“Some might call this multitasking. Others regard it as just plain rude. Either way, it’s a sign of the electronic times, raising questions about workplace behavior in a wired world. From iPods to hand-held devices, cell phones, and e-mail, ‘tech-etiquette’ remains an unresolved issue for many bosses and workers. ” (CBS)
Switch-a-Vision:
Electric spectacles could aid aging eyes: “A new type of eyeglasses with electrically adjustable focus might someday render bifocals and reading glasses obsolete, the device’s inventors say. So far, the researchers have made a battery-powered prototype with close-up focus that flicks on and off with a switch.
Future versions of the eyeglasses may incorporate a distance sensor to automatically adjust the focus as the viewer’s gaze changes between far and near viewing, says one of the inventors…” (Science News)
Me, I’m perfectly happy with my binocular vision contact lens system. No bifocals or reading glasses even though I am both presbyopic and myopic.
Researchers Use Tongue as Interface
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“Perhaps you’ve already tried 3D goggles and virtual gloves. And you might know about innovative new interface technologies that put full keyboard functionality in just a single hand. But now, if researchers are able to commercialize a new project, you might also be using your tongue to interact with your PC.” (Sci-Tech-Today)
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Is Our Sun Part of a Binary Star System?
. . . but what if it’s a girl?
“The Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act is powerful indeed, but rarely enforced. Passed after India realised that modern medical techniques such as ultrasound scans and amniocenteses were frequently being used to identify female foetuses – which are then aborted – the PNDT Act requires the registration of all ultrasound machines, and bans doctors from revealing the sex of the foetus to expectant parents. The 1994 law was an attempt to reverse India’s rampant use of sex-selective abortion, and the lopsided sex ratio this has produced. India’s 2001 census showed that there were 927 girls to every 1,000 boys, down from 945:1,000 in 1991 and 962:1,000 in 1981. Until recently, no doctors had been put in prison under the PNDT Act. But late last month a doctor was jailed for three years after telling an undercover investigator that her foetus was female, and hinting that she could abort it.
…In 1991, not a single district in India had a child sex ratio of less than 800:1,000. By 2001, there were 14. “What we’re dealing with,” says Sabu George, India’s leading activist, “is a genocide.”
…If such trends continue, the future could be nightmarish. In their 2004 book Bare Branches: the security implications of Asia’s surplus male population, the political scientists Andrea den Boer and Valerie Hudson argue that the existence of all these millions of frustrated Asian bachelors will boost crime and lawlessness. They speculate that, to find an outlet for the continent’s sex-starved males, Asian governments might even need to resort to fomenting wars. Indian activists also fear that the girl shortage will create a hyper-macho society.
Spiralling numbers of rapes and rates of violence will lead to the increasing sequestration of women. Men with money will be able to afford wives, who will quickly become a status symbol. “Powerful men would maintain zanankhanas [harems] to demonstrate their power and influence,” writes the activist R P Ravindra. Poorer men, “finding no companions, might resort to any means to force a woman into a sexual/ marital relationship”.
In pockets of India, this has already begun.” (New Statesman )
What Makes a Good Patient?
“Few patients realize how deeply they can affect their doctors. That is a big secret in medicine–one doctors hate to admit. We think about, talk about, dream about our patients. We went into clinical medicine because we like dealing on a personal, even intimate level with people who have chosen to put their bodies in our hands. Our patients make or break our days.
Take the compliment. Our career choice means we really do think that you–with your aches and pains–are more interesting than trading hot securities, more fun than a courtroom full of lawyers. Massaging the ego is the key to manipulating responsible types like doctors. When we feel your trust, you have us.
The most compelling reasons to be a good patient are selfish ones. You will get more than free drug samples if your doctor is comfortable and communicates easily with you. You’ll get more of the mind that you came for, a mind working better because it’s relaxed–recalling and associating freely, more receptive to small, even subliminal clues. That means better medical care. But you should try to be a good patient for unselfish reasons too…” (Time)
If Past Is Prologue, George Bush Is Becoming An Increasingly Dangerous President
John Dean: “President George W. Bush’s presidency is a disaster – one that’s still unfolding. In a mid-2004 column, I argued that, at that point, Bush had already demonstrated that he possessed the least attractive and most troubling traits among those that political scientist James Dave Barber has cataloged in his study of Presidents’ personality types.
Now, in early 2006, Bush has continued to sink lower in his public approval ratings, as the result of a series of events that have sapped the public of confidence in its President, and for which he is directly responsible. This Administration goes through scandals like a compulsive eater does candy bars; the wrapper is barely off one before we’ve moved on to another.
Click here to find out more!
Currently, President Bush is busy reshuffling his staff to reinvigorate his presidency. But if Dr. Barber’s work holds true for this president — as it has for others – the hiring and firing of subordinates will not touch the core problems that have plagued Bush’s tenure.
That is because the problems belong to the President – not his staff. And they are problems that go to character, not to strategy.” (FindLaw)
Fraternal Association of Failed Republicans of America – or the Democratic Party?
Which Do You Think Can Win?: “What the Democratic hiearchy wants is an election about nothing. A giant ‘You are about to give George Bush Absolute Power for Four More Years. Are you sure? (YES) (NO)’ Believing, quite rightly that most people will click ‘No’ at this point. But beyond that, the Democratic Party is primarily a mutual career protection institution, a kind of ‘Fraternal Association of Failed Republicans of America’. This FAFRA version of the party wants the same things the Republicans want: lower taxes, regime change in Iraq, a drug company benefit funded through medicare, a bigger military, a more militarized nastier America, progressive reduction in access to abortion – just read Her Royal Clintoness’ actual pronouncements and you have a pretty good idea of what FAFRA looks like: Bush lite. Tastes late, less shilling.
This isn’t what the party base wants, but the party base is so abused that it is lining up behind it, willing to get screwed over by their leadership, because they are realizing that the alternative to Bush lite, is getting Bush whacked. Finally an election where the slogan of the Democratic hierarchy of the last 10 years: ‘Vote for us, serfs – or it’s so much the worse for you’ can actually work.” (BoP)
The Jerk at the Podium
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Scott McClellan Steps Away: “‘McClellan, Bush, Cheney, and Rove proved there were other ways. Replace news management with press nullification. Drop the persuasion model, in favor of the politics of assent. Choose non-communication to demonstrate that you ought not to be questioned (it only helps our enemies.)'” — Jay Rosen (PressThink)
Rove May Soon Be Shedding More of his Duties…
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Grand Jury Hears Evidence Against Rove: “Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.” (truthout)
Dr. Tom Ferguson, R.I.P.
Tom Ferguson Dies at 62 (New York Times ). I met Tom Ferguson, who graduated from Yale Medical School two years before I entered, only once when I had the honor of inviting him back to Yale to give a talk to my medical student class. But I have followed his career closely and feel this as a personal loss. Ferguson, who never had a private practice and once said he had “saved hundreds of lives by not practicing clinical medicine”, was a fierce advocate of self-help and empowerment of medical consumers, an ethos I have tried to import into my psychiatric work. He was closely associated with the Whole Earth Catalog and -Review cabal and founded and edited the ‘spin-off’ journal Medical Self Care (1979-85). He was probably the closest thing the U.S. health care establishment ever saw to the Chinese barefoot doctor tradition. He was a mercurial and infectiously genial man and his premature death is a loss for the entire medical establishment, which needed him now more than when he burst into its ranks thirty years ago.
Lara Croft as ‘Final Girl’
The columnist starts out positing that Lara Croft brings horny adolescent male ogling to its quintessence, but ends up proposing a considerably stranger notion of How Lara Croft Steals Hearts:
“The Final Girl theory emerged in 1985, when Carol Clover — a medievalist and feminist film critic — was dared by a friend to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Back then, most feminist theorists loathed slasher films, and regarded them as classic examples of male misogyny. It wasn’t hard to figure out why: Thousands of young men were trooping into theaters to cheer wildly as masked psychos hacked apart screaming young women. That really didn’t look good.
But as Clover sat in the theaters, she noticed something curious. Sure, the young men would laugh and cheer as the villain hunted down his female prey. But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman — the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance — and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho.
This, Clover argued, was not mere garden-variety sexism. On the contrary, it was a generation of young guys who apparently identified strongly with the situation of a woman who faced agonizing peril yet came out victorious. The slasher dynamic was unprecedented in film history: ‘The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights — or outgazes — her assailant (was) unthinkable,’ Clover wrote. With this new crop of slasher movies, the young men in the audience essentially became the Final Girl: exhausted, freaked out and ultimately triumphant. They weren’t just ogling the sexual violence. They were submitting to it.
The sexuality of young men, Clover concluded, is profoundly weirder than you’d imagine.
I think she’s right, and what’s more, I think her idea maps perfectly onto the success of Tomb Raider. ” (Wired via walker)
‘Westerners are too self-absorbed’
The Dalai Lama interviewed: “‘It is fascinating,’ he says, speaking in slightly stilted English. ‘In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences – yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don’t bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours; you have more food than you could possibly eat, yet that makes women like Heidi miserable.’
The West’s big problem, he believes, is that people have become too self-absorbed. ‘I don’t think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice – which brings no real freedom.'” (Telegraph.UK thanks to walker)
“There are going to have to be sweeping personnel changes if people are going to take a second look at the Bush presidency.”
Republicans to Bush: Dump Cheney for Condi: “Republicans are urging President George W Bush to dump Dick Cheney as vice-president and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public.
They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start.
The jittery Republicans claim Bush’s mini-White House reshuffle last week will do nothing to forestall the threat of losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.” (Times of London)
Related: Consider a Condi Rice wall poster to celebrate your support of dumping Cheney and Rummie?
Bush Meets With Think Tank On Iran
Bush Meets Privately With Think Tank Promoting Military Strike On Iran: “This tidbit about President Bush’s schedule was buried in today’s Washington Post:
Bush traveled Friday night to Stanford University, where he met privately with members of the libertarian Hoover Institution to discuss the war. He concluded the day with a private dinner held by George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and former secretary of state.
Why is this significant? The Hoover Institution is a think tank that has been aggressively promoting the viability of a preemptive military strike in Iran.” (Think Progress)
Hollywood’s One Remaining Taboo
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“Hollywood, which has often stepped cautiously around the subject of interracial sex, is definitely doing something different with Black Snake Moan.” (New York Times )
“There are going to have to be sweeping personnel changes if people are going to take a second look at the Bush presidency.”
Republicans to Bush: Dump Cheney for Condi: “Republicans are urging President George W Bush to dump Dick Cheney as vice-president and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public.
They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start.
The jittery Republicans claim Bush’s mini-White House reshuffle last week will do nothing to forestall the threat of losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.” (Times of London)
Related: Consider a Condi Rice wall poster to celebrate your support of dumping Cheney and Rummie?
Cognitive Hedges
Social Networks Protect Against Alzheimer’s (ScienceDaily)
Brain training can change autistic behaviour (New Scientist)
Oregon Man Survives 12 Nails to the Head
“An Oregon man who went to a hospital complaining of a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull from a suicide attempt with a nail gun, doctors say.
Surgeons removed the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill, and the man survived with no serious lasting effects, according to a report on the medical oddity in the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.” (Yahoo! News)
Iran & the Bomb
Christopher de Bellaigue, writing in The New York Review of Books: “It is not unthinkable that an imaginative solution will be found to the immediate diplomatic impasse. (The ICG, for instance, proposes that the Iranians be permitted to have a small and heavily monitored enrichment facility, but to commission it only after several years of building confidence with the IAEA and the EU countries, among others.) That would be good news, but the underlying issue would still need to be addressed. That issue is what Iran’s conservative leaders need to do to save themselves from being overwhelmed by George Bush’s administration, whose plan to transform the Middle East has no room for undemocratic ayatollahs.”
Christopher de Bellaigue is the author of In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran.
The Anti-Semitic Hoax That Refuses to Die
“For more than a century The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has made its way into many languages, selling untold numbers of copies, portraying Jews as demonic schemers.
Said to be the minutes of a secret council of Jews discussing their plot for world domination, this slim volume, first published in Russia in 1905, has become a nearly sacred text for political and religious movements ranging from American nativism and German Nazism to Arab Islamicism.” (New York Times )
Eliot Weinberger : What I heard about Iraq in 2005
“In 2005 I heard that… “ (London Review of Books)
The Best a Man Can Get
In search of the perfect shave: “As the ‘tech editor’ for NBC’s Today Show, Corey Greenberg spends most of his on-air time shilling for the latest technological gadgets. (Literally, shilling—last April the Wall Street Journal revealed that several technology companies had paid him handsomely for his promotional efforts.) He can tell you why you need a video iPod, what you’re missing without satellite radio, and where to put the fifty-inch flat screen tv. But on January 29, 2005, he was enthusiastically undermining half a century’s worth of high technology.
In the Today Show studio, Greenberg lathered up his face with English shaving cream and a badger brush, whipped out a vintage double-edge razor, and made a passionate case that the multi-billion-dollar shaving industry has been deceiving its customers ever since 1971, when Gillette (no small advertiser on network television) introduced the twin-blade razor. Everything you need for a fantastically close and comfortable shave, Greenberg said, was perfected by the early 20th century.
With his Today Show segment, Greenberg became the highest-profile convert to ‘wet shaving.’ He is still one of its most fervent evangelists, with—what else?—a blog, www.shaveblog.com. At 120,000 words and counting, Greenberg’s blog could best be described as gonzo shave journalism. He explores every nook and, for that matter, nick of the wet shaving experience, whose defining elements are a single sharp blade (whether ensconced in a safety razor or exposed in the fearsome straight-edge), a brush, soap, and lots of hot water.
But Greenberg’s blog is just the most visible salient of a movement that has all the ingredients to reach its tipping point.” (Christianity Today)
As someone who has shaved only three times in the last thirty years (on Jan. 1, 1981; Jan. 1, 1991; and Jan. 1, 2001), I am envious that I will likely not be partaking in the phenomenon of the Epicurean shave…
Beckett remembering himself
A review of Beckett Remembering / Remembering Beckett, Uncollected interviews with Samuel Beckett and memories of those who knew him, edited by James Knowlson and Elizabeth Knowlson:
“Towards the end of his life, Samuel Beckett, confronting the prospect of a major creative impasse, wrote to the theatre director George Tabori about the abiding illusion that had sustained him throughout his long career: “While still ‘young’ I began to seek consolation in the thought that then if ever, i.e. now, the true words at last, from the mind in ruins. To this illusion I continue to cling”. With typical economy, Beckett’s statement brings home some of the major themes of his post-war writing, his dream of stripping away the accoutrements of language, culture and personality – the “accidentals” of our existence – to see what remains. Yet beyond the strikingly Beckettian image of “the mind in ruins”, the statement is also sounding out the farrago of times and tenses that make up our minds on matters of remembrance – here, the way in which the future “then” of a young man anticipating how it will be shifts to the “now” of an old man remembering how it was. Finding the right form for expressing the tangled relations between memory, self and language was something that preoccupied Beckett throughout his writing life… It has become something of a critical commonplace to suggest that memory is another name for invention in Beckett’s work, a way of creating self-consoling stories to accompany us in the dark…” (Times of London)
Not that I liken myself to Beckett, but the personal resonances for me are powerful…
How Much Do You Have to Know?
Trust your own reactions, don’t seek enlightenment: “We all have a part of ourselves that cries out for certainty and meaning. If we encounter a contemporary artwork one of the first things we ask is: “What does it mean?” We can be uncomfortable with not knowing, not being sure, not having the safe ground of the authorised, correct interpretation. When encountering an artwork we seek the explanatory panel.” — Grayson Perry (Times of London)
But this is not just about why we feel the need to ‘explain’ art:
“An article in The Guardian by Madeleine Bunting touched on a trait I’ve been noticing in myself and others. Her piece was about how in talk about the global war on terror the European Enlightenment is often wheeled out as an opposing force to fanatical religious fundamentalism. She questioned the way it was used to validate arguments against religion. She was surprised by the vehemence with which contributors to her blog discussion defended what they believed was a correct history of the Enlightenment.”
As Perry concludes, “I wonder if a similar dialogue went on in someone’s head that started: “I fancy invading Iraq in the name of enlightened democracy.””
Two Cultures Revisited
If there are problems with science-for-humanities-students courses (commonly referred to as “physics for poets”) (Inside Higher Ed), what about humanities for budding scientists? (New York Times )
Psychiatric experts found to have financial links to drugmakers
As a Whorfian, who believes that the language we use to describe it shapes our thought about any endeavor, I have often written about the profound impact of the diagnostic system used in psychiatry, codified in the ‘bible’ (or perhaps it would be more apt to say ‘Chinese restaurant menu’) called the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). Among other things, it cements the hegemony of the biological psychiatrists over the mental health field. Now a new study (by a non-psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist) reveals that “every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses”. The study dovetails my concern with classificatory schemes to another of my rants about modern psychiatry — how it is in the hip pocket of the pharmaceutical industry’s profit machine.
But it is not as if Big Pharma planted its hired guns on the DSM authorship committee to do its bidding, and the study does not establish whether the experts’ financial ties to the industry predated and shaped their involvement in the DSM or resulted from their visibility and achievement. I think it is more likely the latter. The psychotropic drug manufacturers tend to offer their perks — paid speaking engagements, research and consulting contracts — to established authorities in the field. For example, Eli Lily would be interested in subsidizing psychiatrists whose research serves its interests, such as someone who supports the notion that certain premenstrual problems deserve codification as psychaitric disorders when it is interested in using its drug Prozac to treat those disorders. Given that corporate penetration into psychiatric nosology has grown explosively in the past two decades or so, the planned fifth revision of the DSM due out in around five years will be the first to be appreciably tainted by this issue. The American Psychiatric Association (publisher of the DSM)’s decision to require its authors to disclose their financial ties, if there is any honesty about those disclosures, should at least answer the chicken-and-egg question of whether industry subsidy is in place at the time of a psychiatrist’s contribution to the DSM.
The weaker dismissal of concern, such as influential psychiatrist John Kane’s comment that the work of his subpanel on schizophrenia was driven only by science —
“It shouldn’t be assumed there is a true conflict of interest. To me, a conflict of interest implies that someone’s judgment is going to be influenced by this relationship, and that is not necessarily the case.”
— is embarrassing. given that behavioral science research design goes to such lengths to eliminate subtle unconscious biases that shape outcomes. Perhaps it should be seen as the effort to drive the final nail into the coffin of the psychoanalytic roots of psychiatry, Freud’s notion of the mysterious and opaque power of unconscious processes?
Kane and others suggest that the mere revelation of financial ties should not undermine the public’s confidence in psychiatry. In a sense he is right; confidence has long ago been undermined. This, however, may be one of the last straws. Psychiatric care is about helping patietns to take appropriate responsibility for their actions. Physician, heal thyself.
MS06-015/kb908531 Breaks IE, Office, Explorer
“Some machines have the patch installed and are experiencing no problems, while others can barely function. It appears this problem is caused by installing this patch on systems with Hewlett Packard’s Share-to-Web software, nVidia shell extension GUID’s, Kerio Personal Firewall, Roxio DragToDisc / Adaptec DirectCD shell extension, or SolidWorkds 3D CAD products shell extension. In addition to this information, the engineer I spoke with was nice enough to email me the current registry workarounds for each problem. I asked him for a URL to this information and he said he didn’t have one because they were working on a hotfix and had not posted this on the web. So I am. Here’s the workaround information provided to me to help resolve this issue…” (claydawg via digg)
The Worst President in History?
One of America’s leading historians assesses George W. Bush. “In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a ‘failure.’ Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration’s ‘pursuit of disastrous policies.’ In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton — a category in which Bush is the only contestant.
The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. ” — Sean Wilentz (Rolling Stone)
But why Rolling Stone??
Confronting the New Misanthropy
Frank Furedi’s essay takes us to task for our ‘loss of faith in humanity’ and our ‘neo-Malthusian doom and gloom’. Furedi opines that the new misanthropy threatens to make us scared of ourselves, and that we face a choice between resigning ourselves to a ‘culture of fatalism’ or rousing ourselves toward ‘taking control of our futures’. He takes heart in the idea that the human ability to recognize and label evil “shows that we are capable of rectifying acts of injustice.”
Furedi is one of the sp!ked [and isn’t the spelling ever-so-cutesy?] crew whose purpose in life seems to be waging a front-liine battle against any upwelling of the culture of fear and whose sole modus operandi the donning of rose-colored glasses. Ironically, he does not see that the misanthropic strain he decries is the very voice of that human ability to recognize wrongs, as the first step in rectification. Being scared not only of the potential to cock things up royally but — look around — the mess we have made in actuality is necessary, and I pity those who are so hellbent on avoiding that distress that they stick their heads in the sand as deeply as these folks do. Furedi pleads for faith in human potential and belief in the advantages of civilized modernity, and he sounds like nothing so much as an apologist for the status quo — a sheep in wolves’ clothing.
Thought of laughter boosts happy hormones
“Just anticipating a good laugh is enough to increase the level of feelgood hormones in your blood, a conference has heard.” (abc.net.au)
Alphabets are as simple as…
Writing systems may look very different, but they all use the same basic building blocks of familiar natural shapes…
If there is one quality that marks out the scientific mind, it is an unquenchable curiosity. Even when it comes to things that are everyday and so familiar they seem beyond question, scientists see puzzles and mysteries.
Look at the letters in the words of this sentence, for example. Why are they shaped the way that they are? Why did we come up with As, Ms and Zs and the other characters of the alphabet? And is there any underlying similarity between the many kinds of alphabet used on the planet?
To find out, scientists have pooled the common features of 100 different writing systems, including true alphabets such as Cyrillic, Korean Hangul and our own; so-called abjads that include Arabic and others that only use characters for consonants; Sanskrit, Tamil and other ‘abugidas’, which use characters for consonants and accents for vowels; and Japanese and other syllabaries, which use symbols that approximate syllables, which make up words…
The shapes of letters are not dictated by the ease of writing them, economy of pen strokes and so on, but their underlying familiarity and the ease of recognising them. We use certain letters because our brains are particularly good at seeing them, even if our hands find it hard to write them down. In turn, we are good at seeing certain shapes because they reflect common facets of the natural world.” (Telegraph.UK )
When black holes collide
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The evolution of clots
A consideration of the miraculous complexity of the clotting cascade is an opportunity to reflect on ‘intelligent design’ as the logic of ignorance: Steve Jones, paraphrasing Darwin, says that Intelligent Design proponents look at an organic being “as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond their comprehension”. It reminds me of something a philosopher patient of mine said to me today — “There is no excuse for ignorance, but even less for knowledge without action.”
Clearly not a floating log
New photos of ‘Argentinian Nessie’ (Cryptomundo [via boing boing])
Standing Tall
“It’s sad the state we’ve gotten to where, apparently, even firing incompetent executive branch appointees amounts to a win for the terrorists. Back in ’04 we were still enough of a superpower that only turning out a president amounted to a win for the terrorists. That suggests that the terrorists truly have us over a barrel. We are so intimidated by them that we have to hold on to a failed defense secretary presumeably forever. Or until there are no more Muslims with a beef with us. Whichever comes first. It’s cool that we’re standing so tall.” — Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo)
Watching the brain ‘switch off’ self-awareness
“Everybody has experienced a sense of “losing oneself” in an activity – being totally absorbed in a task, a movie or sex. Now researchers have caught the brain in the act. Self-awareness, regarded as a key element of being human, is switched off when the brain needs to concentrate hard on a tricky task, found the neurobiologists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
…The brain’s ability to “switch off” the self may have evolved as a protective mechanism, [the chief researcher] suggests. “If there is a sudden danger, such as the appearance of a snake, it is not helpful to stand around wondering how one feels about the situation,” Goldberg points out.
It is possible that research into how the brain switches self-awareness on and off will help neurologists gain a deeper understanding of autism, schizophrenia and other mental disorders where this functionality may be impaired.” (New Scientist) Another fMRI study.
Gangs turn cocaine into clear plastic products
“Now cocaine smugglers have another trick up their sleeves. Evidence from a clandestine lab in eastern Europe suggests that gangs are trying to hide cocaine by incorporating it into a host of innocent-looking transparent plastic consumer products, such as fish tanks, DVD cases or light fittings for cars. These could be imported en masse with no customs officer giving them a second look.” (New Scientist premium [subscription required for access to full article])
Easter Chocolate, Milking Arguable Health Benefits
“The 90 million chocolate bunnies made for Easter, and the millions more chocolate eggs in the basket, have focused attention again on whether chocolate is a plus or minus for health.” This comes up each year around Valentine’s Day, Easter and Halloween, although for many of us chocolate consumption knows no season. The cardiovascular and antioxidant benefits of chocolate derive from the cocoa itself, and may be offset by the fat and sugar content. Some suggest drinking a cup of cocoa instead. (Medpage Today)
Annals of Emerging Disease
New pathogenic bacterium pinpointed: “Scientists have discovered a previously unknown bacterium lurking in human lymph nodes, a finding that suggests there are many more disease-causing bacteria still to be discovered. The bacterium is thought to cause chronic infections in patients with a rare immune disorder called chronic granulomatous disease (CGD), and the research team is now investigating whether it might be involved in conditions that are more common, such as irritable bowel syndrome.” (Nature)
Net clocks suffering data deluge
“Home network hardware supplier D-Link has been accused of harming the net’s ability to tell the time accurately. Detective work has found that many D-Link routers, switches and wireless access points are bombarding some net time servers with huge amounts of data.” (BBC)
D-Link spokespeople are “aware of the problem” but otherwise evasive as to why they are doing this on a scale no one else apparently has ever felt the need, or had the nerve, to do. Is the company run by an obsessional?
Bombs That Would Backfire
Richard Clarke and Steven Simon: “White House spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.” Richard Clarke and Steven Simon were, respectively, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. (New York Times op-ed)
Family Values Dept.
![//graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/17/us/17protest.xlarge1.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/17/us/17protest.xlarge1.jpg "God Bless OUR Amerika")
Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act: “As dozens of mourners streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.
‘Thank God for Dead Soldiers,’ read one of their placards. ‘Thank God for I.E.D.’s,’ read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.” (New York Times )
A Small-Time Crime With Hints of Big-Time Connections Lights Up the Net
“Bloggers are fascinated by what they see as eerie parallels between Watergate and a phone-jamming scandal in New Hampshire. It has low-level Republican operatives involved in dirty campaign tricks. It has checks from donors with murky backgrounds. It has telephone calls to the White House. What is unclear is whether it is the work of a few rogue actors, or something larger.” (New York Times )
Life in the Green Lane
“…[L]ike fat-free desserts, which sound healthy but can still make you fat, the hybrid car can make people feel as if they’re doing something good, even when they’re doing nothing special at all. As consumers and governments at every level climb onto the hybrid bandwagon, there is the very real danger of elevating the technology at the expense of the intended outcome — saving gas.” (New York Times )
Closing the Barn Door Dept.
Rove Loses a Post in White House Overhaul: “The overhaul of the White House staff continued today as Karl Rove gave up his portfolio as senior policy coordinator to concentrate more on politics and November’s midterm Congressional elections and Scott McClellan stepped down as the president’s chief spokesman.” (New York Times )
Who believes, first of all, that there is a distinction between policy and politics in the Bush dysadministration; and, second of all, that Rove will curtail any of his areas of advice to the Shrub just because his designation has changed? Oh, wait a minute, the American public believe that!
Derailing Bush’s last Latin ally?
Colombia’s leader denies using death squads to wipe out opponents: “Alvaro Uribe’s procession to a second term as Colombia’s President hit a stumbling block yesterday as he responded wildly to allegations that his government colluded with paramilitaries to kill civilians.
Mr Uribe, the last man standing among Washington’s right-wing allies in South America, is riding high in the polls ahead of the presidential election on 28 May. His success is crucial to the White House, which has seen a succession of sympathetic governments defeated in the so-called ‘pink wave’ of left-wing leaders who have swept to power in Latin America.
But allegations that have haunted the short-tempered politician since he won the presidency in 2002 have resurfaced. They involve an alleged conspiracy to assassinate leftists and union leaders, and leaking sensitive information to drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary groups.” (Independent.UK)
Secret Plan To Cut National Park Funding By 30% In 5 Years
‘Climate change is rapidly becoming the most serious threats to the planet’s biodiversity"
Quarter of species gone by 2050, study predicts: “Using several models that project habitat changes, migration capabilities of various species, and related extinctions in 25 ‘hotspots,’ scientists predict that a quarter of the world’s plant and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050.” (MSNBC)
Taxes Flatten but Deep Pockets Still Bulge
“Without any fanfare or philosophical debate, millionaires and middle-class Americans now pay taxes at almost the same rates.
…Has leveling out federal income tax rates produced a cornucopia of financial benefits?
The answer is probably yes — if you’re a millionaire. And probably no — if you’re almost anyone else. Flattened, and thus lower, tax rates have contributed to huge increases in the wealth of the wealthy, but so far most people haven’t seen significant economic improvement.” (LA Times)
What’s On David Attenborough’s iPod?
Sunday Times interview: “Out in the field, as he so often is, he spends the nights in tents listening to music. Before iPods changed everything, he took CDs, always including some demanding music he had never heard — say, Janacek quartets. In the darkness, he would reach for a CD and put it on, not knowing what it was. If he couldn’t stand what he heard, he would grope for another. But he allowed himself to do this only twice. The rule was that he must listen to the third CD. “I had to sit through it, that had to be it. It was a little game.””
Neil Young urges Bush impeachment on protest album
“‘Living with War’ appears to bring Young full circle from a more pro-Bush administration stance he took in the months following the September 11 attacks.
Not long after recording the song ‘Let’s Roll,’ a tribute to passengers who apparently fought back against hijackers on doomed United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, Young came out publicly in support of the U.S. Patriot Act.” (Yahoo! News)
New York Leads Politeness Trend?
Get Outta Here!: “…[S]omehow a city whose residents have long been scorned for their churlish behavior is now being praised for adopting rules and laws that govern personal conduct, making New York an unlikely model for legislating courtesy and decorum.” (New York Times )
Taking the Least of You
The Tissue-Industrial Complex: “Most of us have tissue or blood samples on file somewhere, whether we know it or not. What we don’t typically know is what research they are being used for and how much money is being made from them. And science may want to keep things that way.” (New York Times Magazine)
Does Eating Salmon Lower the Murder Rate?
“Most prisons are notorious for the quality of their cuisine (pretty poor) and the behavior of their residents (pretty violent). They are therefore ideal locations to test a novel hypothesis: that violent aggression is largely a product of poor nutrition. Toward that end, researchers are studying whether inmates become less violent when put on a diet rich in vitamins and in the fatty acids found in seafood.” (New York Times Magazine)
How the Gospel of Judas Emerged
“When the National Geographic Society announced to great fanfare last week that it had gained access to a 1,700-year-old document known as the Gospel of Judas, it described how a deteriorating manuscript, unearthed in Egypt three decades ago, had made its way through the shady alleys of the antiquities market to a safe-deposit box on Long Island and eventually to a Swiss art dealer who ‘rescued’ it from obscurity.
But there is even more to the story.” (New York Times )
Zip Code Boundaries
Map your ZIP Code in Google Maps, using US Census Bureau data.
Related:
Mapping Religion in America
Remarkable county-by-county graphical depictions of various religious moieties in America (Regions of Mind)
How you treat a waiter tells alot about your character
CEOs agree: “…[I]t seems to be one of those rare laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It’s hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about anything, but all interviewed agree with the Waiter Rule.” (USAToday)
It May be Better to Lick Your Toilet Bowl…
…than to type on your keyboard, as one wag pointing to this site put it. Of course, it appears to be a thinly disguised advert for a brand of disinfecting wipes. (MarketWire)
Zip Code Boundaries
Map your ZIP Code in Google Maps, using US Census Bureau data.
Related:
Mapping Religion in America
Remarkable county-by-county graphical depictions of various religious moieties in America (Regions of Mind)
Pentagon planned for Iranian invasion in 2004
The emphasis of this Guardian report is that Britain took part in the Pentagon’s mock Iran invasion “…despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.” Regardless of what one might feel about more British toadyism, the more basic issue is the evidence this constitutes of Pentagon planning for the Iranian invasion beginning as soon as the ‘mission” was “accomplished” in neighboring Iraq. Or did they set their sights on both and plan the two wars in parallel, even earlier?
Taking Bets on Rummy’s Survival?
“Bush has expressed his undying support for embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Can Rummy’s resignation be far behind? With six retired generals, four Army and two Marines, calling for his ouster, Salon’s revelation that Rummy was closely involved in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee reaching the traditional media, can Bush and Rummy hold out?
…And as long as we’re taking bets on how long Rummy might be along, why don’t we throw into the mix the possibility that Lieberman will take this opportunity to vacate a potentially embarrassing and definitely difficult primary race to take the job. Just some things to ruminate on on a Friday night.” — McJoan (Daily Kos)
Goth subculture may protect vulnerable children
“About half of teenage goths have deliberately harmed themselves or attempted suicide, a new study suggests. But joining the modern subculture – which grew out of the 1980s gothic rock scene – may actually protect vulnerable children, researchers say.” (New Scientist)
Serotonin and Depression:
A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature: “In 1998, at the dawn of consumer advertising of SSRIs, Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience Elliot Valenstein summarized the scientific data by concluding, “What physicians and the public are reading about mental illness is by no means a neutral reflection of all the information that is available” [50]. The current state of affairs has only confirmed the veracity of this conclusion. The incongruence between the scientific literature and the claims made in FDA-regulated SSRI advertisements is remarkable, and possibly unparalleled.” (PLoS Medicine)
The Latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder
Disease Mongering: “This advert markets bipolar disorder. The advert can be read as a genuine attempt to alert people who may be suffering from one of the most debilitating and serious psychiatric diseases—manic-depressive illness. Alternatively, the advert can be read as an example of what has been termed disease mongering [1]. Whichever it is, it will reach beyond those suffering from a mood disorder to others who will as a consequence be more likely to see aspects of their personal experiences in a new way that will lead to medical consultations and in a way that will shape the outcome of those consultations. Adverts that encourage “mood watching” risk transforming variations from an emotional even keel into potential indicators of latent or actual bipolar disorder. This advert appeared in 2002 shortly after Lilly’s antipsychotic olanzapine had received a license for treating mania. The company was also running trials aimed at establishing olanzapine as a “mood stabilizer,” one of which was recently published” (PLoS Medicine)
Oh the Stigma of It All
“OK, now we know the ‘neural correlates’ of stigma, what shall we do with that information? What does it mean??” (The Neurocritic)
Beverage Creates a Buzz
“Indians in this remote mountain village in southern Colombia are marketing a particularly refreshing soft drink that harks back to Coca-Cola’s original formula, when ‘coca’ was in the name for a reason. ” (LA Times)
By the way, has anyone developed a taste for the guarana soft drink, Bawls?
Repentance Update: Ending the War vs. Defending Our Anti-War Purity
Arianna Huffington says we face a challenge in embracing former rightwing ideologues as they change their positions on issues like Iraq. She mentions Newt Gingrich and Francis Fukuyama to start. This was a lesson learned by those of us in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War which should not have to be learned all over again. Do we want to stop the war? I agree we should embrace penitant reformed jingoists.
Huffington (who is no stranger herself to the derision provoked by changing one’s stripes; one might argue that there is no zeal like that of the converted) parses the quandary about doing so as being one between pragmatism and “anti-war purity,” which I think gives perhaps abit too much credit to those who do not accept the ‘converts’, making them sound a little tooo high-minded. What she describes as “launching a full-scale, dig-up-all-the-old-dirt attack on those who publicly change their position on the war” is often based not on ideological purity but more primal feelings such as contemtp, ragefulness, spite, and narcissism.
I know I have often been guilty of that holier-than-thou attitude, and I continue to stand by my public position about the impossibility of meaningful dialogue with most of the wingnuts on the right (which I think is a reasonable position to take in the face of their unreasonableness). But Huffington’s post reminded me that our work in the Vietnam-era antiwar movement was inherently wedded to work on ourselves, on empathy and compassion and overcoming our own hatreds. It was much more organically embedded in a counterculture and a social justice, as well as peace, movement. It makes me second-guess even my own calls, as we ramp up to an attack on Iran, for the growth of a massive peace movement, makes me wonder if it would fail if not rooted in a broader social change movement.
Telescope bid to spot alien beams
“A new optical telescope designed solely to detect light signals from alien civilisations has opened for work at the Harvard Smithsonian.” (BBC)
If You Liked the Iraq War, You’ll Love the Iran War
The man who lost New Orleans and accidentally started a civil war in Iraq is going to have a sound strategy for Iran? “If you liked gas at three dollars a gallon, you’ll love it at five dollars or more. If you liked fighting 26 million people in Iraq, you’ll love fighting 68 million in Iran. If you liked turning Sunni Muslims against us, you’ll love turning Sunni and Shiite Muslims against us. If you liked war in the Persian Gulf, you’ll love war all over the Middle East.
If you thought things were bad now, wait till Iran retaliates against our air strikes by bombing Israel. When Israel strikes back, the whole Middle East will have to get sucked into the war. And then the fun really starts.
Do any of you have any confidence that George W. Bush knows what he’s doing when he contemplates starting a war with Iran? Do any of you believe he has carefully thought out all the possibilities and has a plan for every contingency?
I don’t care how Republican you are, that is an inconceivable thought. No one could believe that’s true. The man who lost New Orleans and accidentally started a civil war in Iraq is going to have a sound strategy for Iran?” — Cenk Uygur (Huffington Post)
Dog or Monkey?
“This Video Of President Bush, Speaking This Morning, Presented Entirely Without Comment, Except That You Should Watch For The Part Where He Pants Like A Dog Toward The End.” (Philadelphia Weekly via Just Between Strangers)
Read It? Watched It? Swap It
“…[I]f consumers were asked to place all of their CD’s and DVD’s, for example, in three piles — those they love, those they like well enough to keep and those they would be happy to have taken away — the piles would most likely be equal. Any system that helps people easily trade away what they do not want for what they do want is ‘a beautiful synchronicity,’ Mr. Silverstein said in an interview.” (New York Times )
Google Gulp
Quench Your Thirst for Knowledge: “Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex. Plus, it’s low in carbs! And with flavors ranging from Beta Carroty to Glutamate Grape, you’ll never run out of ways to quench your thirst for knowledge.”
Freebie Finder
“…an automated free stuff aggregator. I’ve designed it to collect free stuff offers from top freebie sites, while filtering out scams and referral pyramids. This site is in beta, and so your suggestions are always welcome. Listed below are the most recent offers found, with their sources to the right. Remember to bookmark the site, it updates every few hours! (A lot of people have been asking: yes, I have plans to add an RSS feed shortly! Check back soon.)”
Caveat emptor: you get what you pay for. IMHO, most free offers are not worth the effort.
Hit-and-Miss List
If you’re in this directory, forget shopping: “You know this is happening at the airports, where security pulls some guy out of the boarding line. You’ve heard about the feds being on the lookout for money launderers in high-stakes financial transactions. But a car dealership? Hey, how about the 7-Eleven? You might be surprised!” — Don Oldenburg (Washington Post op-ed via Book of Joe)
DEA Agent Who Shot Self In Foot Sues Uncle Sam
“A Drug Enforcement Administration agent who stars in a popular online video that shows him shooting himself in the foot during a weapons demonstration for Florida children is suing over the tape’s release, claiming that his career has been crippled and he’s become a laughingstock due to the embarrassing clip’s distribution.” (Smoking Gun)
Technorati tags: DEA laughingstock humiliation video
Hell Is Other People’s Music
“‘Hell,’ said Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘is other people.’ I’d qualify that slightly. People are fine; it’s their music that’s hell.” — Momus (Wired)
Why the Ground is Brown
“From space, Earth looks blue and green. But put your nose to the ground, and you’ll probably see just brown. Where does the brown ground come from?” (LiveScience)
As profound a question as why the sky is blue, although it didn’t occur to us to ask until the ’70’s when we could see the whole earth from space.
R.I.P. Rev. William Sloane Coffin
Civil Rights and Antiwar Inspiration Dies at 81: “The Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., a civil rights and antiwar campaigner who sought to inspire and encourage an idealistic and rebellious generation of college students in the 1960’s from his position as chaplain of Yale University, then reveled in the role of lightning rod thrust upon him by officials and conservatives who thought him and his style of dissent dangerous, died yesterday at his home in Strafford, Vt. He was 81.” (New York Times )
![//www.onpointradio.org/content/2003/12/18/1218credo140.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/www.onpointradio.org/content/2003/12/18/1218credo140.jpg "Rev. Wm. Sloane Coffin, Jr., R.I.P.")
Judges Set Hurdles for Lethal Injection
“Judges in several states have started to put up potentially insurmountable roadblocks to the use of lethal injections to execute condemned inmates.
Their decisions are based on new evidence suggesting that prisoners have endured agonizing executions. In response, judges are insisting that doctors take an active role in supervising executions, even though the American Medical Association’s code of ethics prohibits that.” (New York Times)
Related:
Spinning Hope on Incarceration Station: “Death row, home to 83 men, is where KLSP-FM (91.7), which prison officials say is the nation’s only licensed prison radio station, finds its most dedicated audience and inspiration for its core mission: spreading the word of Jesus (and an occasional message from the warden) to men doomed to die behind bars.” (New York Times )
Firefox 3.0 leaked?
Not exactly: “There’s a story on Digg about how Firefox 3 is now available for download. While this is absolutely true, it should be noted that the major difference between a firefox-3.0a1 build and a firefox-1.6a1 build from a few days ago is the version number. This change does not reflect an official release of Firefox 3.0 Alpha 1, it reflects the fact that the version number was changed. These are still what we call ‘trunk’ builds, and we offer no guarantees about the stability of the code therein.” (NewsForge)
The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order
Outsourcing the drive-through. (New York Times )
Bush Calls Reports of Plan to Strike Iran ‘Speculation’
Bush makes this clumsy denial just like he told us all how reprehensible leaks are. Furthermore, ‘speculative’ predictions do not necessarily prove false.
Are We Really Going To Nuke Iran?
Fred Kaplan decodes our options as follows (highly telescopic; read the article):
“The Madman Theory. In his first few years as president, Richard Nixon tried to force North Vietnam’s leaders to the peace table by persuading them that he was a madman who would do anything to win the war… A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran today returned the volley by dismissing the report as part of a “psychological war” campaign. The danger of this rhetorical escalation (if that’s all it is) is that it can spin out of control. If Washington and Tehran are playing a game of global chicken (as I speculated last week), upping the stakes with nukes is like loading the front bumper with a barrel of dynamite and a crying baby.
The Madman Theory, Variation B. If Iran is immune to such pressures, our European allies might not be. Many of them already regard Bush as a religious zealot and Cheney as a warmonger. If they believe that the White House might really resolve the dispute with Iran by dropping nuclear bombs, they might suddenly start pushing for sanctions—a move they’ve stopped short of, mainly to protect their own trade relations with Tehran—as a comparatively moderate way of pressuring Iran to stop enriching uranium…
Bureaucratic Politics… The Madman Theory presupposes that at least some of Hersh’s sources are using him to disperse disinformation. The Bureaucratic Politics Theory posits that they’re using him to promote one faction within the government. The two theories are not mutually exclusive; a mix of both might be operative.
The Three-Options Theory. Another possibility is that Bush is going to launch some sort of raid on Iran, and if people think he might drop nuclear bombs, they’ll be relieved—they’ll consider it a relatively moderate gesture—if he confines the attack to conventional bombs…
Or … Or maybe there’s no gamesmanship going on here, maybe Hersh is simply reporting on a nuclear war plan that President Bush is really, seriously considering, a “juggernaut” that might not be stopped. If it’s as straightforward as that, we’re in deeper trouble than most of us have imagined.” (Slate)
Sleep Aberration May Play Role in Near-Death Experience
“So-called near-death experiences — the widely reported sensations, in times of peril, of floating above the body, seeing a white light, and having a sensation of peace — may be related to poorly regulated arousal systems in the brain, according to researchers here.” (MedPage Today) Yes, I think it would be fair to call near-death a state of poorly-regulated arousal…
The Dirty Word in 43 Down (expanded)
A New York Times Crossword Puzzle Gaffe: “If you finished Monday’s crossword puzzle in the New York Times, your answer for 43 Down, clued as ‘Scoundrel,’ was SCUMBAG. Most puzzlers, penciling in these letters, felt nothing more than mild satisfaction. But a small number knew enough to be outraged.” (Slate)
The article makes much of the fact that most people today know the word is derogatory but few feel it is vulgar, being largely ignorant of its origin as a term for a condom. I was amazed to find that the Oxford English Dictionary dates the term back only to 1967, with the first noted use to mean ‘despicable’ in 1971. I was a child in the late ’50’s and early ’60’s experimenting, as we all did unless we were brought up in the finest homes, with vulgarity and scatology, and already back then calling someone a ‘scumbag’ brought that frisson of using a forbidden word otherwise reserved for c-words, s-words, b-words and f-words. Maybe it took awhile to diffuse across the Atlantic, although it has always been my impression that British vulgarity is far more colorful and evocative than the somewhat sad, pitiful hackneyed version in the U.S.
In any case, there is ongoing debate about whether dictionaries should reflect common usage or define normative usage; whichever it is, most dictionary entries on ‘scumbag’ these days have the disparaging but not the vulgar connotation (good thing, because otherwise would we find the word in the dictionary at all?). And so it goes with most vulgarity? It feels as if something is lost when saying ‘fuck’ does not bring on a little shiver blending daring, delight and alarm.
On the other hand, I have wondered if this is not a benefit of the sexual revolution, in a sense. If sex is less shameful, do sexual connotations (and references to other bodily functions) become less disparaging? Since people need expletives, in a sense, could it be that the pejorative connotations of f-words, c-words etc. are more highly conserved than the sexualized flavor? In being wistful about the thrill of uttering a forbidden word, and in conveying the same attitude to my children, am I showing my stripes as a ‘prude’??
More: People interested in this issue would do well to browse through the contents of Maledicta, ‘the international journal of verbal aggression’, available here.
The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM)
Readers of FmH know that, as a psychiatrist, I am deeply concerned about the travesty we have made of diagnosis, largely driven by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). There are many reasons it is flawed, but one of the most important is how far away the basis of classification it shapes is from person-centered knowledge. Now the disenfranchised wing of the profession of psychiatry, the psychoanalytically-driven proponents of the talking cure, fire back, with The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM), a personality-based system of diagnosis and classification. Given their relative lack of power in Western psychiatry in the 21st century, I doubt it will go far, but it is a welcome effort, and I have placed my pre-order.
How to Write a Thank-You Note
A number of webloggers have already linked to this sensible primer by Leslie Harpold. I imagine it is because we recognize our having lost this gracious art ourselves and feeling moved to reclaim it?
“If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.”
Seymour Hersh, one of our most important intelligence assets, writes in the New Yorker on Bush administration plans for the coming war with Iran. A series of quiet meetings have begun and the Iraq situation is being replicated in that only the converted are being preached to and Bush comes out of it taking the lack of dissent as encouragement. Ahmadinejad is routinely demonized as a ‘Hitler’ by this administration which does not know the meaning of the word diplomacy. Prejudice, hysteria, xenophobia and bellicosity have taken the place of any coherent threat assessment about how soon Iran could attain nuclear weapons capacity and what kind of danger that would represent. Just as in the buildup to the Iraq invasion, analysis of intelligence is being bypassed and raw data cherrypicked to fit preconceived agendas. For example, much is being made of supposed Teherani contacts of A.Q.Khan, the proliferation-mongering so-called ‘father of the Pakistani atomic bomb’ now under house arrest in Islamabad. It is unlikely the U.S. will allow the I.A.E.A., U.N. regulatory processes, and European diplomatic efforts to move forward any more than we did before moving on Iraq.
Covert teams of US forces are on the ground in Iran, Hersh reports, and the Air Force is drawing up target lists for a massive air campaign, the aim of which is regime change. The air force has begun flying simulated bombing missions which have all the earmarks of nuclear weapons delivery. Hersh argues that the dispersal and burial of Iranian nuclear facilities combined with the lack of intelligence about which surface manifestations hide strategic resources makes the use of the ‘bunker-busting’ nuclear weapons all but inevitably necessary. Since a prolonged bombing campaign based on a principle of attrition would likely provoke Muslim anger and retaliatory strikes against U.S., Israeli and other European interests around the world, a decisive strike that decapitates Iranian assets in one fell swoop becomes more likely in this messianic vision. Furthermore, we certainly do not have the resources for a prolonged ground war, making a definitive first strike the only feasible option. But there are apparently serious misgivings even among the Joint Chiefs of Staff about planning for the nuclear option. Opponents are shouted down and some are thinking of resigning, which will of course solidify the hardline stance in the administration.
Again, I can’t speak with enough urgency about the necessity for everyone to read the Hersh article and related coverage of what we are planning in Iran. Reach your own conclusions about whether this seems the urgent threat I feel it is. If you believe so, it is time to come together in a massive new movement focused on stopping the administration madmen from a course of action that will result in a nuclear strike on Iran. If we think the world as we knew it ended on Sept. 11, 2001, just wait; could the confrontation be coming as soon as this summer, to help the Republicans out in the November midterm elections? Or certainly before the fall of 2008.
Throughout my life, I have been much more or an activist (literal meaning: “one who is active“, right?) than during the mounting outrages of the Bush years, despite my growing conviction this administration’s insanity presents the greatest threat to life as we know it that I have seen in my lifetime. Somehow I justified my complacency by saying that my weblogging activities are a sufficiently potent form of activism, spreading the word (yeah, right to my all of 300 or so daily visitors??). But none of the righteous weblogging indignation of a community of writers far more articulate and passionate than I am stopped the tragic debacle of the destruction of Iraq. Part of the problem is how inured we have become to the outrages of the Bush era as they have accumulated unceasingly. But the outrages to which we are ramping up now are transcendent, and now is the time for far more. What can you, we, do to make sure the administration does not pursue this mad course of action?
Throw Scooter From the Train
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The White House needs a new strategy to deal with the Libby revelations: “Now White House aides have to figure out if they are going to embrace Libby or ditch him. Up to this point, officials could skirt the Libby case by maintaining the position that Scooter was a dedicated, loyal, super-competent guy who was innocent until proven guilty. Conservatives whose testimonials fill Libby’s Web page have repeated this line, too. Supporters could frame the trial as Libby v. the press or Libby v. an overzealous prosecutor. In both tales, the vice president’s former top aide was the selfless hero and the enemy was up to no good. This was a safe thing to do because the allegations all concerned Libby’s behavior with investigators and the grand jury. The White House could support him without getting into the question of whether or not he was a liar.
Now the dynamic has changed. Libby’s claims are hurting the White House, which means his former colleagues probably want to discredit him. This is often the response to aides who go off the reservation. There was a hint of this yesterday from Bush allies. Why would anyone believe what Scooter Libby says about what the president did? After all, he’s up on perjury and obstruction charges and from what we know, his defense is implausible. The problem with character assassination is that it does little to address Libby’s underlying claim. It is also disturbingly reminiscent of the tarring of Joe Wilson that caused the Plame affair to begin with.” — John Dickerson (Slate)
The Great Weapons Debate
Interview with Rebecca Blood
![//coolmel.typepad.com/iblog/images/bscan_rebecca_blood.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/coolmel.typepad.com/iblog/images/bscan_rebecca_blood.jpg "Never thought she looked like this (altho I knew she was a Goth...)")
~C4Chaos: ~B-SCAN tidbit: “Once a blogger posted a little bio of me on his site. As you know, I rarely post about myself on my blog, and this was before I had a bio up, or even an about page. He assembled quite a picture based purely on the little tidbits I’d posted over the years, but that meant he had to comb through years of archives to do it. That really brought home the thing I tell people over and over: posting is publishing. Once it’s online, it’s out there. Think before you post.
And once I got an email from a German guy who wondered if I could send him pictures of having my head shaved. It was a little creepy.”
Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Of All Time
“(as judged by notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped)” (The Museum of Hoaxes) The article also has a link to this page, about speculation about the origins of April Fool’s Day. An interesting theory connects it to the calendar reform in 16th century Europe. Those who declined to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, and thus continued to celebrate the new year at the end of March instead of the newly decreed day of January 1st, were supposedly subject to ridicule and practical jokes at that time.
In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal
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The surfacing of the ‘Gospel of Judas’ may or may not rock Christianity:
“Though some theologians have hypothesized the ‘good Judas’ before, scholars who have translated and studied the text said this was the first time an ancient document lent specific support to a revised image of the man whose name in history has been synonymous with treachery.
Scholars say the release of the document will set off years of study and debate. The debate is not over whether the manuscript is genuine — on this the scholars agree. Instead, the controversy is over its relevance.” (New York Times )
Critics dismiss the new document as a Gnostic text written so long after the fact that it can have no claim to accuracy. This will only ring true for those who try to sort Biblical text into the manmade and the revelatory, excluding the former and attempting to base their faith on the promise of the latter. I have always found that a tragic flaw in true believers. A central fact about Christianity is the lack of contemporaneous documentation; everything known about Jesus is retrospective, and all historical texts have a viewpoint and an agenda. It also seems to me that this has some relationship to the core tension between the concepts of Jesus as a man and as God made flesh.
The notion of the ‘good Judas’ is not at all unfamiliar. I first encountered it for example in Kazantzakis’ stunning Last Temptation of Christ (the novel, not necessarily the film…), which may be why in my mind the notion of Jesus asking Judas to take on the role of the betrayer is indelibly wedded to the notion of Christ’s humanity. I think it is likely that this concept, indeed this document, is not so much being freshly discovered as it is emerging from centuries of suppression by the orthodoxy. And what agendas underlie its reemergence? The National Geographic Society is rumored to have paid $1 million for the publication rights…
[And, no, I have no idea how this ties in with Dan Brown’s ideas, which I have not read…]
How to Write a Thank-You Note
A number of webloggers have already linked to this sensible primer by Leslie Harpold. I imagine it is because we recognize our having lost this gracious art ourselves and feeling moved to reclaim it?
Fun With Fish and Chips
Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and and and and and Chips in my ‘Fish and Chips’ sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
In Notification of Army Deaths, More Pain
“Scores of families whose loved ones have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone head-to-head with a casualty system that, in their experience, has failed to compassionately and competently guide them through the harrowing process that begins after a soldier’s death.” (New York Times )
First Internet Address for Mobile Phones Announced
“The dotMobi Internet address, which is set for launch on May 22nd, brings the ease of accessing the Internet from the PC to mobile phones everywhere, and clearly indicates Internet sites and applications that are designed for consumers on the go…” (Treobits)
The Fib
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Fibonacci Sequence Poetry: “At the 2005 SCBWI-LA Writer’s Day, poet-novelist Ron Koertge mentioned the idea of “warming up” each day by writing haiku. To paraphrase what he said, writing haiku keeps you in tune with the importance of word choice and how you can say so much with so little… with the goal being that subconsciously you will continue to be aware of both points whenever and whatever you write.
I was intrigued, but my geeky mind immediately began to churn. Why just haiku? I wanted something that required more precision. That led me to a six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8 – the classic Fibonacci sequence.” (Gotta Book)
The Deity in the Data
William Saletan: What the Latest Prayer Study Tells Us About God: “Warning: The surgeon general may determine that prayer is hazardous to your health. That’s what can happen when faith sets out to prove its power through science.” (Slate)
