Entries Tagged 'brain-candy' ↓

She’s joining him on the mountaintop.

I received a snail-mail solicitation yesterday from Senator Robert Byrd’s re-election committee, Friends of Robert C. Byrd. As an elder statesman and one of those Democrats from a state which you’d expect to be red, I’d normally send him a couple of bucks. After all, he’s the guy who carries his copy of the Constitution in his pocket and can cite from it like some lawmakers [think they] can cite the Bible. His solicitation sounds good, and there’s this quote underneath a picture of him holding up his pocket Constitution:

I make only one promise – the same one I swore before my God and my country nearly half a century ago: To preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Of course, Senator Byrd can be excused a slight lapse in memory due to his advanced age, but, if he is re-elected, he’ll be reminded that the oath he quotes here is actually from the oath of office taken by the President and mandated in Article II of the Constitution. The oath taken by Senators is:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Nonetheless, he is sworn to defend the Constitution. And as he says in his solicitation letter: “Nowhere in that oath did it say that I had to give my automatic or obedient approval to any nominee whom the President of the United States nominated for a place on the federal bench.” Strong words and absolutely true. That’s what Senator Byrd is known for. He continues on in his letter:

More recently, the Senate has been all but paralyzed by the belief that it should rubber stamp Presidential nominations, even lifetime appointments to the judiciary.

“Advice and consent” are the Constitution’s words. The White House seems to think that means “roll over and obey.” At the mere suggestion of resistance, the Republican Party has tried to shred the traditions of the Senate and suppress free debate.

He’s dead on. Except, that it is deeds, not words that show a man’s true character. For all his strong talk of resistance, of defending the Constitution, of being “the conscience of the Senate“, Senator Byrd is about to betray everything he is asking me for money to defend.

See, barring an ever more unlikely filibuster by the Senate Democrats, on Tuesday, January 31, 2006–just in time for the President’s State of the Union address that evening–the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Samuel J. Alito to the United States Supreme Court. Samuel Alito, with his radical right, out-of-the-mainstream views on everything from church/state separation, privacy rights, and reproductive rights, to environmental protections, gay rights and civil rights, will work hard to enact the complete radical conservative makeover of the United States into a nation our founding fathers would not recognize.

Perhaps most dangerously, Alito is a supporter of the “unitary” executive theory of government, which claims (here, greatly simplified) that the President is the Executive Branch of government, and therefore, as a co-equal branch, neither Congress nor the Judiciary can dictate how the Executive operates. This is not at all what the Founders had in mind. As James Madison writes in The Federalist Papers, No. 47:

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

In light of that theory, Alito’s record and the potential danger to the future of our consitutional government at stake, you would be certain that such a lion of democracy, such a true believer in the truth of the US Consitution as Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, senior member of the US Senate, would be adamantly opposed to the nomination of Samuel Alito. You’d be wrong.

Sen. Robert Byrd broke with a majority of his fellow Democrats Thursday to say he will vote for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Byrd said he believed Alito is an honorable man with a sharp legal mind who will follow the U.S. Constitution and keep presidential power in check. Other Democrats have said they don’t think Alito is independent enough to rule against the Bush administration.

At 88 years old, Byrd may not live long enough to see the consequences of his support of Alito and the subsequent dismantling of the Constitution he claims to love, but those of us with a lot more life ahead of us will be living in that world. Senator Byrd’s career started off ignominiously, but with his principled stand against all aspects of the Iraq war, he seemed to redeem himself in many eyes. With his decision to “roll over and obey”, he has re-acquired all his shame. If he is defeated in the fall elections, it probably won’t make any difference anyway, since his beloved Senate will soon be rendered superfluous in the newly made dictatorship he will have helped cement in place. Nice legacy, Bob. And, when it comes to soliciting me: save your stamps.

Technorati Tags: byrd, senate, alito, supreme_court, unitary_executive

An FDA panel voted 11-3 to approve the sale of orlistat—sold under the prescription name Xenical since 1999—for over-the-counter purchase. The panelists had some reservations about whether GlaxoSmithKline had studied the long-term use of the drug, but approved it anyway. There were also concerns that normal-weight or underweight teenagers might abuse the drug, and that the drug, which will be marketed under the name “Alli” (pronounced “ally”) doesn’t really have any effect on behavior, so most users have gained back the 4-5 pounds they lose within 2 years after they stop taking the drug. The FDA generally follows the recommendations of its expert panels, so it is likely the drug will be on sale soon.

Of course, when the drug in question is a “morning after” pill which can safely prevent a woman from becoming pregnant after unprotected sex, then the FDA rejects its experts’ decisions and requires more study on the premise that minors can’t be prevented from using the drug.

It’s so nice to see consistency and well-reasoned standards in scientific debates.

Technorati Tags: fda, orlistat, xenical, gsk, plan_b, hypocrisy

We were just at the new Museum of Modern Art during a post-New Year’s visit to NYC, and—as is mandatory—my wife forced us to spend what seemed like most of our visit in the Museum Shop. Because the MoMA focuses on design as much as it does art, their shop is much more interesting than the usual museum shop. Unlike most other museum stores, Instead of containing nothing but books with images from the collection, postcards with images from the collection, t-shirts with images from the collection, mousepads with images from the collection, neckties with images from the collection… the MoMA shop has for sale many of the actual items in its design collection. There’s serving bowls, clocks, lamps, electronics, games, furniture… and of course books, postcards, posters, etc. But… the prices! Maybe museums are used to paying those prices, but I’m just a poor corporate drone! (Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating just a little: most of my glassware was stolen from bars, so I’m not really sure if US$26 is a lot of money for a pair of tumblers.)

Anyway, in the spirit of DIY which seems to be all the rage on the web these days (honestly, do you think BoingBoing or Engadget can go more than a day or two without linking to Make?) I came across Thwart Design‘s Design Without Reach site with instructions for making your very own MoMA-worthy reproductions. I mean, can you tell the difference between the US$265 Nelson clock from the MoMA store and this replica made from Tootsie Pop lollipops* and the bottom of a salt container? Didn’t think so! Museum-worthy design, here I come!

*Tootsie Pop clocks not recommended for humid climates.

Technorati Tags: moma, museum, reproductions, nelsonclock, thwartdesign

The first thing I usually read on Sundays is Frank Rich’s column in the New York Times. Most weeks I find myself agreeing vociferously with the former editor and now columnist for the paper. His columns are smart and full of wit, and along with Krugman and Herbert, form the reliably liberal core of this supposed bastion of the Librul Media.

But not this week. Today’s column finds Rich hiding behind the journalist’s equivalent of the cop’s Blue Wall of Silence, where one cop won’t rat on another, no matter what kind of crime or malfeasance they may be hiding. Rich is joining ranks with all the other journalists who are coming to the defense of the jailed Judy Miller. Unlike me and most others in the blogosphere, Rich actually knows Miller, has worked with her, and may have some personal loyalties to her. Maybe he knows her family, her kids, and so, he is more than entitled to feel for her as a person. But he can’t excuse her.

In his column today [NYT Registration Req'd], entitled “We’re Not in Watergate Anymore”, Rich compares Miller’s protection of her source–a traitorous high government official who exposed the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative for purposes of petty revenge against her husband–with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s protection of their source, the recently unmasked Deep Throat, in the investigation of the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Wrong, Frank. There’s a difference–and not a very subtle one–in the circumstances of these two scandals. In Watergate, the confidential source was providing evidence and guidance toward uncovering the existence of a crime committed by people at the highest levels of government. Whatever his motives, at great risk to himself and his career, he was helping to uncover misdeeds. Woodward and Bernstein and the editors and owners of the Washington Post protected him because his actions, self-serving as they may have been, also served the interests of the people of the United States.

Judith Miller’s actions are the direct opposite. By her silence, she is protecting a wrong-doer who has abused the power granted to him and therby harmed the interests of the people of the United States. She is aiding and abetting a traitor.

The reasons given for supporting Miller–that by compelling her testimony she will signal to potential informants that she should not be trusted–is speculative and weak and outweighed by her duties as a citizen. The press freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment was predicated on the press’s role as a government watchdog, able to expose the misdeeds of government and serve as a bulwark agains tyranny.

It is not the judge who has ordered Miller jailed for contempt of court who is abusing the First Amendment; it is instead those in the highest levels of the Bush Administration with the cooperation of Miller who are perverting that freedom. They are twisting the means of lighting the dark corners of governmental abuses into a means of hiding them in shadow.

Got into a discussion with someone at work today about patriotism. I had as my MSN IM picture the George W. Bush/Alfred E. Neuman image from the Nation magazine. He said it was offensive to him and not appropriate when we are at war. I didn’t have to ask him to repeat the idiotic statement because there it was, displayed on my computer screen, in black and white.

“Why is it not appropriate?” I typed. “Because patriotism demands that you support our troops and our government.”

I often forget that people who are smart and talented in many ways can be such fucking idiots when it comes to the meaning of patriotism. Patriotism is defined very simply as “Love of and devotion to one’s country.” Notice: it says “country” not “government”. I love my country. I love the ideals it stands for. I love the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address and the I Have a Dream speech. I love the busy, dirty, congestion of New York City. I love the bitter, empty, loneliness of Eastern Montana. I love the perpetual, gloomy, dampness of Seattle. I love the heat and humidity of Florida in August. (All right… I hate heat and humidity, but I’m making a point.) I love the independent spirit of the people and the way we come together as community when we need to. I love the ingenuity that took us to the moon and invented the Internet and Post-It notes. I love that I can walk through nearly any big city and find restaurants featuring food and people from all over the globe.

And because I love all these aspects of my country, I despise my government. The leadership we have now — which I committed so much time and energy and money over the past couple of years to defeating — is seeking to destroy those truths which we hold self-evident. They print money and spend it against no tomorrow. They start wars for specious reasons and lie and block and bully the people from pursuing the truth. They have taken the maxim of “What’s good for [insert company name here], is good for the country” to such extremes that it is uncertain whether there is a meaningful difference anymore between government and business.They raise the Second Amendment to the level of the Ten Commandments, but chip away at the First Amendment — which is First not by coincidence — until we have to watch what we say lest we offend the theocracy and pay hefty fines to the FCC.

The thing is, though, the strength of these feelings surprise me and scare me a little. While my politics are pretty far to the left of the spectrum, I think these feelings of disgust with my government — and it is still my government — are probably not that far off from the feelings of a guy, who, ten years ago today, blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. He hated the government, too, while he loved a certain conception of this country. A conception, like mine, which sees patriotism as something separate from government. It scares me to think that I have anythng in common with someone who could forget that the country is the people and — despite Joseph Stalin’s maxim of “no man; no problem” – killing the people who make up the country does nothing to demolish the government.

Interestingly enough, today happens to be Patriot’s Day – not to be confused with Patriot Day, another one of Bush’s methods of appropriating our grief over 9/11 for his political ends. The holiday is celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine, commemorating the Battle of Lexington and Concord 230 years ago. You American readers remember from elementary school, don’t you: Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, Longfellow and “one if by land, two if by sea”, Emerson and “the shot heard ’round the world”? Nearly 50 Americans died that night, setting off the 6-year war which led to the founding of this country. Samuel Adams and John Hancock spoke out against their government –the British government — which considered them traitors and sought to arrest them, leading to the march on their supposed hiding place. The thousands of men who left their homes that night to take up their arms against the greatest army in the world were patriots, putting their lives at risk defending an idea of freedom from government. My idiot colleague who wears a pin in his lapel and seeks to shut my mouth is just a brainwashed fool.

I grew up in Suffolk County, Long Island, a suburb of New York City. Although they were liberal-minded, my folks moved us there from the city during the ‘white flight’ of the late 60s. A massive welfare housing project opened next-door to our apartment building, and suddenly there was vandalism and grafitti and a huge fence around our building; suddenly, I was the only white kid in my 3rd-grade class and I was mugged several times walking the 2 or 3 blocks home from school. It bothered them to leave the city, but they felt they had to.

So, I grew up in a very white, middle-class neighborhood of wide streets, green lawns, cars, and a complete lack of anything that could be called “culture.” No museums, no galleries, no place to meet people except the mall or the 7-11. There was a black family on our block, but the kids were jocks, and I was a brain and a druggie, and other than saying cordial “Hi”s to each other, there was no real contact. There were no Hispanics in my classes, as far as I can recall, no Asians, no Native Americans; when it came to minorities, I was it… the token Jew.

My family spent many years striving for some inclusion, fighting to have the school system recognize that, at the very least, I shouldn’t be penalized for missing a test given on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur (the Jewish High Holy Days), or that maybe the winter choral concert could have one number about Hannukkah — or at least one number without Christ — or that perhaps if history class was going to refer to the religious foundations of the dominant Western civilization, they could refer to it as “Judeo-Christian” heritage, instead of just “Christendom”, or that if the luchroom was going to serve ham that day, they should also have an alternative I could eat: not sausage pizza. And their efforts paid off; there’s now some sensitivity towards other cultures in those schools. (There are also catalogues of the ridiculous extremes to which political correctness can be taken, but…)

Because of my experience, I thought of Long Island as a kind of blandly tolerant place. I moved away from there permanently in 1995, although I visited regularly, since my parents lived there until just a couple of weeks ago, my sister still lives there, and we have a bunch of friends still living on the Island. My image of the place has stayed frozen in that sweet light of childhood.

Suffolk County, alas, has not remained frozen. An article in today’s New York Times details some of the nastiness directed at the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants.

The “this” they claim to be protesting against is what in other areas and other countries is referred to as the continuing and growing problem of illegal immigration. But in Suffolk County, the leading voices in this anti-immigration crusade say:

It’s an “invasion”. These nasty, dirty, smelly people who talk a different language are invading our communities, infesting our houses, congregating on our street-corners, taking the jobs we don’t want, looking at our women… The Greater Farmingdale Community Association (whose leader, Ray Wysolmierski was formerly head of the Sachem Quality of Life Organization, a disgustingly racist group profiled in the recent film “Farmingville”) is not ashamed to wear its racist Ashcroft-ism on its sleeve, saying:

Others are less in-your-face with their racism, hiding it in seemingly-compassionate concerns, which they claim are “necessary, fair and colorblind. They said they are not singling out Hispanic immigrants, but are trying to break up the networks of overcrowded homes, unlicensed contractors and absentee landlords that exploit day laborers.” So, to save them from exploitation, poor working conditions and poverty, these compassionate folks are seeking to deport these hard-working immigrants to places — mainly Mexico and Central America — where there are no jobs, no money and no future.

Steve Levy, the County Executive for Suffolk, recently stirred up the outrage some more by suggesting that the county police department should be “deputized” by the Department of Homeland Security, to expand their jurisdiction to immigration crimes:

“Your papers, please.” Those should be chilling words to anyone who hears them. To their credit, the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association‘s president, Jeff Frayler, spoke out against the proposal, saying, “the deputization plan is ill-conceived and will serve only to destroy the hard-won goodwill police have built up with Mexican day laborers in Farmingville and other communities.” And faced with the rising tide of criticism of his plan, Levy has decided to back off, although he is still seeking other ways to deal with the problem.

The most disgusting thing about this whole mess is the transparency behind the lack of any given reason for the anti-immigration tide. If the problem truly is poor-quality housing and abusive landlords, then go after the landlords! If the problem is unlicensed contractors, then go after the contractors, or let the shoddy workers shit where they eat and drive themselves out of business. Is the problem jobs? Are the immigrant workers really taking away jobs from the decent white folk? Are the sons and daughters of the decent white folk really clamoring for the right to harvest the potatoes, clean the offices, mow the lawns, slap together the million dollar tract houses for wages small enough to keep everything affordable for the decent white folk?

No, this isn’t about any economic issue. This anti-immigrant sentiment wouldn’t have been out of place in the Deep South 40 years ago. This is racism, pure and simple. This is “bar the doors before the savages ruin our way of life.” This is, “I moved here 30 years ago to get away from those kinds of people.” This is, “I don’t want my daughter to have to sit next to one of them in school.” This is irrational, all-consuming hatred of the Other. And it’s not any place I ever have a desire to call “Home” again.

A friend of my wife’s was on BBC 4 last night discussing Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, with Dr. Raj Persaud on his show, “All in the Mind”. Joshua Cole is the founder and primary force behind BPDWorld, a UK-based site which is “…committed to raising awareness and reducing the stigma of mental health, but focusing on Borderline Personality Disorder… providing information, advice and support.”

BPD is recognized in the DSM-IV (the standard diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association) as including “…unstable impulse control, interpersonal relationships, moods and self-image. These persistent or recurrent qualities are present in a variety of situations…” A professional will make a diagnosis of BPD when a patient demostrates at least 5 of the following behaviors:

• Frantic attempts to prevent abandonment, whether real or imagined (don’t include self-injurious or suicidal behaviors, covered below)
• Unstable relationships that alternate between idealization and devaluation
• Identity disturbance (severely distorted or unstable self-image or sense of self)
• Potentially self-damaging impulsiveness in at least 2 areas such as binge eating, reckless driving, sex, spending, substance abuse (don’t include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviors)
• Self-mutilation or suicide thoughts, threats or other behavior
• Severe reactivity of mood creates marked instability (mood swings of intense anxiety, depression, irritability last a few hours to a few days)
• Chronic feelings of boredom or emptiness
• Anger that is out of control or inappropriate and intense (demonstrated by frequent temper displays, repeated physical fights or feeling constantly angry)
• Brief paranoid ideas or severe dissociative symptoms related to stress

It’s a pretty scary set of feelings, and its seriousness is not served well by the name “Borderline.” When Adolph Stern first described the symptoms of BPD in 1938 , his choice of terminology was not intended to belittle its severity, but to refer to its position on the borderline between neurosis and psychosis. In Europe, the disorder is referred to as “Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder,” but “Borderline” seems to have stuck here in the US.

Josh was diagnosed with BPD when he was 17 and as he describes, he struggled with its effects for many years. Setting up BPDWorld was supposed to be his final act, before he committed suicde. It wouldn’t have been his first attempt; in the interview, he describes, very matter-of-factly, how, “…There was once where I went into a field and threw petrol over myself and was gonna set myself on fire, and also slit my wrists and took an overdose…”

But, he found, instead, that BPDWorld, instead of being a final act, was going to be something which involved him and gave him purpose and a sense of community. “…I’ve seen how much it helps people and how much they support each other, which I think is great. And that sort of gets me through, because I believe they’re depending on me and I’m depending on them, so it keeps us all going…”

No future is certain, and the future for people with BPD is dangerous, at best. As he states on his site, “1 in 10 Borderline Personalites commit suicide.” Let’s hope that the community he’s created helps to keep him and others strong and healthy for a long, long time.

(I’ve transcribed the portion of the show where Josh was interviewed. You’ll find the transcript by clicking the “Read More” link.)

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Suicide is often seen as a weakness, an inability to cope with the pressures of everyday life. I don’t know what went through Iris Chang‘s mind just before she ended her own life on November 9, but, for the 36-year-old Chinese-American historian, it most likely wasn’t “everyday life” as you and I know it.

Nearly 10 years ago, she went to Nanjing, China (formerly Nanking) to begin researching the book which would eventually become “The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II“, an international best-seller and the first book to expose the horrors of that event to the Western public. It was nearly 60 years after the Japanese invasion of China, and her visit represented one of the last opportunities to interview the survivors of the massacre. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

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New Scientist, the respected British science and technology magazine, has a special section this week on the scientific issues involved in the US presidential elections. The section, titled “Are You Listening, America”, provides a series of essays on current US policies and political trends regarding global warming, stem cell research, abortion policy and petroleum-dependency.

Besides these obvious issues, there are some very insightful essays on the effects of our post-9/11 fear of foreigners on the pursuit of science in the US. Whereas the US used to be first choice for foreign students interested in advanced scientific study, that is becoming less the case:

There are also essays on the effects of globalisation on scientific pursuits and on the global perception of hypocrisy in the US stance on nuclear non-proliferation in other countries, while developing new weapons here.

All in all, its a comprehensive and very informative look at the intersection of science and politics in the US. The one failing in the collection of articles is that, like so many other exercises in “fair” journalism, this article bends too far backwards in attempting to find some balance and ascribes unwarranted moderation to the acts of an administration that finds more certainty in the Bible’s predictions of the end times than it does in scientific explanations of global climate change.