Biggest Number Yet for a Lower Number

Here's an assortment of pictures I took at the People's Climate March.

This was with Ben and Jerry's contingent. Words around the base: "If it melts, it's ruined!"

 

To the point:

This one reminded me of a sign in front of the Supreme Court for George W. Bush's Counter-Inaugural. It incorporated an official Mars Society placard in a banner that suggested, "Send Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas to Mars!" apparently with the idea of solving two problems at once. The man holding this sign, a member of a group from Bennington College whose father is a big space enthusiast, was tickled when I recounted this to him. (Technically the slogan might have better been, "Terraform Mars, don't Veneriform Earth," since Venus appears to have suffered the kind of runaway "greenhouse" effect we're trying to prevent here.)

This screen reminded people that this was a global day of action -- 2600 separate actions in 150 countries, as I heard after getting back to the bus.

I liked the sense of humor here. "Cut emissions, or we sleep with the fishes."

This float promoted the campaign for natural history museums to drop donors who promote climate denialism.

Before I had to go back to my bus, I panned as much of the march as I could from where I was standing.

Philly vs. Comcast

Philadelphians rallied today against a Comcast/Time-Warner merger and to preserve net neutrality.

Update on Mental Health First Aid

Good news. The community outreach coordinator responded to my comments and we have a meeting set up for Friday where I can elaborate on my concerns.

Ask Candidates Where They Stand on a Constitutional Convention

Now is the time, as the campaign season starts, to challenge candidates to take a stand on government's ultimate accountability to the people through the Constitutional amendment process. A good case can be made that Congress has been remiss on this point for over a century, but as this may seem like a rather arcane and technical argument, I have not chosen to focus on that aspect for now. I've started by writing Ruth Damsker, a candidate for the PA state legislature who spoke last week at a meeting of Philadelphia's Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club. Copied below is what I wrote.

Dear Ms. Damsker,

I heard you speak at Liberty City's State of the Races meeting. I am pleased that you are running as a supporter of our community.

There is something I like to ask all candidates for the state house or senate. Many people are dissatisfied with the way our government works these days, even if there's no consensus on what the solutions are. People may focus on overturning Citizens United, or Hobby Lobby, or some other Supreme Court decision. They may want to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, or DC statehood, or to repeal the Second Amendment. The Constitutional process for making amendments one at a time may seem laborious, but there's an alternative, specifically intended for times when most people are dissatisfied even though they're not sure yet what the answers are.

One of the Framers (I think it was Madison) commented that the new Republic's government ruled by the consent of the governed, and that the people can withdraw this consent at any time by petitioning Congress for a Constitutional Convention. This is provided for in Article V, which says that Congress, "on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments." It goes on to stipulate that any amendments so proposed must still be ratified by three-fourths of the states, the same as if they had simply been passed by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.

The advantage of this process over the other one is that it creates an open forum in which every aspect of government that might use revision can be looked at with fresh eyes at one time, in a coherent way, instead of piecemeal. The other advantage is that it provides a way for everyone who's dissatisfied with the status quo to work together, instead of at cross purposes, on the common project of "withdrawing our consent" through the Article V process, and then have a collective discussion at the Convention through which we can seek consensus on what kinds of changes we want.

I am strongly in favor of having the PA legislature petition Congress for an Article V convention, and hope that if elected you will introduce a motion for one. If you need more information, visit Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org, where you will see that this is an issue supported by people from all parts of the political spectrum. I look forward to hearing your opinion on this matter.

Thank you for your attention.

Having sent the above to Ms. Damsker, I will now write my current state representative and senator as well as anyone who may be running to fill their shoes. I encourage others to do likewise, borrowing as much or as little of the above as you like.

Quote for the Day

"Taking the second half of the [20th] century as a whole, even allowing for the longer holidays won by the European workers, the reduction in the hours performed annually by a worker varies from almost nothing to, say, 30 percent. During the same period production, depending on the country, climbed by 400 to 500 percent. The contrast is instructive. Free time, though indispensible to allow people to develop their personality, is not an important item for our society, which is more preoccupied with the commercialization of the limited leisure time available." -- Daniel Singer, Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours?

Correcting Mark Segal's Confusion: A Letter to the Philadelphia Gay News

A major confusion appears in Mark Segal's piece "LGBT history, LGBT hypocrisy," where he says, "Some members of our community want to support Hamas and boycott Israel."

I don't know anyone, LGBT or otherwise, who supports Hamas. On the other hand, I know many people who support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This has nothing to do with support for political Islam, and everything to do with opposition to a whole panoply of policies -- occupation of the West Bank, economic blockade of Gaza, and discriminatory official practices within "Israel proper" -- that all derive from Israel's character as a colonial-settler state founded on the ideology of ethno-religious nationalism known as Zionism (or "political Judaism" if you will).

A bit of history Segal seems to forget is that Israeli leaders, back in the day, rather openly sought to foster Hamas as a "counterforce" to the socially moderate, secular PLO. So it is to a significant degree a monster of Israel's own making.

In much the same way that Al-Qaeda's atrocity on 9/11 brought out some of the most regressive attitudes among Americans, such as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry, so the daily brutalization of Palestinians living under occupation, where the only Israelis they get to meet are military oppressors, inevitably fosters anti-Semitism and helps to make a group like Hamas more attractive to them.

While volunteering in 2002 with the International Solidarity Movement (palsolidarity.org), one of our hosts, a schoolteacher in Middle Gaza, told me he had asked his students, "How do you feel about Jews? Do you love them or hate them?" They answered, "We hate them!" Then he said, "Now, what if I told you that some Jewish people support us? Now how would you feel about them?" Answer: "We would love them!"

The more Palestinians see Americans -- especially us of Jewish descent -- supporting their human rights by boycotting Israel and by pushing Uncle Sam to take his hand off the scale and stop subsidizing the Israeli war machine, the less attractive a group like Hamas will be to them. At the same time it would remove both the material and psychological support that enable Israel to persist in its current colonialist actions and world-view.

The United States repudiated our racist origins a century and a half ago when we adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. It is time for Israel, with the help of some limit-setting from us, to do likewise.

Motion to Amend

This past Saturday, 9 August 2014, the groups Move to Amend and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign co-sponsored a gathering titled People's Movement Assembly: Re-Visioning the Constitution to Serve the People, in Philadelphia to contribute to the US Social Forum process. This seemed a perfect occasion to promote the alternative conception of economic freedom that I've dubbed individualist socialism, so I drafted a motion to amend the Constitution along these lines, which I've published on this page: http://individualistsocialism.blogspot.com/p/motion-to-amend.html.

As it turned out, it seemed most people there were more of a mind to propose a general sort of vision statement rather than a concrete mechanism for implementing rights. Nonetheless many participants seemed interested in it.

Gaza's Ark Deliberately Targeted by Israel

Gaza's Ark Deliberately Targeted by Israel

It is with sorrow and outrage that we announce that Gaza’s Ark was totally destroyed by a direct hit from the Israeli Occupation Forces at 2:00 AM local time on Friday, July 11th. It caught fire as result of the hit and was damaged beyond repair. In the context of all the death and destruction caused by Israel, the material damage to our project pales in significance.

However, it is now clear that Gaza's Ark was deliberately targeted by Israel (for the second time). Israel is not worried about its security as it claims, what it is worried about and afraid of are peaceful projects like ours that expose its atrocities.

The good news is that no one was killed or injured in this attack as we had decided to pull the guard off the boat two days earlier, for his own safety.

We would like to thank everyone who contributed towards the $300,000 raised for Gaza's Ark, and reassure you that, despite the loss of the boat, your money has not been wasted.

We have employed several Palestinians in the refurbishing of the boat over the last year and a half, providing some employment for boat builders, carpenters, plumbers and electricians. With unemployment at over 40% in Gaza, we were glad to offer some employment, if only to a few people. We have also contributed to the efforts of reviving boat building skills in Gaza and passing experience to new generations of craftsmen. Gaza's Ark also inspired and empowered Palestinians in Gaza - those who worked on it, contributed to it in any way, or supported it. And most important it sent a clear message to Israel: The world is and will continue to stand with the people of Gaza.

So, Gaza’s Ark steering committee and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are currently in intense discussion as to what we will do next. We have many ideas, but on one point we are unanimous: we will continue to challenge the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, one way or another. We found it particularly symbolic that, although the boat was badly destroyed, the name and the logo, survived intact.



The minimum we all should do now is make our voices heard. Call, or email, our governments, our members of parliament and also call the Israeli embassy or consulate and protest the attack on Gaza, the killings and the destruction, and the targeting of the peaceful Gaza's Ark, that belongs to all of us.
Our motto is “Building Hope” and we will not give up until Gaza is free, and Palestinian rights are fully restored.


In continued solidarity
Gaza's Ark Steering Committee

Quote of the Week

"You know I have no patience with nonsense," said the Northeast's leading wholesaler of chattering windup mandibles. -- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Green Party: Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling should boost the movements for single-payer national health care and abolition of corporate personhood - Green Party of Pennsylvania

http://www.gpofpa.org/greens_condemn_the_ruling_which_holds_that_corporate_rights_supersede_the_rights_of_women

Comment on *Atlas Shrugged*

This isn't a thorough review. Rather, it's a reply to a post about the book on Fetlife.

I had mixed feelings when I read the book. On one hand, its valorization of individuality has understandable appeal for anyone who's been conditioned to accept a coercive and inauthentic "altruism" that says thinking and caring for yourself are "selfish." (I call this inauthentic because it results in behavior motivated by guilt or fear of criticism, rather than an actual desire to help others.) The problem is that it falsely implies that that's the only kind of altruism there is, and uses this false dichotomy to justify an equally unbalanced sort of egoism. It thereby misses the point that humans, by our social nature, can only realize our individuality through sociality, just as surely as we can only really contribute socially by being individuals. It then conflates general values like rationality and independent thinking with the historically contingent social system of capitalism.

There is irony in the fact that, on account of insistence on such faulty logic, and notwithstanding all the lip service Rand gave to independent thinking, she actually brooked none in her own personal circle, which has often been likened to a cult. And this problem didn't end with Rand's death. In fact, some groups that pay homage to her seem to engage in worse forms of psychological manipulation than any she practiced herself -- in particular, the practice of "de-FOOing," or cutting off one's family of origin, as promoted at the website you linked to. Because this is encouraged in followers who are mostly college or even high school-age, and don't yet have extensive social networks, it's a very effective way of bringing them under Stefan Molyneux's control.

As a survivor of a different cultic group, I have met (through the International Cultic Studies Association, www.icsahome.com) people who were cut off by their children for years at Molyneux's instigation. Fortunately, some have broken free of his influence and reunited with their parents.

If you want to explore anarchocapitalist ideas, check out www.fdrliberated.com, where many ex-FDR and other libertarian people congregate online. These ideas aren't exactly my cup of tea -- I'm more of a libertarian socialist myself, a la Rosa Luxemburg or Noam Chomsky. But debating ideology with you is less urgent to me than ensuring you can explore the ideas that interest you in a way that won't endanger you psychologically through processes of undue influence. Not to mention that the more democratic atmosphere at the non-FDR site will let you explore all of these ideas, and not just those that are amenable to Molyneux.

As a side note, I thought parts of *Atlas Shrugged* were, in literary terms, atrociously repetitive. I felt that if I had a nickel for every time I read "the face without pain or fear or guilt," I'd be wealthy.

Mental Health First Aid: A Good Start, but Still Has Some Kinks

I posted the following comment on the Facebook page for the city's Mental Health First Aid training program (www.healthymindsphilly.org) after a class last Saturday:

I took the first half of an adult MHFA training today. In most respects it was very good, especially the emphasis on being non-judgmental. But one part troubled me, precisely because it wasn't consistent with that principle. The problem was with an "alphabet" exercise in which people were invited to volunteer possible signs of mental illness starting with different letters, and the instructor wrote them down on a whiteboard. Because she subsequently made no reference to the resulting list -- and especially because she sometimes appeared to question them before writing them down -- this gave the appearance of an endorsement of items in the list. This was troubling with respect to a couple words: "kinky" and "unusual." These are often associated with pejorative connotations, and to list them as signs of mental illness helps to perpetuate prejudice against those perceived as "unusual" or "kinky." But even when I pointed out to the instructor the presently total lack of civil rights protections for kinky people, she couldn't acknowledge the point, apparently blinded by her own defensiveness. Instead she initially tried to claim that "kinky" and "sex" are synonyms. (They're not even the same part of speech! And in any case the main symptom she quoted from a Web page, loss of libido, has nothing to do with what most people mean by kinky.) When that failed, she claimed the word's appearance on the list didn't imply endorsement. That would be a fair point if she'd told the class that -- but she never did. So what was the point of the exercise? At *best* it's a waste of time since it isn't being used as a teachable moment when people's suggested signs are incorrect. But at worst, as in this case, it's actually helping perpetuate a stigma that hurts people -- and may sometimes make them mentally ill.

Study Finds More Suicides Under Conservative Rule

Http://thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/06/gopthe-party-of-death

When People Act Like You're Twelve

One of the things I find most irritating is when people talk to me as if I've never thought about something, even when it ought to be obvious that I probably have.

An example occurred last night. I'd come to a symposium on Labor and Climate Justice, and people were still signing in and getting noshies before settling down for the event (which itself was very good, by the way). So I see Elizabeth Fattah for the first time in years because, as she explains, she's in California now. Elizabeth is with The Greens/Green Party USA, which some may describe as the "fundi" wing of the Green movement.

When I mention that this event may provide an opportunity to get some signatures to put Paul Glover on the ballot as the Green Party of Pennsylvania's candidate for Governor, she dismissively says she doesn't know why we waste our time on this "lost cause." She explains that we should boycott elections because "they only give the system legitimacy" and suggests we follow the example of those who boycotted the election in Egypt.

Now, I know this point of view exists. But what makes her think that merely repeating it to me is going to change my thinking? I may be younger than her, but she's known me since the Nineties, and surely realizes that I've had time to think about such questions. In this context, it's even more absurd that she mentions the recent Egyptian election. Does she have any evidence that those who boycotted it actually accomplished anything in terms of weakening the regime? It's doubtful that they even made inroads into its legitimacy for anyone but themselves, considering the enthusiasm with which many voted for the winner. So how on Earth does she think citing this example is going to persuade me?

In this case, of course, it has a lot to do with the sectarian style of politics, in which self-righteousness (especially in the eyes of fellow group members) is more important than measurably accomplishing anything. But it can occur in other contexts too.  Several years ago I had occasion to mention to someone I encountered in a food court that I'm a socialist (the conversation may have been started by some button I was wearing). His reaction was to inform me that that idea had failed and was discredited. This was the mid-Nineties. Did he *really* think I had never heard that opinion before? It had only been drummed into my head a thousand times by the mainstream media and politicians. Yet he apparently thought he was the one who was going to enlighten me to this "truth."

Your Brain on Lovecraft

This is Lovecraft

This is your brain on Lovecraft

Any questions?

"To the Revolution of the World"

Yesterday the American Humanist Association, meeting in Philadelphia, and the local Freethought Society held an event on Independence Mall commemorating the 20th anniversary of the City's first proclaiming Thomas Paine Day.

One of the interesting things I learned is that Paine's favorite toast was, "To the revolution of the world." This has a familiar ring to those of us schooled in the concept of "the world revolution" as an ongoing process. And the same speaker confirmed the idea that it' s ongoing, describing events in places like Zuccotti Park, Tahrir Square, and the Maidan as continuing Paine's revolutionary-democratic legacy.

Although I suspect most of those attending the Happy Hour afterwards aren't yet revolutionaries in the way Paine was, it was gratifying that they all joined in when Stephen Gulick, who'd spoken as his admirer as well as an impersonator, raised this same toast.

To the revolution of the world!

Some Surprising Oversights by Snopes

I just heard today about an urban legend which I couldn't find on Snopes.com -- rather surprisingly, since it turns out it' s nearly fifty years old, including twenty online. While I was at it, I also filled them in on another rumor, over a decade old, that I encountered a couple years ago. Below are links to articles about both.


"Willie Lynch letter": http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/question/may04.htm


"Nelson Mandela's first memo to Thomas Friedman": http://www.electronicintifadad.net/content/mandelas-first-memo-thomas-friedman/4826

One of Those Times You May Feel Like Kicking Yourself

Ever had a sudden insight, and then found yourself wondering why it took you so long? This morning something made me recall a local magazine that was around briefly about eleven years ago. I saw it at bdsm events, and it was focused on the bdsm scene.

What puzzled me was its title: ObZine. What did the letters OB have to do with bdsm? It was a mystery.

When I recalled it today I immediately  realized that it was a pun on "obscene." In retrospect this seems obvious. So why hadn't I thought of that before?

I have an idea why. Because it was a kink publication found in kink settings, I thought of it exclusively in that connection. This was probably accentuated by its being the first bdsm magazine I'd seen, whereas vanilla erotic publications were already familiar. So, when I wondered about its title, I was focused exclusively on its bdsm character, and didn't think to "pull back" and view it more broadly as a publication that was erotic and therefore, in some people's lights, "obscene." It's a good illustration of the power of a "mental set."

Penn Summer Course: Science and Fiction

A Summer Session course is coming up at Penn which may interest many people, titled Science and Fiction. A description and the website for registration follow.

Course Description: 

This class will consider the science fiction novel and story as developing genres. We will read work on the origins of the form, where science blurs with the fantastic. We will consider the alien as trope, both benevolent and ferocious, as well as science as practiced by humans itself escaping our control. We will read writers such as H. G. Wells, Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clark, Kim Stanley Robinson and others from a number of cultures beyond the U.S.  We will also read examples of science fiction used as a device to imagine other ways of human being, embodiment, sexuality, and gender such as in the work of Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney, and Ursula Le Guin. In addition, we will study the way the genre allows us to imagine and work through fears and new ideas about ourselves. Students will gain a sense of the development of the literary genre and narrative as well as exposure to the mutant discourse that strains of scientific forecasting and less linear narrative create. Students will complete assignments including two short papers and will contribute to classroom discussion. Please feel free to email the instructor with any questions you may have about the course: jzuzga@sas.upenn.edu.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/summer/courses/term/2014B/subject/ENGL/course/ENGL075920

You're welcome!

I've completed my first workday as Majority Inspector on my precinct's election board.

For the most part, things went well. There were fewer problems than I seem to remember from my time as Machine Inspector in 2012. Of course this may be because it was an off-year election this time. And it may also be that I was less stressed simply on account of knowing from the previous experience that what snafus might arise could be managed.

Some time in the PM, a fellow poll worker got news that turnout was exceptionally light. This came as a momentary surprise, since he'd been commenting previously on a surprisingly good turnout in our division. But after a moment's reflection I understood.

You see, yesterday I distributed to nearly every house in my division (I couldn't access apartments except those in my own building) a letter I'd composed reminding people about today's election. I also included information about the location of the polling place and how to find the entrance, plus the fact that there were a Special Election and ballot questions on which all registered voters could vote regardless of party affiliation, and the Green Party's positions on two of the questions.

In the course of the day, a couple voters thanked me for this -- the first of them volunteering, even before knowing who I was, that "if it hadn't been for that letter from the Greens" he wouldn't have known where to vote.

As there's no other apparent reason why my division had an unusually high turnout at the same time turnout elsewhere was exceptionally low, it's reasonable to infer that the letter I delivered to my neighbors is what made the difference.

Why Reporting On Scientific Research May Warp Findings : NPR

Richard Feynman defined science as a set of procedures we've developed to avoid fooling ourselves. It's welcome, if long overdue, that scientists are starting to apply this kind of critical spirit to the functioning of their own institutions.

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/313844261/why-reporting-on-scientific-research-may-warp-findings

Quote of the Week

"A society that censors is a society that lies to itself
about its nature." -- McKenzie Wark, The Australian, 8 January 1997

Another Fairly Exciting Weekend

Saturday was busy. The Greens had our second door-to-door canvassing day, combined with petitioning, when someone answered the bell, to put Paul Glover on the ballot for Governor. (Paul and I had also gathered signatures at the $15-minimum-wage rally Friday.) We noted people's responses on a 1-5 scale for future reference.

That afternoon I attended a refresher election board training class. In addition to fulfilling a campaign promise (I'd said on my flyer that I'd do this if elected), showing the receipt will add a bonus to my pay after working on election day.

On the way to work this morning, I again saw a young woman visiting from Germany to do volunteer work this year. This time, after updating each other on recent activities I invited her to share her contact info. Just a few years ago I would not have had the nerve to do this; so, although in this case I didn't get it, the ask still gave me a feeling of accomplishment. And of course it did signal my interest,  which is important.

Today's March for 15 Now to raise the minimum wage provided a good opportunity for petitioning, and I got a number of signatures toward the 16000@+ (!) needef to put Paul Glover on the ballot as the Green Party's candidate for governorv of Pennsylvania.  http://www.Glover4Governor.com

Cass Sunstein Speaking at the Constitution Center

I found his book Nudge (co-authored with Richard Thaler) quite thought-provoking; likewise his paper "Conspiracy Theories."

http://constitutioncenter.org/calendar/conspiracy-theories-and-other-dangerous-ideas-with-cass-r-sunstein

My Recordings Are Now Online

I've finally created my musician account and uploaded two recordings: my reading of Chuck Stone's children's story Squizzy the Black Squirrel: A Fabulous Fable of Friendship, and my filk song "Trinity," based on Lois McMaster Bujold's novel The Curse of Chalion. myspace.com/strippy6/music/songs

I swear!

After election to the position of Majority Inspector for my voting precinct (the first position to which any Green has been elected in Philadelphia), I wondered whether I might get any grief for my intention not to swear on the Bible, or any other religious book, when taking office. When I put this question to City Commissioner Stephanie Singer, some of whose classes for candidates for neighborhood office I'd attended, she said her understanding is that the law requires one to be sworn -- not merely affirmed, an option mentioned in the Constitution -- but doesn't specify on what.

I decided that I wish to be sworn in on Rights of Man, Thomas Paine's defense of the early events of the French Revolution, which lays out many revolutionary-democratic ideas still relevant today. I've just ordered a copy from the online store of Powell's books, the Oregon-based union bookseller, through their union's portal.

Been too long since you saw the Addams Family?

Here they are, posing in front of their namesake building (Penn's Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall) at 36th and Walnut Streets.

I can't stop thinking it's funny that there's a car called the MKZ...

That was the name of a disease in a story by Zenna Henderson.

                        
 http://www.powells.com/partner/35751/biblio/9780380247370

Is Sasquatch a Relic of Bicamerality?

Yesterday I was recalling the fact that, purportedly, Native Americans had often spoken of Sasquatch (a.k.a. Bigfoot) in a very matter-of-fact way, much like any species of animal or tribe of people. This is cited as evidence that Sasquatch is real, notwithstanding the elusiveness of physical evidence. The way the argument goes is that an imaginary creature of legend would be spoken of differently, in tones of awe and mystery.

I was recalling this in the wake of being reminded about a book I heard of way back in college days but haven't gotten around to reading yet (though I intend to correct that soon now): Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. The essential idea is that in ancient times -- before about 1200-1000 B.C.E. in the Near East, and up to more recently in the New World -- people's subjective volitional selves were not integrated with their rational, analytic side, being in different hemispheres of the brain (hence the term "bicameral"). Consequently they lacked self-awareness, and most of the time acted out of pure relexive habit. When faced with a situation of crisis or high stress falling outside what their habits prepared them for, the rational mind would perform an analysis and then verbally instruct the volitional self on what to do. But, since these parts of the mind weren't integrated, this would be experienced not as personal decision-making, but as an auditory hallucination (perhaps sometimes embellished with other sensory modalities) from an invisible entity that would be interpreted as a god or ancestor in accordance with the individual's culture.

A chief piece of evidence cited by Jaynes is the Iliad: in its entire voluminous length, there's not a single description of any character's engaging in inward reflection. Instead, whenever they face a tough choice, a god appears and tells them what to do. Jaynes holds that Homer tells the story this way because that's exactly how people in those days experienced things.

Another story cited in support of this view concerns a man traveling to a Greek city-state who encounters the god Pan on the road and has a conversation with him. Upon arriving he promptly informs the city's senate of Pan's advice, which is heard with complete seriousness and not a hint of skepticism nor suggestion that the man is crazy. And, indeed, in a bicameral world such as Jaynes depicts, one would have had to be some kind of crazy not to believe in gods, when they were a regular part of everyone's personal experience.

I'm no expert on Sasquatch lore, but it seems to me that the casual tone of some accounts is very much like that story about Pan. This matter-of-fact quality could be totally consistent with the lack of evidence for Sasquatch as a physically distinct entity, if what it actually is (or was until some relatively recent past) is a cultural interpretation of a separate module in people's own heads.

RIP Chuck Stone

I heard this morning that Chuck Stone, longtime columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News and first president of the National Association of Black Journalists, has died.

On a personal note, a few years ago I recorded a children's book he wrote onto tape for a shelter run by Women Against Abuse. It's titled Squizzy the Black Squirrel: A Fabulous Fable of Friendship. I'll try to upload this shortly. (Thanks to Jim Tigar for copying the recording onto disk for me.)

Pixelated Bullseye

Here's a piece of math art I just completed (colored pencil on graph paper).

I joined several members of the Philadelphia Area Atheist Meetup Group and the Peace Advocacy Network to protest an event by the anti-gay "conversion" "therapy" group misnamed Courage. My hand-made sign read, "True Courage Is Accepting Who You Are."

Medieval Monk?

I was rather appalled by an episode of *Monk* aired last night on MNT, in which he becomes distressed by his childhood TV idol's autobiography, about which his chief, if not only, complaint is that it reveals her as a "whore." I've written the following to the originating USA Network at http://www2.usanetwork.com/series/monk/.

"I generally love the show, but am dismayed at the regressive sexual attitude expressed in your recently aired episode about the former child star of Monk's favorite TV show. It's bad enough that Monk himself feels betrayed by his idol's "promiscuity"; that might be chalked up to an idiosyncrasy of his, perhaps related to his OCD.  Far worse is that it seems that everyone else in the show feels the same way.  The implicit prudery and sexism in this was quite off-putting."

Cosmos: There's No Place Else Like It

I just saw and loved the first episode of the new Cosmos. A particularly favorable impression was made when, right in the opening, Neil deGrasse Tyson outlined the rules of scientific method as the key to the Universe. Also noteworthy was that, even with all the snazzier special effects, there were some features of the original that couldn't be improved on -- like using a calendar to illustrate comparisons in cosmic time. Or directly quoting Sagan's line, "We are all made of star stuff." So it came as no surprise that he concluded by citing an early meeting with Sagan as an inspiration.

One quibble: Tyson presents, but doesn't critique, Giordano Bruno's argument for the infinity of the Universe. Although he later calls it only an educated guess, he never actually explains what's wrong with it. This is unfortunate inasmuch as it's an example of the sort of "argument from intuition" that people often need to resist in order to accept the counterintuitive findings of modern science.

 

 

15 Now! Campaign Comes to Philly

For International Women's Day, thirty or forty people rallied this afternoon in Center City for a $15/hr. minimum wage. It was the first such action locally for this movement, which got started in Seattle. In addition to comments by various speakers interspersed with chants, we broke up into groups that went into low-wage establishments to bring the message of the movement and give flowers to the women workers. My group chose a McDonald's.

Particularly gratifying was the way a meme I generated got copied by one of the speakers. He was making reference to "the so-called job creators" running corporations. I piped up, "We're the job creators. They're the job excluders!" referring to the ideological fiction whereby capitalists, who use their property  rights to limit who can work, are credited with creating that work, when it's really the working class that builds all the equipment making productive activity possible. When I'd barely started my second sentence,  the speaker repeated the fIrst one. He followed up with an off-the-cuff explanation of why it was true, which got it more or less right. Hopefully it also got him and others thinking, since, if fully appreciated,  this insight may help people overcome the dependency psychology that limits people's horizons to what's possible under capitalism.

http://www.15now.org

Putting a Human Face on an Inhuman System

Weekend Edition Sunday had an interview today with a federal prosecutor misleadingly described as "an attorney for young victims." Here's the comment I left:

"The problem is as time goes on, people start to want to heal."

What does it say about someone's job when their "success" depends on other people's being emotional rather than rational? Add to this that such proceedings often *delay* a family's healing. The guest disguises this issue by calling herself an "advocate for the child." But in reality nothing can be done for someone who's already dead.

However she may see herself, objectively she's an advocate for a state that parasitically manipulates and feeds off people's grief and rage to expand the resources and people under its carceral control.

Quotable: Timaree Schmit on "Objectification"

"In our culture, we have a notion that a woman can be either an object or she can be a person worthy of respect, not both. We let men exist in both those spaces; a man can be sexy and also considered respectable but we have difficulty conceptualizing that a woman might be sexy and sexual and intelligent and kind and worthy of listening to and respecting." -- Ph.D. sex educator Timaree Schmit  in the 2/13 *Philadelphia Gay News*

Seen in Center City Philadelphia

Quote of the Day

You show me a kid who doesn't like danger, and I'll show you someone with a library card." -- Danny King, School for Scumbags.

Rejoice! It's National Science Fiction Day.

In honor of which, I've signed the Philadelphia Weekly's petition for a historical marker at 50th and Spruce, where he lived for three years and wrote some of his most important work.

Hello Again

I've decided that I'm now able to manage my time on the Web, and so will resume blogging. Unfortunately I have little time to post anything now, except that I won my election. I'm Majority Inspector for my division for the next four years.

Meet the Elected Official

I won my campaign for ward 59, division 21's election board. I will be Majority Inspector for the next four years. This also makes me the Green Party's first elected official in Philadelphia.

Deny Deni Again

I wrote six years ago about the effort (unfortunately unsuccessful) to unseat slut-shaming judge Teresa Carr Deni from Philadelphia Municipal Court. Well, she's up for retention again next Tuesday, so I've moved that the Green Party of Philadelphia call again for a "NO" vote. The party endorsed my proposal and asked me to write a letter to the local papers. Here's what I submitted to the Inquirer and Daily News:

On Election Day next Tuesday, Philadelphia voters have the chance to take a stand against sexual violence and send a clear message that everyone's human rights must be respected.

Six years ago, in what the chancellor of the Bar Association called "an unforgivable miscarriage of justice," Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni threw out sexual assault charges in a multiple rape, at gunpoint and without protection, simply because the victim was a sex worker. Foreshadowing the recent outrageous comments of some politicians, she said to do otherwise would be a disservice to the victims of "true rape."

Judge Carr Deni has never repudiated her actions in this case. While she may prefer to forget the matter, Philadelphia voters have no reason to either forget or forgive. Let's all vote NO on Judge Carr Deni's retention November 5th.

Rape-Enabling Judge Up for Retention Again

Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni, who infamously ruled in 2007 that sex workers can't be raped, is up for retention again. On November 5, voters will get to say "yea" or "nay" on giving her another six years on the bench. (If nay, a replacement will be appointed.) Last night the Green Party of Philadelphia approved my motion to call for a no vote. You can follow the link below for more details on the case.

http://stripey7.blogspot.com/2007/11/update-on-rape-enabling-judge_04.html

When Is It All Right for the State to Break Its Promises?

In response to an item reported in this week's Public Record, I've submitted this comment to my state senator, Leanna Washington:

I understand the State House has just passed HB162, which would abrogate the confidentiality of sealed adoption records.

I have no personal stake in this issue, as I am neither a birth parent, adoptive parent, nor an adoptee. I care deeply, however, about honoring commitments. Birth parents who gave up their children for a sealed adoption did so based on the state's promise to keep their identity a secret. If this bill becomes law, the state will be breaching its trust with those citizens.

No matter how understandable and how intense adoptees' curiosity may be, it cannot trump the state's obligation to keep its commitments. The public's confidence in government is already at an all-time low; an abrogation of its commitment to birth parents would only push it lower still.

Please also bear in mind that the public debate on this issue is inherently skewed, because one side's interest is based on a desire for confidentiality, which could be jeopardized by speaking out about this. If the mail you receive is one-sided, that doesn't mean public opinion really is.

Conventional Prejudice Isn't Reality -- and Neither Is "Reality"

NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday (5 October) featured an interview with Erica Jong concerning her classic book Fear of Flying. For the most part it was good, but I had a couple comments which I'm submitting in the letter below.

Thank you for the interview with Erica Jong. But no thank you for the way you prefaced it.

Your statement that it was "not appropriate for children" flies in the face of all scientific evidence. Nowhere has it been demonstrated that there is any age before which hearing about sex is harmful to people. In fact, clinical history-taking has indicated that people with violent psychosexual disorders come disproportionately from families which denied them information about sex. You do the public a great disservice when you repeat this harmful antisexual superstition.

For further information, I recommend that you read the National Coalition Against Censorship's amicus brief concerning the Child Online Protection (sic) Act, which can be found at http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf; and Susan Levine's book Harmful to Minors: The Hazards of Protecting Children from Sex.

On another point, Jong did not make clear on what she based her notion that young women aren't getting any satisfaction from hookups. The only fact she cited is that what she sees on hookup "reality" shows doesn't turn out well.

I don't watch "reality" shows, but one thing I know about them is this: they're not reality. Individual lines may be improvised, but the story lines are scripted, and the scripts are based on conventional social assumptions. Since it's a conventional social assumption that women can't get satisfaction from casual sex, it's no surprise that they don't do so on these shows. That's because they aren't reality but "reality."

Further, particularly in connection with casual sex, "discretion" tends to be more important to women, because of the sexual double standard. So, a woman who would enjoy casual sex under real-life conditions may well not do so when a camera crew is following her around.

An Example of Why We Can All Use a Refresher Sometimes

Yesterday I started rereading Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change by Humane League founder and president Nick Cooney. And just now I got a reminder of why such refreshers can be important.

In my last post I copied a letter I'd sent correcting misinformation in a newspaper article about 9/11. Unfortunately I forgot one of the clearest lessons of the research on persuasion: one should never use the "Facts/Myths" format. The reason is that, in doing so, one must repeat the myths one means to refute, and people will often remember these as true even more than the corrective information, and even newly associate them with you as a trustworthy source. This is especially often true of older readers. The better approach, therefore, is simply to present the truth without making reference to the misinformation.

I had, in fact, initially meant to do that in my letter, but unfortunately forgot to when I was actually writing it. If I were writing it now, it would look something like this:

To the editor:

I appreciate your interest in helping the public understand the events of 9/11. Here are a few additional points not mentioned by the author of the article you published in your most recent issue:

1) The destruction of World Trade Center building 7 began when pieces of one of the much taller Twin Towers, only a block away, fell on it. This started a conflagration whose heat ultimately weakened the building's steel structure to the point where it collapsed -- in much the same way that the impact of planes started the fires that led to the Twin Towers' collapse.

2) Because WTC7 was hit by pieces of a building to one side of it, the fire started and remained primarily on that side of the building. The resulting asymmetric collapse is the reason that the rubble stretched over the width of a four-lane highway on that side.

3) Thanks to "a thorough internal study of the WTC collapses," the designers of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Beijing  avoided a similar catastrophe. "For example, instead of the steel-only structural framework of Building 7, ARUP used a combination of concrete and steel framing." Also, "[t]he firefighters were able to gain control of the blaze in about an hour, fully extinguishing the fire six hours after it began. By contrast, the fires in Building 7 were never fought, because what access the FDNY had to water could not reach the building." (http://ae911truth.INFO) Both these differences meant that where fire had been able to destroy WTC7, the Mandarin Oriental was spared this outcome.

This information and much else is documented at http://ae911truth.INFO. Click on "WTC7" under Categories and on "Mandarin Oriental" under Pages for articles about those buildings.

A Theory That Collapses in Its Own Footprint

The latest issue of The Independent Voice -- successor to The Germantown Chronicle -- contains a story by a 9/11 "inside-jobber." I felt moved to correct some misinformation, as follows:

There are some errors in your article "Questions Still Linger About Official Version of 9/11."

It's misleading to say, as Sabina Clarke does, that World Trade Center building 7 "was not hit by a plane." More to the point is that it was hit by one of the Twin Towers, which was much taller than the distance between the two buildings. It was this impact that started the fire in WTC7, in the same way the impact of planes started fires in the first two buildings, leading to their catastrophic collapse.

Also inaccurate is the statement that WTC7 "fell in its own footprint." Photos actually show the rubble covering a four-lane highway.

This information and much else is documented on the website "Answers to Architects for 9/11 Truth's Questions," at http://ae911truth.INFO. Click on "WTC7" under Categories for articles about that building.

I'll try to post an update if it's printed. Strangely, my earlier letter about misconduct I witnessed at my polling place last year never was, even though it was prompted by a piece they'd printed alleging election fraud.

Meet the Candidate

After canvassing my entire division with the help of fellow Greens Chris Robinson and Dave Houck, I've submitted nominating papers bearing thirty-four valid signatures to be placed on the ballot as our party's candidate for Inspector of Election. The legal requirement is five.

Consulting election results on the City Commissioners' and PhilaDems websites, I observe that this past primary, just like four years ago, no one bothered running for Judge or Inspector of Election in either "major" party for my division. This means I'll be the only candidate on the November ballot for our election board!

I'm also pleased to note that while Shoshana Bricklin, the progressive candidate for Municipal Court who ran in the Democratic primary with the support of Greens like myself and Chris Robinson, didn't win citywide, she came in third (out of three openings) in my division, and #1 in his!

Notwithstanding this special update, what I wrote in the previous post still applies if you wish to get in touch with me.

Signing Off

I have determined that the Web is too tempting a distraction for me as I strive to become more present to my physical surroundings, and in particular opportunities to make more human connections. Consequently it is my intention not to go online for the forseeable future (say, at least a year). If anyone wishes to reach me, they can email me at my Yahoo! address (same username as this blog), and they will receive an auto-response including alternate contact information.

My Friend Joe Szimhart Has Written a Novel

Looks interesting.

http://www.aperturepress.net/books/mushroom-satori

Girl in Movement by Eva Kollisch

I'm adding this book to my Powell Partner Bookshelf. I saw a review of it several years ago in the magazine Against the Current, but only got around to reading it more recently. I've also posted a comment which you can read on  Powell's page for it. It's the coming-of-age memoir of a woman involved in the early Forties in Max Schachtman's Workers Party.

The Joke That "Spoiler Alerts" Have Become

Have you noticed how it seems that these days, when someone on radio or TV says "spoiler alert," they immediately follow that phrase with a spoiler? Do they not understand that most people don't have their hands perpetually on the radio, and will need more than a split second to turn it off to avoid hearing something?

Done in this absurd way, a so-called spoiler alert might more accurately be called a "spoiler taunt," as in, Don't want to learn the ending before reading the book? Screw you -- I'm telling you anyway!

Disability Program Hides True Unemployment Level

The latest This American Life is devoted to an examination of why beneficiaries of the Social Security Disability program have exploded over the past couple decades. It turns out that, in large measure, this is how states have offloaded the cost of supporting people for whom capitalism can't actually provide living-wage employment by transferring them from state-financed welfare programs to the federal Social Security system. While this keeps these people from starving or becoming homeless, it has the big disadvantage of not doing anything to assist them in getting out of poverty -- at the same time it erases them from unemployment statistics by no longer counting them as "looking for work."

Bound and Gagged: pornography and the politics of fantasy in America, by Laura Kipnis

That story about Iceland reminded me of a great book I read several years ago, before I started my Powell Partner Bookshelf. I've added it now.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780802115843?p_isbn&PID=35751

Stop Iceland from Banning Internet "Violent Pornography"

As recently reported on FetLife, the government of Iceland is considering a ban on online "violent pornography," in the name of protecting children from its putative harm, of course. You can read the UK Guardian article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/16/iceland-online-pornography.

And here's what I've written the Prime Minister of Iceland at postur@for.stjr.is:

Dear Minister:

I am greatly concerned by the news that you are considering a law to ban Internet "violent pornography" in the name of protecting children.

In the first place, contrary to your statements, there is no consensus among researchers about this alleged harm. Consider, for instance, this statement by US scholars: http://www.ncac.org/media/related/20011205~USA~Letter_to_AAP_Concerning_Media_Violence_Statements.cfm.

In the second place, this is unquestionably an issue of free expression. Efforts to "protect" children with computer algorithms have had notoriously imprecise results -- including, for instance, the censoring of any and all gay-positive material -- so the only way to implement such a law would be to use human screeners, guaranteeing that those screeners' biases would come into play. Even terms like "violent" or "hateful" are construed in very different ways by different people. What one woman may call misogynistic, another finds arousing.

Thirdly, this goes beyond the desire of lone individuals to view erotica on their computers. Many people network online on the basis of shared erotic interests, such as BDSM (bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadomasochism). I belong to one such network based in the US. I am appalled at the thought that Icelanders with similar interests would become unable to find one another if this proposed law went into effect.

With a view to protecting their civil rights, I am determined that if this legislation is adopted, I will not buy any products from Iceland.

What Cognitive Dissonance Is and Is Not

In recent years I've been irritated by how often people misuse the phrase "cognitive dissonance." Understood correctly, it's a powerful and important theory about one of the things that can drive people to change their beliefs and/or their behaviors -- and which can be exploited by others for this purpose, including in underhanded and unethical ways, as often is practiced by cults for instance. But the colloquial usage completely fails to capture this dynamic aspect of the concept, reducing it instead to a sort of highfalutin insult.

I saw another example of this in the latest Savage Love column, and submitted this comment:

While the column may be a rerun, unfortunately an inaccurate idea expressed therein seems to be as widespread now as when it was first published: the definition, "cognitive dissonance: the holding of mutually exclusive beliefs."

As Wikipedia explains, "In modern psychology, cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions." Note the operative phrase, "feeling of discomfort." It's irrelevant whether SOMEONE ELSE perceives you to be holding mutually exclusive beliefs; what matters is whether YOU feel discomfort because YOU perceive a discrepancy. Leon Festinger, the author of the theory of cognitive dissonance, considered this effect important because people have a drive to REDUCE cognitive dissonance. You can't be driven to reduce a discrepancy that only other people, not you, perceive. Without this ingredient, it's reduced to an epithet, a pseudoscientific way of saying, "I think you're inconsistent!"

On the (Key)Spot

Today I'm writing from the Urban Affairs Coalition's KeySpot location, the first step to signing up for Wilco Electronics' low-cost home Wi-Fi service. That means soon, hopefully, I can blog, read email etc. from home for the first time in a couple years, and for the first time ever with a fast connection.

ICSA special event - Abuses in the Troubled Teen Industry

One of the participants in this event, Sunny Linkfield, has described her own experiences at the hands of this "industry" at ICSA-Philadelphia meetings. A couple political connections to this issue: the recent "kids for cash" scandal in PA involved a judge's railroading teens to a facility of this sort. And Mitt Romney has personal connections with Straight, Inc.

From: Michael Langone
To: International Cultic Studies Assoc.
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 1:48 PM
Subject: {ICSA Members:77} [ICSAMail:70] DC ICSA special event - Abuses in the Troubled Teen Industry

PDF Flyer: http://icsahome.com/pdf/fax_mail_spev_dc.pdf


Abuses in the Troubled Teen Industry

Saturday, April 20, 2013—10:00 AM – 5:30 PM

Comfort Inn, Pentagon City, 2480 South Glebe Rd., Bldg. 2, Arlington,
VA, US, 22206. Phone: (703) 682–5500 Fax: (703) 682-5505 Exit 7B
(Glebe Rd.), I-395. Free parking.

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) and Community Alliance
for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) are cosponsors of a one-
day conference that will bring experts together with individuals
harmed in teen treatment programs.

Some teen treatment programs have used psychological control
techniques commonly associated with manipulative, high-demand groups,
often called “cults.” Sometimes such techniques have contributed to
the psychological, physical, or sexual abuse of teens that the
programs were supposed to help.

The conference will include the following talks, followed by
discussion:

Overview of the Cultic Influences in the Troubled Teen Industry
(William Goldberg)
Clips from Surviving Straight Inc., a Documentary (Kelly Matthews)
The Great Drug War (Arnold Trebach)
Survivor Interviews: Surviving Straight Inc., a Documentary
Personal Story (Sunny Linkfield and Ethel Linkfield)
Cultic Practices in Residential Care and Applicable Human-Rights
Conventions (Katherine Whitehead)
How Do We Really Help Troubled Teens? What Science Tells Us (Steve
Eichel)
Overcoming and Healing After the Abuse (William Goldberg)
Healing Through Advocacy (Kathy Moya)

Space is limited, so please REGISTER ASAP. The registration fee is
$30, payable to ICSA.

To register, send:

Name(s):

Address:

City/State/Zip/Country:

Phone(s)/Fax:

E-mail (Important!):

Payment: [ ] Check [ ] Visa
[ ] MasterCard

cc No: Exp. Date:

Register Online: http://icsahome.com/infoserv_respond/event_conferences_workshops.asp

Mail: ICSA Box 2265, Bonita Springs, FL 34133 E-mail:
mail@icsamail.com Fax: 305-393-8193

Presenters

Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP, President of ICSA, is past President of
the American Academy of Counseling Psychology and the Greater
Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is a licensed and Board-
certified counseling psychologist whose involvement in cultic studies
began with a participant-observation study of Unification Church
training in its eastern seminary (in Barrytown, New York) in the
spring of 1975. His doctoral dissertation, an intensive, quantified
observation of a deprogramming, earned him a John G. Clark Award for
Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies in 1990. In 1983, along
with Dr. Linda Dubrow-Marshall and clinical social worker Roberta
Eisenberg, Dr. Eichel founded the Re-Entry Therapy, Information &
Referral Network (RETIRN), one of the field’s oldest continuing
private providers of psychological services to families and
individuals harmed by cultic practices. He also served as Clinical
Director of the St. Francis Homes for Boys from 1989 to 1994, and
subsequently as a consulting psychologist from 1994 to 2006. From 1993
to 1996 he was a family psychologist with Community Centered
Treatment, a multisystemic family-therapy program for delinquent
youth.

William Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA, is a clinical social worker and
psychoanalyst with more than forty years’ experience working with
former cult members. He and his wife, Lorna, colead a support group
for former cult members. This group has been meeting for more than
thirty-five years and is the oldest group of its kind in the world. In
2007 Bill retired from the Rockland County, New York Department of
Mental Health, where he directed several programs and clinics. He is
presently an adjunct professor in the Social Work and Social Science
departments of Dominican College, and he is on the faculty of the
Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies. Bill is a frequent speaker at
ICSA conferences, and he and Lorna have been the recipients of the
Authentic CAN Hall of Fame Award, and of the Leo J. Ryan Award. In
2010, Bill was the recipient of ICSA's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sunny Linkfield, President of CAFETY, is a survivor of Straight Inc.,
where she was a client from 1982 to 1984. This abusive teen “rehab”
center convinced thousands of parents that normal behavior was a sign
of “druggie” behavior. Sunny was an overachiever but became a moody
teenager, experimenting with pot, alcohol, and a few other drugs.
After her parents read an article in Reader's Digest, they dropped her
off in a warehouse called Straight Incorporated. Straight, Inc. was an
abusive, mind-control cult that practiced on youth torture techniques
formerly used in Communist China and North Korea. These techniques
were ostensibly employed to help Straight’s victims overcome the
problems and addictions that Straight claimed they had. Spin-offs
still exist today. Sunny is now a make-up artist/esthetician and a
trainer in retail cosmetics. She was recently interviewed in the new
movie, Surviving Straight Inc., a Documentary. Sunny was also the lead
make-up artist for the film. Ms. Linkfield is active with the
International Cultic Studies Association and serves on the Board of
Directors of the Community Alliance For the Ethical Treatment of
Youth.

Kathy Moya, BA (Psychology) is a former 15-year-old client of the
Straight, Inc. program in 1982. In 1999, Kathy helped spearhead the
online movement against institutional child abuse. Her personal
efforts began with a forum and Web site called Straight Inc.
Survivors, in an effort to share her research about the Straight, Inc.
program and speak to others who had been there so they could share
their stories and viewpoints about their experiences. In 2001, she
helped organize the Saving Our Children from Drug Treatment Abuse
conference presented by the Trebach Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Her research led to her discovery that an entire troubled-teen
industry existed within and beyond the United States. By 2004, she had
created the Fight Institutional Child Abuse (FICA) Web site, which
served as an informational campaign and forum for families considering
a residential program for their child(ren), as well as for families
who had already been affected by child abuse within a variety of
institutions for children. She authored two reports in 2006,
“Understanding the Con Game,” and “Understanding Brainwashing, Mind
Control & Aggression,” as part of the Fight Institutional Child Abuse
educational campaign. She attended the congressional hearings on Child
Abuse and Neglect at Residential Treatment Programs in 2007 and has
participated in several conferences over the years regarding this
topic.

Arnold Trebach, JD, PhD, is the founder, Chairman of the Board of
Directors, and Chief Executive Officer of The Trebach Institute. He
has had a long and varied career in the worlds of academia,
scholarship, teaching, writing, government service, and business
enterprises. He personally led the Institute on Drugs, Crime, and
Justice, an international seminar on drug treatment and policy, from
1974 to 1998. He founded the nonprofit Drug Policy Foundation (DPF) in
1986 and served as its first chairman and president until 1997. DPF
has been recognized as one of the leading forces for rational drug
policy reform in the world. He has been the subject of an
international campaign that sought his nomination for a Nobel Peace
Prize on the basis of his drug-policy-reform efforts. Also, he has
been called the Father of the Modern Drug Policy Reform Movement and
the Shadow Drug Czar, along with some much-less-favorable appellations
by some of those who support the status quo in drug control. He
retired from the American University, where he now holds the rank of
Professor Emeritus, and also from the Foundation at the end of 1997.
His books include The Rationing of Justice (Rutgers University Press,
1964); The Heroin Solution (Yale University Press, 1982); The Great
Drug War (Macmillan, 1987); and Legalize It? Debating American Drug
Policy (American University Press, 1993), which he coauthored with
James Inciardi. Dr. Trebach has edited or coauthored many other books
and has published numerous original articles in scholarly journals and
the popular press. He has appeared in hundreds of television and radio
programs. American University conferred on him its highest award for
scholarship for the academic years 1978–79 and 1983–84. He holds a JD
degree from the New England School of Law (1951) and a PhD in Politics
from Princeton University (1958). Since 1951 he has been a member of
the Massachusetts Bar.

Katherine Whitehead, JD, is a children’s-rights advocate and the
founder and director of Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment
of Youth, CAFETY. The organization’s mission is to promote and secure
the human rights of youth in, or at risk of residential placement,
through education and advocacy led and driven by those with direct
experience in harmful residential placement and our allies. Ms.
Whitehead is a survivor of a therapeutic boarding school called
Mission Mountain School, and she formed CAFETY in an effort to give
voice to residential-care alumni and survivors concerned with human-
rights violations in residential programs for youth. A graduate of
Hunter College with a BA in Political Science, Ms. Whitehead dedicates
much of her time to civic engagement. She volunteers her time for
various organizations and working groups such as the Bazelon Center
for Mental Health Law and Policy’s Leadership 21 Initiative, and
Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate Use of Residential
Treatment (ASTART).

Today I resumed going door to door in my neighborhood with the Green Party of Philadelphia's anti-fracking petition (I started two weeks ago), which will be presented on Earth Day, 22 April, to the head of the DEP regional office in Norristown. I'm doing this as a way of getting to know my neighbors and increasing the visibility of  GPOP, and with a view to further developing my capacity for extroversion/overcoming social anxiety. While I've done door-to-door things a few times before, this time it's my own initiative.

I saw in the City Paper that Tuesday night, Woodmere Art Museum is screening The Ipcress File, a film from 1965 in which "Michael Caine stars as an intelligence agent investigating the brainwashing of British scientists." Seeing an opportunity to offer some information about the reality behind the fiction, I've printed out Margaret Singer's article "Thought Reform Exists" from ICSA so I can make copies to hand out.

Who Do I Think I Am -- Some Kind of Einstein?

Well, not quite. I understand he had an IQ of 160. I do have a friend like that.

But it occurred to me recently that I might find more people to get romantically excited about -- and, at the same time, whom I could relate to on other levels as well -- if I spent more time around those on a similar intellectual level. So I contacted Mensa and learned when their next test for membership eligibility is.

I was never told my IQ as a child, but later self-administered a test I got at a bookstore. Though I was allowed 90 minutes to complete it, I got through it and reviewed my answers in less than an hour. When I scored myself I got 146. So I'm fairly confident I'll pass the test being administered next Saturday.

I just listened and commented on this edition of *Voices in the Family* from a month ago on a particularly fascinating topic. If you read the comments, you'll notice how conspiracist listeners heard the show selectively so that they could justify dismissing it as just "part of the conspiracy," completely ignoring that host and guests alike acknowledged the existence of actual conspiracies and the importance of maintaining a degree of suspiciousness toward official as well as toward dissident views. http://whyy.org/cms/voicesinthefamily/conspiracy-theory-mentality/

Flawed Reasoning About Hookups

In his interview on WHYY's Morning Edition today, Dr. Dan Gottlieb talked about "hookup culture." Unfortunately his remarks evinced a biased attitude toward the subject, as I discussed in this message I sent the station:

While Dan Gottlieb is right to say parents should tell their children that casual sex can be physically pleasurable (if only so they won't lose credibility), that's only half the story. His suggestion that it compares unfavorably in other respects with dating suffers from a fatal flaw: none of the figures he cited actually makes such a comparison. In the absence of corresponding numbers for dating, the findings about hookups that he reports are of little practical relevance.

In particular I would dispute the claim, for which he doesn't even cite any study data, that hookups involve "an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections." Quite the opposite, I think: because people who are hooking up do so for the explicit, unambiguous purpose of having sex, it's pretty certain that they'll bring protection. In a dating situation, by contrast, women in particular may tell themselves that they don't really intend to have sex -- especially if it's one of their first dates with someone -- while secretly hoping that something might "just happen." This sort of romantic fantasy often results in someone's coming to a date without birth control or, even if they bring it, failing to use it because they're "carried away by the moment," or because they're afraid showing they came prepared for sex (instead of relying on the man for birth control) will make them seem "slutty."

In a hookup situation this isn't an issue, since by agreeing to it a woman makes clear she's not ashamed about wanting sexual pleasure. So she not only will come prepared, but is highly likely to use what she brought.