| |
 |
Monday, July 15, 2002 |
Interviews with the Gods
"It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven," John Adams wrote of the founding in his influential Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. "Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery ... are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
Looks like Adams spoke too soon. Of course, this piece is from a newspaper published by those godless Canadians.
8:25:57 PM Permalink
|
|
Why Psychiatry Has Failed
Really a fascinating piece; worth a couple of reads.
More people than ever are on anti-depressants; drug abuse is rampant; psychotherapies don't work; our jails are fuller than ever.
What happened? Where did it all go wrong? Jerome Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard, thinks he has an answer. In his newly published book, Surprise, Uncertainty and Mental Structures, he argues that we have been ignoring what goes on inside our heads.
... This is all grist to the traditionalist's mill. But that is not Kagan's main aim, which is to rethink psychology and psychiatry from the bottom up. For instance, he attacks the fundamental notion of "personality". Psychologists identify five personality dimensions: neuroticism (calm v worried), extroversion (sociable v unsociable), openness (conservative v liberal), agreeable (good-natured v irritable) and conscientiousness (reliable v careless). But these dimensions are invariably "discovered" via questionnaires, to which people respond with words. Yet, as Kagan says, no doctor would use only the reports of a patient to diagnose disease without examining that patient's actual anatomy and pathology. Kagan's own experiments show that questionnaires are unreliable predictors of behaviour. When asked to describe their children as "sad" or "happy", the answers most parents gave bore no relation to the child's behaviour in the laboratory. Children, too, were asked whether they thought of themselves as "happy most of the time" and whether they liked to "play with many friends". Again, their answers bore little relation to how often they actually laughed, or to the number of other children they played with.
[Follow Me Here]
8:15:29 PM Permalink
|
|
The Outrage
Christopher Hitchens writes well about the Roman Catholic outrage and the further outrage that is the silence on the part of all those who have been shouting about "family values" for years:
If I knowingly sheltered a torturer and abuser of children, or lied about my knowledge of him, or (aware of his record) pressed him upon my neighbors as a child-minder or babysitter, and if I stood to profit by these actions or inactions, I would expect more from the forces of law and order than a dirty look. So intense is our obsession with this crime, indeed, that many innocent teachers and even Web-site surfers have had their careers and lives ruined by even the suggestion of it. But here are the men of god, calmly engaged in the racket and evidently irritated by the resulting fuss.
8:13:14 PM Permalink
|
|
Life Between the Panels
Art Spiegelman writes a poignant appreciation of Bernard Krigstein, a mid-last-century comic artist. It's nice appreciation, but doesn't include any example's of Krigstein's work. Happily, that can be found at http://www.bkrigstein.com/; alas, the comic reproductions are a little on the small side, making it nearly impossible to read the lettering, and "Master Race" is nowhere to be found (though one panel is here).
Al Feldstein, EC's primary editor and scriptwriter, assigned him a six-page story, "Master Race." A memory-haunted concentration-camp refugee, Carl Reissman, enters a subway car and recognizes the cadaverous stranger who sits across from him. A flashback details the horrors of the Third Reich and finally reveals that Reissman had been a perpetrator—the commandant of a death camp. The stranger chases him down an empty platform, where Reissman slips and is crushed by an onrushing train. Whether the mysterious stranger was a former victim who once swore revenge or a projection of Reissman's guilt is left unresolved.
... I met him only once, in the early seventies. John Benson, the editor of an EC fanzine called Squa Tront, wanted to expand and publish a panel-by-panel analysis of "Master Race" that I had written in 1967 as a college term paper. We went to visit Krigstein at his painting studio, on East Twenty-third Street, so I could read it to him and get his responses. Krigstein at first demurred that those days were long behind him and he didn't remember much about the work. As I began reading, he entered into the analysis avidly, acknowledging a reference to Futurism in one panel, to Mondrian in another, denying a reference to George Grosz in yet another. He basked when I pointed to a visual onomatopoeia that conjured up a subway's rumble. It was as if messages he'd sent off in bottles decades earlier had finally been found.
[from Robot Wisdom]
7:48:20 PM Permalink
|
|
Audio Resources from the Beeb.. The BBC has been streaming their radio shows live for many years now. Exploring the variety of BBC radio related websites reveals that many of the past shows can be listened to in individual segments, excellent for catching your favourite shows at any time, and for avoiding the UK centric programs you may have no interest in. The variety is vast, from hard hitting political discussion to ground breaking comedy shows, from classical music to cutting edge electronica. In this article I'll provide a quick overview of the different radio stations for those of you not familiar with the BBC's audio output and a few recommended programs. [kuro5hin.org]
Looks to be very interesting. The American press is playing lapdog to Bush so much, it's refreshing to be able to read on the web, and now listen to, other news sources. For as long as we're allowed.
6:59:42 PM Permalink
|
|
© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
|
|
|
|
|
