them.Nobody to my knowledge is arguing that the ballots were consciously
designed to bias the election. They are only arguing that the ballots
were badly designed, illegal, and very likely had the effect of changing
the outcome on the national level.Enough about the butterfly ballots. Here are some other subjects…
For a while last night, the cnn.com Web site said that CNN was trying
to investigate an apparent discrepancy between the Florida voting figures
that were reported to the press and the actual count. If I understood
the sequence of events correctly, these discrepancies may have had an
impact on the bizarre sequence of events last night, possibly motivating
Al Gore’s premature concession call to George W. Bush. I was watching
the numbers minute-by-minute until about 5am EST, and there certainly did
seem to be a discrepancy. But I have not heard anything further about the
matter on cnn.com or elsewhere.The Wall Street Journal mentions complaints of voter intimidation
(or fraud or something) based on claims that at least one conservative
radio host in Florida broadcast an assertion that, due to high turnout,
Democrats should vote on Wednesday. In the few days before the election
I saw just that claim, framed as a joke, in messages circulating on
the Internet. But then other messages said that it was Republicans
who should vote on Wednesday. In any case as I say these messages were
clearly jokes. If a radio host made such assertions in anything but a
clearly joking way then that would be a serious matter as well.The police have locked the elections office of Volusia County, Florida
(which Gore won) after they caught an employee removing bags from it.http://orlandosentinel.com/news/1108guard.htm
http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,247897-412,00.shtml
You can get county-by-county numbers at cnn.com. The numbers do look
strange for the down-ballot candidates compared to other counties.It is worth remembering that Dade and Broward counties in south Florida
have big-time histories of voter fraud. For a story on one recent
episode, see today’s issue of Feed:http://www.feedmag.com/templates/daily_master.php3?a_id=1389
One Florida journalist mentioned on public radio that the whole Miami
area is full of ex-CIA people including right-wing anti-Castro activists
and many of the major figures of the Watergate scandal, and that people
in Florida are not surprised to hear of strange goings-on in that area.I also recommend the concise analysis at http://www.orvetti.com/.
My conservative friends are telling me what a pissy loser Al Gore is
for contesting this problematic vote in Florida. So it’s worth noting
that the Bush campaign was quite prepared to contest an election if
(as widely predicted) he won the popular vote but not the electoral:http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-11-01/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-86769.asp
On a different and flakier subject, Consortium News reports that a voter
has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that the
New York Times made improper in-kind contributions to the Bush campaign
by repeating large numbers of false statements about Al Gore from Bush
press releases:http://www.consortiumnews.com/110700a.html
The complaint probably won’t (and shouldn’t) succeed, but it does point
to a real and serious problem:http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.The.New.Science.of.C.html
I’ve been told of all sorts of scenarios involving compromises between
the Gore and Bush campaigns, but I see no evidence that these things are
really happening.I have also received all sorts of unsubstantiated reports of problems
with the vote in Florida, including rumors about suspicious turnout
levels and the handling of write-ins (and not just in the southern part
of the state). But I don’t want to report any of these reports until
someone can document them. The only reason I’m mentioning them is
because people (who I don’t know) claim to have heard about them in the
Florida media, which is something but not very much. At the same time,
I would encourage students of Florida politics to study the numbers all
across the state very carefully. You can start at cnn.com.I am also hearing unsubstantiated reports of street protests. Have
you noticed the widespread pattern of inadequate provision for voters
in African-American communities? These include Miami and New York.
In St. Louis, large numbers of voters who had been waiting in line
were sent home by an appeals court after a day of chaos; according
to cnn.com, George W. Bush won Missouri by fewer than 80,000 votes.
phonespell.org: “Enter a 6 to 10 digit phone number and we’ll show you what words and phrases your phone number spells.
Moving? Pick a new 7 or 8 digit phone number by typing in an available exchange (first 3 to 5 digits) and see what one-word numbers you
can choose from. ”
Annals of the Age of Depravity: San Jose woman kept 5-year-old son in car trunk, police say (11/07/2000) [SJ Mercury via Obscure Store]
From a reader’s suggestion: “Keeping Time”. “We have learned to measure time via a system that is
actually more accurate than the phenomena, the events and the
movements that gave rise to it namely the movements of the earth, the
rotation and revolution of the earth. We’ve got the calendar pinpointed,
tuned so perfectly that we can refer it to the oscillation of a caesium
atom in the National Bureau of Standards. I like to think we’ve gone
about as far as we can go. Our shortest unit of time the femtosecond , a
very valid unit to be used in physics, is so small that if the distance
between the earth and the moon were a second the femtosecond would
be the width of a human hair. So maybe we haven’t stopped yet as long
as there are physical laboratories around the world we’ll probably just
keep splitting hairs won’t we.”
Dewey Defeats Truman? It’s 1:30 a.m. Eastern time and I’m going to bed to the sound of anchors intoning “too close to call, too close to call” ad nauseum. It’s certainly looking from this jaundiced vantage point as if we can look forward to four more years of these Slate “Bushisms of the Day”. I just heard, however, that it’s only in 25 of the 50 states (and D.C.) that the electors are bound to vote the way their state electorates determined. In an election as close as this — I really don’t know the answer to this — will the losers try to bring some political influence to bear on the electoral votes of the other 25 states?
Thank God, at least, the ad nauseum of the campaign season is over for another four years. And that the end of the Clinton follies is in sight. As Jonathan Freedland reflects in The Guardian,
His fellow Americans will miss him –
more, perhaps, than they realise. They’ll
miss the two terms of peace and record
prosperity, of course, but they might even
miss the psychodrama: an eight-year
rollercoaster ride so turbulent that those
who followed it become queasy at the
recollection. They’ll miss the daily
triumphs and disasters of a character of
Shakespearean complexity, a president
who stirred in the American people
passions of love and hatred unseen since
the days of John F Kennedy and Richard
Nixon – and almost never aroused by a
single man. Above all, they will miss his
signature feature, one which may well
have redefined the presidency itself: an
almost eerie gift for empathy.
I don’t know if I’d exactly call it empathy, which has a particularly complimentary connotation among us mental health professionals. Certainly, he does have an eerie — but somewhat pitiful — skill at using interpersonal insights to his advantage.
Interesting prank targets San Francisco’s movers and shakers. [via boing boing]
“The 21st century can’t
possibly be as awful as the 20th.” Review of Zeitgeist.
“In his epic new novel, Bruce Sterling leaves technophilia behind and sides with humanity.” Salon
Shakespeare a dope smoker? “Scientists believe they may have discovered the source of William
Shakespeare’s genius smoking cannabis, a British newspaper has reported.
Researchers are investigating whether the secret of the Bard’s creativity was
his dopesmoking, according to the Independent on Sunday. Pipes found at Shakespeare’s home in StratforduponAvon, central England,
are being tested for traces of the drug, the paper said.” The Age [via Null Device]
R.I.P.: David Brower Dies At 88. IMHO, the most important, evangelical environmental activist since John Muir, responsible for the influence of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth.
“More interesting than threatening…”: Scientists Downplay ‘Space Object’. “Scientists who announced last week that a
mysterious space object had a 1-in-500 chance of striking the
Earth in 30 years have retracted their prediction, saying it poses
little threat.
The object, which is either a small asteroid or piece of space
junk, has virtually no chance of hitting the planet in 2030.
However, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena
said there’s a 1-in-1,000 chance it could hit Earth in 2071.”
Funding to Deorbit Mir Confirmed, Russian Official Says. ‘The Russian government has set aside the $25 million needed to
bring down the Mir space station, an official said.
“The Russian government has already taken the decision to provide the financial resources
needed to deorbit Mir,” said Russian space agency chief Yuri Koptev. The statement runs
contrary to some media reports.’ Reuters
Studies Find Ways to Diagnose, Treat Alzheimer’s Several potential advances. First, positron emission tomography (PET) scanning of the brain apparently shows a distinctly different pattern of brain activity in Alzheimer’s Disease than in other brain dysfunctions with which it may be confused. Up ’til now, no diagnostic technique short of autopsy has been shown to improve on the educated guess we make to diagnose the condition.
A definitive diagnosis might be important if there were therapies that target the specific disease process in Alzheimer’s, which appears to be the deposition of rogue proteins in the brain in characteristic configurations called “plaques” and “tangles”. These progressively destroy normal brain tissue and interfere with cognitive functioning. The disease is incurable and inevitably fatal. A team at Johns Hopkins have now identified the enzyme that is the major player in forming plaques. Growing mice genetically engineered to be deficient in this enzyme will give a first approximation to whether blocking the enzyme could be a potential preventive or therapeutic measure agains Alzheimer’s, or whether it would have any adverse consequences.
Palestinians Try to Keep Children Away From Clashes. Latest development in this reprehensible Children’s Crusade. Israel is surely guilty of using excessive force against the uprising especially in light of the fact that many demonstrators, and many casualties, are youths. Palestinians claim that schoolchildren’s participation is spontaneous (here’s a spokesperson’s view: “the children take part because they feel the loss of
relatives along with a sense of grievance that their rights have been violated by Israeli
occupation” ) but it’s difficult for me to believe they’re not being used as cannon fodder either by toleration or active encouragement of that “sense of grievance.” We’ll see if the reported Palestinian effort to spare their children bears fruit.
On the other hand, here‘s a wonderfully written, heartfelt and earnest journal from a Palestinian woman under Israeli occupation.
Court: Prosecutors Can’t Invoke God for Death Penalty. “A federal appeals court panel
overturned a death sentence passed against a convicted
murderer on Monday, saying prosecutors should not have argued
that God sanctioned capital punishment.
In vacating the death sentence against Alfred Sandoval, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said
it was improper for prosecutors to suggest to the jury that “destroying Sandoval’s mortal
body might be the only way to save Sandoval’s eternal soul.” He also said the penalty would
be a wake-up call.” Reuters
George Will, in an op-ed piece titled The Case for Bush , makes the opposite case, IMHO.
For the official World Series magazine, Gore and Bush provided
written answers to some questions pertaining to baseball, including, “What
do you think of domed stadiums?” Gore’s complete answer was: “The design and
construction of domed stadiums–in Seattle (the Kingdome was the first
free-standing cement dome ever built), Houston (the Astrodome was the first
stadium to use Astroturf) and Minnesota (the Metrodome is the only stadium
in the US whose roof is suspended without beams or rods–it’s supported by
air pressure), for example–have been feats of architectural and engineering
excellence. But the real measure of any stadium, domed or otherwise, is how
much fun you have inside.” Bush’s complete answer was: “I like to go to
baseball games outdoors.” Washington Post
But then again, as I noted the other day, the American people don’t seem at all scared of having an intellectually deficient man in the White House. I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’m sure that there are those among Dubya’s handlers who will have an extra special reason to celebrate should their man win, knowing who’ll really be running the country behind the scenes. Let’s hope it’ll at least be better than Nancy Reagan and her astrologers this time.
Context is a quarterly publication intended to create a historical and cultural context in which to
read modern and contemporary literature. Its goal is to encourage the development of a literary
community.Its latest issue has several dense but thoughtful articles, among them a description by Curtis White of the cultural criticism of George W. S. Trow. Trow’s “real contribution to the
genre is a very persuasive ability to determine
when a social formation is alive and dominant, and when it is dead….Trow argues that for the last fifty years the
United States, at the height of its world dominance and authority, has been caught in a
process of persistent social devolution that has left us with a world dominated by television
and the likes of David Letterman. It is a world emptied of all honor and truthfulness, and
whose only depth is the abysmal depth of self-reflection and ‘ironic self-contempt.’ ” Along the way, he has a very interesting analysis of the failure of the ’60’s counterculture, which he calls “vitalitarianism” insofar as he sees its central force to be the opposition to the “creeping catatonia” of television and the tabloids. In its wake, it left “our moment, …isolated, utterly lacking context, illiterate, illiberal, empty
of useful information, narcissistic,
and incapable of a single serious moment. That’s our post-Reagan, Clinton-in-ascendance,
cultural dominant. And damned if I know why Trow is wrong to say so.” Perhaps caught up in the ironic spirit, White wonders why, “…if Trow has a
brilliant grasp of when a ‘cultural aesthetic’ is alive and when dead (and he does), how is it
that he could, for thirty years, make these critical and intellectually lively distinctions from
within something that is itself dead?” He is referring to Trow’s career as a staff writer for the New Yorker, which White makes a point of explaining why he does not read (he doesn’t find the cartoons funny, among other reasons).
Plants show their bright side. A leading biologist warns us to underestimate the intelligence of plants at our peril. Telegraph
Stop Smiling, Start Griping: Why gloom is good for you ‘…Pessimism and negativity may have their
advantages. Curmudgeons may cope better than those who
succumb to the “tyranny of the positive attitude”. ‘ Telegraph
Compounds Also Present In Alcoholic Beverages May Explain Chocolate Cravings. ‘A Spanish researcher has a new clue to what motivates “chocoholics”:
a group of chemicals that might contribute to the good feelings
associated with binging on the tasty treat. The finding is reported in the
current (October 16) issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry… The researchers are the first to find that ordinary cocoa and chocolate
bars contain a group of alkaloids known as tetrahydro-beta-carbolines,
according to Tomas Herraiz, a researcher at the Spanish Council for
Scientific Research in Madrid, Spain. In previous research, the same
chemicals were linked to alcoholism, he said. The family of
compounds, which are also known as neuroactive alkaloids, continues
to be investigated for possible influences on mood and behavior.”
Effect of death of Diana, Princess of Wales on suicide and
deliberate self-harm . “The death of the Princess of Wales in 1997 was followed by widespread public mourning. Such major events may influence
suicidal behaviour. To assess the impact of the Princess’s death on suicide and deliberate self-harm (DSH), analysis of the number of suicides and open verdicts (‘suicides’) in England and Wales following the
Princess’s death compared to the 3 months beforehand, and the equivalent periods in 1992-1996, and similar analysis on DSH presentations to
a general hospital, revealed that suicides increased during the month following the Princess’s funeral by approximately 17%. (The author concludes that) the death of a major public figure can influence rates of suicidal behaviour. For DSH, the impact may be immediate, but
for suicide it may be delayed.” British Journal of Psychiatry
Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit
A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who
have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit
seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law
professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American
blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation
dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a
change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,
raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July
and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP
Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit
A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who
have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit
seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law
professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American
blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation
dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a
change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,
raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July
and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP
Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit
A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who
have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit
seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law
professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American
blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation
dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a
change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,
raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July
and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP
Celluloid Visions Are What Dance in My Head. “No matter how many
good baking and roasting
smells waft through the house or apartment, no matter how
old-fashioned and bountifully decorated the Highland Fraser
fir, no matter how many halls are decked with boughs of
holly and how many carols about merry gentlemen and lords
a-leaping are sung, my Christmases will always have a tragic
flaw. They’re not taking place in England.
These expectations are primarily the fault of the 1951 British
film version of A Christmas Carol, directed by Brian
Desmond-Hurst and starring Alastair Sim as a sympathetic if
rather bug-eyed Ebenezer Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge’s clerk, Bob
Cratchit, may be poor, but the holiday dinner at his house is
the epitome of Yuletide merriment.”
Pollution News Update: First, Supreme Court to Consider Air Pollution Rules. In what is considered the most important environmental case since the adoption of the Clean Air Act 30 years ago, business groups who have failed to get Congress to gut environmental regulations ever since are taking their appeal for relief to the Supreme Court, attempting to argue that the EPA is overstepping its regulatory authority. Because newly promulgated regulations tighten up air pollution standards further at great cost to polluters, industrial concerns are attempting to reverse the principle that environmental regulations can consider health effects without regard to cost-benefit analysis. And: What’s This About Cultural Pollution? “Popular culture is getting more and more juvenile, and
the serious arts, or what used to be the serious arts, often emulate popular culture,
depressingly. But we can be disappointed in our arts without being made coarser as a society.
There’s a difference. Why as a nation do we periodically presume that society is coarsened by
culture? That’s the real question.” Although of course it’s not one or the other, I think the
argument is stronger that the degradation of culture is not a cause so much as an effect of
societal decay. Serious artistic expression seems to me to have lost the power to shape the
zeitgeist. A heroic, thoughtful artist can hope at best to reflect, and reflect upon, it. New York
Times
Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit
A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who
have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit
seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law
professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American
blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation
dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.“We will be seeking more than just monetary compensation,” Ogletree said. “We want a
change in America. We want full recognition and a remedy of how slavery stigmatized,
raped, murdered and exploited millions of Africans through no fault of their own.”Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July
and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month. AP
Nowhere to go: Britain’s Toilets Find New Uses as pubs, cafes, offices and theaters. Fans of urban regeneration have long admired the Victorian edifices and wanted them preserved, but as loos or something else? Washington Post
Pro-toilet forces boost them as tourist attractions; here‘s the Loo of the Year award site.
A bit belated but: R.I.P. Steve Allen, Television’s Font of Wit . Washington Post critic Tom Shales quotes Steve Allen’s wife, Jayne Meadows, who said of her marriage: “I live polygamously with eight men: a published writer of earthy prose and poetry; a deep thinker; a comedian; a pianist; a composer; a crusader; a motion picture star, and a tender father.”
Europe told there is no choice but to adapt
to extremes of climate
which will cause new deserts in the south
and floods and wind storms in the north,
according to a new report before the
European commission. The Guardian
Giant Deep-Sea Creature Amazes Spanish Scientists. “Fishermen off northern Spain have
captured a giant specimen of a strange, light-emitting,
deep sea cephalopod, scientists said Friday.
The octopus-like creature, a taningia danae, weighs in at 275 pounds, measures seven feet
and is easily the biggest of its type discovered.” Reuters
How Jaded Are We? Russian-U.S. Crew Sets Up in Space. I’ve been amazed there hasn’t been more excitement about the fact that humans have for the first time taken up permanent extraterrestrial residency.
New Moons For Saturn:
“Which planet has the most moons?
For now, it’s Saturn. Four newly discovered satellites
bring the ringed planet’s total to twenty-two, just
edging out Uranus’ twenty-one for the most known
moons in the solar system.” Astronomy Picture of the Day
You’ve got hate mail: “Steve and Jean
Case’s $8.35
million donation to
a school affiliated
with an anti-gay
ministry prompts a
call for a boycott of
AOL.” Salon
Not with a bang but a whimper: A Wilderness Ecosystem in Collapse. The vast subarctic ecosystem of the Aleutian Islands has suddenly gone to hell in a handbasket. In just a handful of years, there has been a catastrophic reduction in the biodiversity of the Gulf of Alaska, and no one knows why. Sea mammals, crustaceans and varieties of fish, and the kelp forests that were the foundation fothe food chain have vanished. Scientists are beginning to unravel the tangled, cascading chain of effects that has led to this “regime shift”; and it’s not encouraging how fragile a web the ecosystem turns out to be. As usual, the ultimate causes of such a disastrous upset to the vital balance appear to be manmade efffects. “If this rugged, remote ecosystem is
collapsing, can any place on Earth be safe?”Indeed, there is growing suspicion that other ocean realms are undergoing such a drastic change, just with no one there to see. LA Times
Annals of the Decline and Fall (cont’d.): Films aren’t as good as they used to be, it is generally conceded. ‘Foreign-language “art house” films are still being made but… they
are a diminished force in our cultural life – on cinema and television screens and in
the eyes of the critics.’ Will serious thoughtful filmmaking survive “Hollywood’s
feelgood factor”?
WWGD? Gandhi’s Spirit Hovers as India Debates Iodized Salt. “India has made
tremendous progress in
eradicating the ancient
scourge of iodine deficiency
— the single most
preventable cause of mental
retardation — by making
cheap, iodized salt available
to most of its billion people.
But a recent government
decision has jeopardized
these advances, medical
researchers say.
Indeed, India’s entire
scientific establishment,
including the Indian Medical
Association and the Indian
National Science Academy,
seems aghast that Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
and his Health Ministry lifted a two-year-old ban on the sale
of noniodized salt in September. In doing so, the
government bowed to a lobbying campaign by Hindu
nationalists, Gandhians and small- scale salt producers.
…Those on both sides of iodization claim to be the true
inheritors of Gandhi’s legacy. The scientists say Gandhi
would be happy that salt has become a way to ensure that
even India’s poorest children do not have their intelligence
dulled by a lack of iodine, while some followers of Gandhi
contend that he would object to the compulsory iodization
of salt.” New York Times
Switched on: “In lab mice all over the world, genes are being turned
on and off like light bulbs to find out what they do.
Scientists have rewound Huntington’s disease,
probed the roots of memory and staged the onset of
prion disease. And that’s just in the brain. The man
who made it all possible is Hermann Bujard, chairman
of the Centre for Molecular Biology at the University
of Heidelberg, Germany. With his colleagues, Bujard
developed the Tet system which allows genes to be
controlled remotely–from outside a living organism.
What started as a hobby has spawned two thousand
research papers and contributed to work that led to a
Nobel prize last month–for somebody else.” New Scientist
Making them fit the genital norms: “The rationale for clitoridectomy in (the 19th century) was
straightforwardly terrible, and ridiculously unscientific. By contrast,
modern theories seem slightly more humane, but when you get down to
it, the same question of gender links the Victorian Age’s clitoridectomy
to its Dot-Com Age cousin. We have been altering the healthy genitals
of our children-—boys as well as girls-—for 135 years so that a girl will
look and act like a girl, and a boy will look and act like a boy, according
to social norms. The strict division between female and male bodies and
behavior is our most cherished and comforting truth.
“All over this country there are people whose clitorises have been
removed, either totally or partially. They range from your great-aunt’s
roommate in the nursing home to your neighbor’s two-year-old. They
include hundreds of women from every generation. Some were born
clearly female; some were born clearly male but were reassigned as
female and then had their genitals altered; and some were babies whose
sex was not so easy to define. Although statistics for childhood clitoral
surgery are extremely difficult to gather, one can extrapolate a figure
from the number of babies born each year in the U.S., the number born
with conditions that produce enlarged clitorises, and the number-—most
of them-—who will undergo clitoroplasty. Approximately five times a
day in the U.S., surgeons change the size and shape of a child’s healthy
clitoris. Few of these children are capable of expressing what they want.
Some, if given the choice later in life, might choose clitoroplasty. But
judging from the responses of women who had the surgery done either
without their agreement or at an age when they were too young to know
what they were agreeing to, many would have preferred to stay the way
they were.” Ms. Magazine
A bad place to have schizophrenia? Budgetary concerns in the British National Health Service have led to doctors ‘rationing the best mental health drugs’ in a way that even U.S. “managed care” has not succeeded in doing. The newer atypical antipsychotic medications (clozapine, risperidone, olanzapine and quetiapine) are such an improvement over conventional antipsychotics for the treatment of schizophrenia and related conditions that they have made the older conventional antipsychotic medications all but obsolete in North America and the rest of Europe. They are effective against a broader range of the symptoms with which afflicted patients are beset, and they are far safer and more tolerable. Consultants advise that all patients requiring antipsychotic treatment in the UK receive these atypical medications as well, but in fact fewer than one in eight do. The official NHS position is that there have not been enough trials to establish the superiority of the newer drugs, although this flies in the face of the experience of every clinician treating psychotic disorders.
The real concern is that these newer medications are vastly more expensive — sometimes approaching a hundred times the cost of the older, side-effect-riddled medications, which are often available in generic form. “But if you compare with the cost of long term
treatments for other conditions like diabetes
the atypicals aren’t that expensive,” said a spokesperson for the British National Schizophrenia Fellowship; not to mention the costs of recurrent hospitalization when patients are not compliant with the older less desireable medications. Critics suggest that the
reluctance to pay for newer treatments is a
form of discrimination against people with a
mental illness.
“Part of the problem is that it’s difficult to
measure things like quality of life, but if you
look at other areas of health care, when a new
drug comes along with much fewer
side-effects, then the old treatments are
unceremoniously dumped even if they are
cheaper.” BBC
