I lost my weekly Transpass today, but didn't know this till I got a call from the man who'd found it. He waited several minutes for me to come and retrieve it and declined the dollar bill I offered him for his trouble.

Trumka Running for President?

He hasn't said so, but it's encouraging how blunt he's been lately about his dissatisfaction with Democratic leaders, as described in this article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/09-1.

They're already trying to preempt a challenge from the left: today I saw a sticker on a light pole reading "2012" with the Obama logo inside the "0," and below in smaller letters, "I'm in!" So I wrote "TRUMKA FOR PREZ" on a blank label and placed it directly above; and above that, by way of partial explanation, a leftover sticker for the 9 April antiwar march.

I'm thinking of trying to spread the meme "Trumka running for president" on the Web in hopes of getting it reported as "trending." I heard of someone who successfully did that, merely in a spirit of mischief, for "Muslim leader converts to Christianity."

Quote of the Week

"Being called a socialist is a step up for me." -- AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, speaking to Bloomberg News. Works for me, too!

The "Myth" of Repressed Memory

I was perusing the Skeptical Inquirer the other day, where it reported on Elizabeth Loftus' having received an award for defending her work on the creation of false memories. I took the occasion to write the following to the editor:

I was reading your coverage of Elizabeth Loftus's recent award for demonstrating the malleability of memory. She certainly deserves recognition for the courage with which she defended her findings and testified to their relevance in many legal cases.

That said, it's problematic that so many skeptics seem willing only to acknowledge the alterability of memory in the direction of its artificial creation, and not its intentional suppression.

For several years I remembered the following: at age 12 I became curious about my family's past, so my mother showed me where some old documents were. One of these was my father's curriculum vitae. Suddenly, midway through reading it, I said loudly, "Why are you wasting your time looking at all these stupid old papers? You have more important things to do with your time!" I hastily put them away and left the room. Even as I did so, I realized my behavior was strange, but I didn't look back.

When I was seventeen, my mother told me something I hadn't known: she'd had another husband before my father, named Harold Diamond. Almost immediately I felt that something seemed familiar about that surname, but I couldn't place it. Within a few years, the whole name also seemed familiar, but I still didn't know why. Finally, while again pondering it, I saw the printed words in my mind's eye: "Married Alma Diamond in 1951." And immediately remembered where I'd seen them: in my father's c.v.! Now I recalled the split second that had been missing before: seeing that sentence and immediately averting my eyes and chiding myself on "wasting my time." A little later I visited my mother and asked to look at the c.v. again. There the sentence was, just as I remembered.

My brother, similarly, has over the years recalled several incidents he'd forgotten, clearly not because they were insignificant but because of how significant, in a disturbing way, they were. (He recently wrote about one of these on his blog.) To the best of my knowledge all of his repressed memories, like mine, were recovered without the use of hypnosis, and in at least one case his memory, like mine, received some independent verification.

Can I, in a scientifically rigorous sense, prove that the above is a true account of the history of my memory? Probably not, since life isn't a controlled experiment. I can only attest — and will solemnly affirm, on a stack of Skeptical Inquirers if you like — that had anyone asked me, between the ages of 12 and 17, whether my parents had previously been married, I would have answered in all sincerity, "No, not to my knowledge." And there is, after all, no reason to regard this as any less plausible, a priori, than the creation of false memories. It's just harder, for practical and ethical reasons, to demonstrate in a laboratory.

Now, there may be some specialist sense in which these memories don't meet some technical definition of "repression." But I'm pretty darn sure they are exactly what the average person in the street thinks of when te hears that phrase. So to have a book titled The Myth of Repressed Memory, without the author even making some sort of cavil about it when giving speeches or interviews, is very problematic. When the term "myth" is being applied to something that millions of people have firsthand experience with, I suspect the effect is not so much to discredit false memories, as to discredit the skeptics who are trying to make people aware of this issue.

Years ago the Skeptical Inquirer bore this cover line: "Hypnosis Is Not a Truth Serum." This is quite true and of great importance where abuse allegations are concerned. But from this factual statement, to baselessly calling repressed memories a "myth," is a huge leap of logic — one which consistent skeptics will refrain from.

Yesterday someone called to me from her car. It was a receptionist I'd invited to an evening of spoken word a few weeks ago, but had never given me a confirmation call. It turns out she'd lost my number. I'd nearly given upon her but now am again optimistic it may come to something.

I've got to admit, I'm getting better...

And Saturday night was another breakthrough. I went to one of The Black Phoenix Club's Purgatory play parties, asked or told several people I was interested in playing with them, and exchanged contact info with a few. I hadn't done this with more than one or two people in the 8 1/2 years I'd been involved in the kink community. I also, before the night was out, developed the will to "dress down" in the hope of attracting more interest; it somehow hadn't occurred to me previously that I might do this even if I wasn't already playing with someone. It's also true I hadn't been to this type of party for a couple years, so this may reflect progress I'd been making incrementally over that whole period which only now had the opportunity of expressing itself.

Particularly nice was that, near party's end, I got in a conversation with a woman who turned out also to have serious social anxiety problems. It was stimulating to exchange perspectives and talk about coping mechanisms etc. with someone who shares this as a personal interest.

Woo Hoo! Rafah Border Reopened

This actually happened a little while ago but I heard a report reminding me of it yesterday. It's particularly gratifying to hear since I spent a few days in Rafah while volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement.

The man who eventually agreed to let my affinity group stay over in his house and take turns listening for tanks (as described in an earlier post) took us within a few hundred feet of the border. He cautioned us not to step out from behind the building for fear the guards in the tower would shoot at us, so instead I peered at the no man's land through my camera. Our host-to-be also commented bitterly on how the "peace" agreement between Egypt and Israel had created this oppressive situation, where previously people could move freely.

I should email my friend Emad, whom I also met in Rafah and who put up me and Joe Bailey the night before (IIRC), to share my happiness about this turn of events.

I just left Sen. Rand Paul a message thanking him for his efforts to counter the so-called Patriot Act's infringements on our liberties.

An Independent Candidate for City Commissioner

This past Thursday evening, the Green Party of Philadelphia voted unanimously to nominate Richie Antipuna as their candidate for City Commissioner. Richie has been an activist based in the Kensington area for some time; his cable TV show brought attention to the "Kensington Strangler" killings before authorities or other media were taking them seriously, to name just one of the community issues he's worked on. He now has a network of supporters based in all parts of the city and elsewhere. I look forward to helping elect him.

It should not be hard to stir up interest in his campaign in my new neighborhood of Germantown, as many feel that the outgoing district councilwoman, Donna Reed Miller, engaged in a lot of electoral dirty tricks. The City Commissioners' job is to ensure that elections are run fairly, so having someone independent in that office would revive confidence in the electoral process.

You can view Richie's show at http://blip.tv/the-richie-antipuna-show

Starting on a New Diet

The other day I started trying to practice a calorie restriction (CR) diet. The point of this is not to lose weight (I'm not currently overweight or not by much anyway), but to increase one's likely longevity and overall state of health by keeping fasting blood glucose levels low. Too soon to see results (I haven't gotten a glucose meter yet), but the striking thing is how different the same physical sensation can seem depending on one's attitude toward it. Previously hunger would tend to make me anxious, based on a supposition that it's evidence of a condition threatening to my well-being. But now that I understand moderate hunger is actually a sign of a healthful condition, it rarely disturbs me at all.

Call to Stop War Spending!

This courtesy of USLAW (US Labor Against the War):

This week, the House is expected to debate and vote on the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) - the bill authorizing spending $553 billion for the Pentagon and another $118 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is time we brought our troops home from Afghanistan and stopped wasting billions of dollars we need at home. The last thing Congress should be doing is authorizing endless war, but that's exactly what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act does.

Call Congress today, using this toll free number 1-888-231-9276*. The calls started yesterday, and we want to keep pressure on Congress until the vote which is expected on Thursday.

Out Candidate Almost Wins, World Almost Ends

OK, the latter is an exaggeration. But Sherrie Cohen, whom I helped get on the primary ballot and then did phonebanking and leafleting for in the last days of the campaign, was first runner-up in Philadelphia's City Councillor-at-large race, falling just 1600 votes shy of winning a seat. And it was her first run for office. Not bad!

I also made myself a new reusable placard to show the End Timers leafleting on May 20. Unfortunately I only found one of them, but the sign evoked favorable comments from others and sparked a good conversation on the subway ride home. Among the slogans were "It's never too late to kick the faith habit" and "Reality speaks to us through our senses and NO WISE ELSE."

Sorry for Being a Stranger

It's been a while since I posted much here, on account of my no longer having Internet access from home, and being preoccupied with matters related to my having to move.

I'm not wired from my new home yet, but now that the move is accomplished I hope to post more regularly again.

Objectivity .NE. Centrism

The latest On the Media had a discussion about whether NPR is biased. While it was acknowledged that media fragmentation has led to a lack of consensus about what constitutes the "center," no one questioned that said "center" is a relevant reference point for defining bias. I made the following comment (which had to be edited slightly before submission because of a character limit):

The fundamental flaw in this discussion is the unexamined assumption expressed by the phrase, "journalism that tries to stick to the center and tell both sides." This assumes 1) that there are only two sides to an issue, and 2) that somehow the "center," whatever that means, is more likely to be right than any other position.

One sees how ridiculous these assumptions are if we do a historical thought experiment. At one time, the "center" was undecided on whether slavery was right or wrong. Does that mean a journalist who acted on the usual assumptions of today would have been biased in doing totally antislavery reporting, but unbiased by giving the proslavery position equal time? How can what was biased then be unbiased now, and vice versa? Plainly such an approach is not unbiased at all, but is instead biased against change. The study you discussed, which found the Inquirer's "pro-peace" bias on Palestine/Israel to effectively favor locking in the status quo, is just one example of this.

Also, on any particular question, one side favors a change from the status quo while the other wants to preserve it. So you can give equal time to both sides on various issues, but still skew your coverage simply by your decisions about what issues to cover.

Often what we would now view as the right position would have been considered totally fringe at one time. The "doughnut" approach is fundamentally at odds with freedom of thought because it rules out positions which may in fact be correct, simply because they are presently unpopular. To be truly objective (to the extent humanly possible), journalists must stop worrying about what is or is not the "center" and simply try to report all the relevant facts that come to light. As in science, the corrective to individual biases will be found not in a cult of "objectivity" that really masks a centrist bias but, rather, in the interplay of the different perspectives of multiple journalists, each helping to check and correct the bias of others.

Support the Nadler-Lee-Stark Amendment

The Nadler-Lee-Stark amendment will be voted on today or tomorrow.

The Congress is voting on a Continuing Resolution to authorize funding for 2011. Continuing resolutions are used when a new budget has not been adopted. It allows the government to continue to operate while debate continues on the budget.

This amendment to the Continuing Resolution, which will set the budget for FY 2011, would strike $90 billion from the proposed $100 billion allotted for Afghanistan, leaving $10 billion for the withdrawal of US troops.

Call the Capitol Switchboard TODAY: (202)-224-3121.
Ask your member of Congress to vote in favor of this amendment.

Missing the Forest for the Mystery Lights

At a PhACT meeting recently, George Hansen complained to me that, in a couple of earlier posts ("Review: The Trickster and the Paranormal" and "This Movie Is for the Birds"), I had misrepresented him by saying he portrayed Linda Moulton Howe as a credible source of information (and I had added that I thought this reflected negatively on his own powers of critical judgment). He said that, on the contrary, he had written about how "even her friends sometimes become exasperated at her for uncritically accepting information from government personnel." I said I'd reread that part of his book and issue a correction if necessary.

I've now reread the section in question. It's true that he makes the statement about her uncritical reporting of claims by government personnel. But that's a very limited criticism compared to what I observed when she spoke at the Central Library in 2002, which didn't even involve quoting government sources. As I wrote in my review of Hansen's book, Howe failed to see evidence of the artifactual nature of "mystery lights" that was literally staring her in the face, instead seeming to see only further "mystery" in it. Likewise, she irrationally dismissed the revelation by the two Englishmen about having made crop circles — with a demonstration of how they did it — on the grounds that these two men couldn't be responsible for circles on multiple continents. This totally missed the real point of their revelation, which was that if they could do it, anyone could do it. And evidently many have.

Compared to this, what is Hansen's observation that Howe is unduly credulous about claims coming from government sources? Why, it's hardly anything. He ascribes to her such broad positive traits as "incredible energy, tenacity, and dedication" as well as "integrity ... above reproach," yet he doesn't see fit to criticize her incredible obtuseness when it comes to recognizing information that disconfirms her beliefs? Such an imbalance might be called "praising with faint damnation," and borders on dishonesty in my book. Unless, of course, he doesn't mention her obtuseness because he shares it with her.

Critical Thinking Discussed, Not Applied on NPR

Today's Morning Edition discussed a study that purported to show that a large fraction of college students aren't learning critical thinking skills. This may well be true, but it was never stated how this outcome had been measured — particularly ironic given that Steve Inskeep had opened the interview with a declaration that he'd be applying critical thinking to the study, yet never asked this rather basic question. Here's the comment I posted:

You said you'd apply some critical thinking to the study, but actually did very little. You never asked the guest how it was determined that a third of the students surveyed showed little improvement in critical thinking skills. The only metrics mentioned were the amount of writing done, and how difficult students feel their courses are. Neither of these bears any necessary relation to critical thinking. One can write at great length, but if the teacher gives a high grade simply for regurgitating what he said, no critical thinking need be involved. On the other hand, if a professor knows how to teach critical thinking really well, the student might find it very easy despite the fact that he's learning a lot.

Some good ways to measure such skills can be imagined. For instance, one could ask a person to read an essay and then identify all the fallacies it contains. This might involve very little writing — none at all if administered orally — but would still provide a definite measure of critical thinking skills. But the guest said nothing about whether this or any similarly relevant test was actually employed in the study.

You can read a transcript of the story at http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=133310978.

A Little Exposure Never Hurts

Last Sunday I had an experience to which I didn't respond as promptly as I would have liked because of social anxiety.

I was doing the laundry at a place around a couple corners from my building. This is a place I started using a few weeks ago, when it had just opened. The location is much more convenient than where I'd been taking the laundry, at 7th and Girard, and also cost less. It's built into a little apartment building on Carlisle Street.

The first few times I used it I was quite satisfied. But last Sunday, I looked inside the only dryer that wasn't in use, and found there was water at the bottom. I got the manager's attention, saying, "This dryer isn't working right." Then I pointed and said, "See, there's water at the bottom."

The manager responded by going to get a rag or washcloth, coming back, and wiping the water up. Then he left the dryer just as it was.

From past experience, I'd always assumed that a dryer in this condition is not functioning properly. How can it get clothes dry if there's water at the bottom? So I was simply stunned that the manager was wiping the water up — in effect concealing that there was a problem — and not putting an "Out of order" sign on the machine. I didn't even think of asking him about it then, so conditioned I seem to be by fear of confrontation.

At the time I simply decided I wouldn't come back to this place, as the manager was evidently either incompetent or a crook — and a brazen one too, to have done what he did right in front of me. I started also thinking of putting signs up in the neighborhood to report on what had happened.

But a day or two later I told a couple of my co-workers about it, and one of them asked me, "Did you say anything?" I admitted that I hadn't, and he noted that the manager apparently had not been wrong in thinking he could be so brazen. This thought had crossed my mind, but hearing it from someone else made it impossible to simply push out of consciousness. (Social proof to the rescue!) So I resolved to go back there and ask the manager to explain his action.

This past week I've been lacking a home Internet connection, keeping me out late using a library computer. So I didn't get a chance to address this matter till today. When I went there, a different person was managing, who has hardly any English. He pointed to a sign across the street with his boss's number on it, so I called that. I asked the man who answered if he was the one managing last Sunday, and he confirmed this. But when I reminded him of what had happened, he simply denied it. He repeatedly asked "Last Sunday?" and I would again confirm that that's when it happened. But he just kept saying, "There was nothing wrong," and "No one said anything." So finally I said, "Well, either you have a bad memory or you're a liar. Either way, I'm not bringing my business here any more."

I wish he'd been there in person, so I could have confronted him face to face. Not that I relish that thought. Just the contrary. It would have been more anxious-making — and therefore a better "exposure" to help me learn I can handle my social anxiety. But that's the way the cookie crumbled. Better than nothing, anyway.

Memo to Ira Glass: Ignorance Is Not Bliss!

The episode of This American Life broadcast today included a segment he told us was "not suitable for children." I've responded to this profoundedly wrongheaded "warning" with the following message:

How on Earth can you say that your story from Westword (about the man who wanted to kill the rapist from his childhood) is unsuitable for children?

Do you honestly believe it's better that children not be aware of how they might be victimized if they're not careful? How is that going to protect them? It will, to the contrary, leave them that much more vulnerable.

Were you concerned that the material might be too disturbing for children? That admittedly is a possibility worthy of consideration — although children are often able to handle (and already aware of) more than adults give them credit for. But if that was your concern, you should have said so plainly and not left it open to the other interpretation, which reinforces an appallingly irrational and misguided, if still too common, attitude.

Ignorance is not bliss. It is danger!

You can hear the program at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/425/slow-to-react. You can write Glass at web@thislife.org.

Review: The Kings of Clonmel

Last spring, while I had a second job with the Census Bureau, I ordered a few books from Powell's , and with these I was sent their latest catalog. I noticed that one of the books listed, a novel for young readers, concerned a religious cult, and was curious as to how accurate and informative it might be on the issue of psychological manipulation. So I offered to write a review of it for the International Cultic Studies Association . I've now done so. Here it is:

Ranger’s Apprentice Book 8: The Kings of Clonmel by John Flanagan. New York: Philomel Books, 2010.

John Flanagan is a children’s fiction writer living in Australia, with a background in advertising. The central premise of this book, set in a fictionalized medieval Europe, is that a religious group is rapidly gaining influence and converts by covertly orchestrating acts of destruction and lawlessness, while publicly offering its god’s protection against these threats. The book is intended for young readers, and my interest as an ex-member was in seeing to what extent it provides them with an improved understanding of how cults work and how one can guard against them.

To a limited degree it does so, illustrating some of the ways perceptions and emotions can be shaped by stagecraft, but not the subtler and more psychologically invasive forms of manipulation. Similarly, it treats cultism as a matter only of deception, not self-deception, depicting the cult leader and his inner circle as conscious charlatans who believe in none of what they’re doing. Only the more recent converts are actual believers and, because they’ve been deceived purely by control of information rather than systematic ego destruction, it’s not too hard for the heroes to turn them against the cult once they’re in a position to expose its fraudulent practices.

Of course, when even much of the (real-world) adult population has no understanding of cults whatsoever, most juvenile readers will come away from this book with more understanding than they had before. And perhaps a psychologically deeper treatment would go over the heads of many. The most important lesson taught by The Kings of Clonmel may be that expressed by these words of a sage old woman who hasn’t gone in with the cult: “A god who brings you good and bad in equal amounts doesn’t ask for much. Maybe a prayer or two. Maybe the odd sacrifice of a beast. But a god who promises only good times? A god like that will always want something of you.” In other words, any offer that seems too good to be true not only probably isn’t, but also is likely to end up costing more than one counted on.

It's been accepted for publication and will be appearing in ICSA's magazine, ICSA Today.