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Friday, March 18. 2011

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Kandinsky went through many phases, as did Picasso later. I think all of his stuff is interesting to look at.

Posted by Bird Dog at 05:05 | Comments (24) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday, March 17. 2011

More on the pseudo-scientism of mental health

Excellent post by Dr. Sheurich, Interesting Times for Psychiatrists.

Yes. It used to be that Psychiatrists were the only ones who would talk to a distressed person with some depth of understanding. Nowadays, everybody can be a "therapist," and the "New, Improved" Psychiatrists don't want to get to know who you are. They want a symptom for the right pill.

I'm with 1 Boring Old Man:

I kept going on doing what I knew how to do anyway – just kept "doing what I did before and what I loved." I was a late arriver, having had another career first, so I was never around for the days of wine and roses to "go backwards, moneywise, in [my] career." I’m retired with "the lifestyle that my wife and I have been living for the last 40 years." I live in a log cabin. We travel and buy the things we want. It was a modest life with a modest retirement. I wouldn’t have had it be much different. I get calls from Therapist friends often who want me to help them find a "good Psychiatrist" who will do their "meds." I don’t even know what to say. Good Psychiatrists don’t "do meds," they treat people.

In my view, all docs should treat people, not diagnoses and not symptoms. People aren't "cases" - not even to good surgeons and anesthesiologists. No two "cases" are the same. Medicine is a humanistic, humanitarian art as much as it is science, and people are too complicated for simple formulations - unless they are bleeding out in the ER or some such. As I read the medical literature, most people don't even take their prescribed medicines.

I take note that the current head of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Carol Bernstein, has problems with the DSM model.

So do I. I have some hope for it too, but believe it to be of limited utility. It's largely pseudo-scientific, and pseudo-certain. "Sex Addiction"? Give me a break.

As 1 Boring Old Man says, "Don't mistake the pointing finger for the moon."

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Our Essays, Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 16:23 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Congrats to the young Lad

From a choice of offers, the lad has accepted a new interesting "opportunity" (as jobs are termed, these days) in NYC.

Now I will have two kids working there, plus one beloved daughter-in-law. It's all good.

I tend to think that all ambitious young folks need to do some time in the Big City, whatever their field, if only to find out what high energy and high demands and sharp elbows really mean. I did, and it didn't hurt me none. Well, maybe a few narcissistic scars, but that's good for one's character. If you haven't been introduced to your flaws, weaknesses, and deficiencies yet, NY will happily introduce you to them - and tax the heck out of you for the privilege. I think it's worth it. At least for a while.

Pic is Manhattan from the Whitestone Bridge at dawn, on my way to some airport

Posted by Bird Dog at 14:37 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

How to Lie with Charts and Graphs - and a free ad for two great books

That is, of course, the title of Jones' classic, a companion piece to Huff's How To Lie with Statistics.

A post at Watts explains how the graph on right is designed to be misleading, to say the least.

Posted by The Barrister in Fallacies and Logic, Our Essays at 14:14 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Obama Compounds the Inherent Contradictions in US Foreign Policy

From Vietnam to today, the majority of US public opinion has supported confronting active threats to US security. And, naturally, Americans sympathize with the oppressed and their human rights. However, as the costs rose, time elapsed, and foreign policy dilettantes recoil from the realities of armed intervention, other firmer supporters increasingly bemoan the restrictions imposed by the half-hearted and the saboteurs of winning that not only cost more US military lives but place the end-goals in jeopardy.

In short, the inherent contradiction in US foreign policy is between those willing to undertake the burdens and those who undermine that will. This leads to initial enthusiasms that fade to regrets, and has created a new isolationism among many who favor strong actions but – having paid the price -- are unwilling to become wasted cannon fodder. This is particularly felt among many veterans who have felt the anguish of their efforts being undercut and frittered.

Most – but not all – of the usual advocates of an assertive US foreign policy argue for the US to be clearer and more forthright in standing by those in the Middle East fighting against its satraps – whether allied to or opponents of the US. The situation in Libya is the current front, while those in Tunisia and Egypt fade from the short attention span of the front pages.

The incoherency of President Obama’s foreign policies, from inauguration to now, however, undermines from the get-go the expectations of focus, perseverance, adequate means, and thus favorable results. The only consistent behavior shown by the Obama administration has been weak and dithering resolve to protect US interests coupled with rewarding enemies and undercutting allies.

There is nothing in the Obama administration’s handling of the current revolts in the Middle East that indicates a meaningful learning or reversal of this course.

Indeed, the ongoing dithering and waffling in the face of events only reinforces the view of an administration at best adrift in confusion, ignorance and denial, and at worst purposely dangerous in furthering US interests abroad.

There are good arguments to be made for the US intervening more actively and forcibly in the Middle East revolts, but in my view they pale before the lack of confidence that the Obama administration has labored so hard to deserve. This is especially so given the likely outcomes just enmeshing the US further in the Arab world’s self-inflicted dysfunctionality, with not even any worthwhile gratitude to result.

It is not easy nor consistent with our decency to see innocents or rebels slaughtered. It is less easy to send our sons and daughters into the cauldron created by the Arabs themselves, with only slightly marginal lasting results the best outcome and more likely not even that.

P.S.: Andrew McCarthy at National Review goes into more detail. Read it all, and think, think, think.

Posted by Bruce Kesler in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays at 14:12 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Mustelid du Jour: The Fisher doesn't scream and doesn't eat fish either

Country folk call them "Fisher cats," and blame them for the decline of Ruffed Grouse populations in the Northeast (about which they are wrong. Grouse and Fishers coexisted for millennia. I blame the grouse population drops on fire suppression, habitat loss - and the dang Coyotes who would not be here had we not killed all of the wolves).

Fishers are large members of the weasel family (the Mustelidae - stoats, badgers, otters, martens, mink, weasels, wolverines) - kinda like mini-Wolverines.

With the return of woodlands and the decline of fur trapping, Fisher populations are rebounding in the northern US, especially in New England (same as with the Black Bear). They are one of the few animals that kills Porcupines.

I've never seen one in the wild, but I'd like to.

Do they scream? It seems to be an Old Wives' Tale. Info about Fishers here and here.

Have any of our readers seen one?

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation, Our Essays at 12:22 | Comments (14) | Trackbacks (0)

The Big McNeill, for St. Paddy's Day

O'Reilly and the Big McNeill (Donneil Kennedy)

The day I met O'Reilly it was 32 below;
The sparks were flying off me pick, I was up to me neck in snow.
His footsteps shook the basement slab, I saw the sky go black
As he roared out, "I'm your ganger now, so dig until you crack.''

He was bigger than a dumper truck with legs like concrete piles,
His face was like a load of bricks, his teeth were six inch files.
His eyes, they shone like danger lamps, his hands were tough as steel,
But a man as small as that was never a match for Big McNeill.

When tea came round at dinner-time, he grabbed a gallon tin,
But I said, "Better put that down, if you would save your skin.
You may be called O'Reilly but I will to you reveal
That the cup you've got your hands on, it belongs to Big McNeill.''

Well, he laughed at me and carried on as if I hadn't spoke.
He said, ``A man from Dublin Town can always take a joke.''
But when he picked a shovel up, wee Jimmy gave a squeal
"You'd better leave that teaspoon, it belongs to Big McNeill.''

Well, everything the ganger touched we said to leave alone,
Or else McNeill would grind him up and make plaster of his bones.
At last O'Reilly lost his head and said he'd make a meal
Out of any labourer in the squad, especially Big McNeill.

We said McNeill was sick in bed and told him where to go.
The boys all downed their tools and went along to watch the show,
And when we got to Renfrew Street, wee Jimmy danced a reel,
To see him thundering at the door to fight the Big McNeill.

When the ganger got inside he saw a monster on the bed,
A mound as big as a stanchion base with a barrel size of head.
He punched it and he thumped it and he hit about with zeal,
'Til the missus cried: "Don't hurt the child, or else I'll tell McNeill.''

He was bigger than a dumper truck
With legs like concrete piles,
His face was like a load of bricks,
His teeth were six inch files,
His eyes, they shone like danger lamps,
His hands were tough as steel,
But a man as small as that was never
A match for Big McNeill.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 11:16 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday morning links

Relationships: 10 Reasons You Should Break It Off (h/t Linkiest)

Refuting a Myth About Human Origins

Schneiderman: The Meaning of Life

It's the Enlightenment secular-humanist view. Not bad at all. Me? I take a Christian view.

“Conyers: Obamacare Is ‘Platform’ for Creating Single-Payer System”

I think it's designed to drive private insurors out of business

Housing starts see biggest drop since 1984

Lots of inventory out there. Lucky time to be a buyer, lousy time to be a seller. Them's the breaks.

Insty:

THE INTOLERANCE of the avant-garde. “That helps to explain why the ideas of the avant garde have been the same for more than a century, and why, today, avant garde means defending the statist status quo.”

And that’s a good excuse for linking this piece.

McArdle: When rail becomes ridiculous

Portland Bans Scent

I wonder if that includes anti-perspirant

Common-Sense Meltdown

Nuke terror - but it's the old-fashioned tsunami that killed thousands

Jammie on Atlanta: A Lesson In How To Scam Tax Dollars

Problem is, there is nowhere to go to in Atlanta. There's no there, there - except the airport.

Waxman-Markey:

Our agenda is more important than any constitutional principle that might interfere with it.

They aren't joking and, of course, the Left can apply that argument to anything. "By all means necessary..."

JPC: Palestine Betrayed

Rubin Report: The weapons-laden ship marks a big transformation

Eery Silence from Mainline Churches on Itamar Attack

Marcus:

I believe (Jesse) Jackson and company are intentionally distorting the truth, misleading, manipulating and abusing the American people. They have been getting away with it for far too long. It is time they are called out and held politically accountable.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:00 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, March 16. 2011

Blue and Red

From Mead's A Red Dixiecrat Dawn?

Krugman and the Times editorial board are both examples of something important in American life today: left-liberal intellectuals are increasingly able to understand that individual supports of the blue social model are crumbling. But they are still so captivated by the blue model, so profoundly convinced that the Progressive movement’s solutions to America’s social ills in 1910 are still valid today, that they cannot yet look beyond the blue model to imagine a different and brighter future for the United States.

Posted by Bird Dog in Politics at 17:52 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Scientists baffled

Scientists Baffled By Man's Incredible Ability To Fuck Up Every Time

Posted by Bird Dog at 14:34 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

What drives the cost of college? A re-post

Education loans: The Sweeping Federal Takeover You May Not Know About. One quote:

...perhaps the most troubling aspect of this new federal intrusion in the higher education marketplace is its underlying assumptions about the best way to control college costs. Whether it has been efforts to increase Pell Grants, or now this student loan fix, President Obama and his allies in Congress, driven I believe by the best of intentions, have assumed that increasing federal aid will help students better afford college. And there is no doubt that college costs have skyrocketed recently, more than doubling the rate of inflation over the past twenty years. However, every time the federal government has increased aid to students, colleges have turned around and raised tuition and fees accordingly.

Similarly from Michael Macchiarola's ''Too Big to Fail'' Goes to College:

Aided by the government-encouraged extension of credit, education costs have skyrocketed. In fact, it is fair to describe today's higher education price tag as having been reduced to a formula - where tuition seems to equal all the money a student can pay plus all the money a student can conceivably borrow. And, this same access-for-all government policy has made loan-eligible middle- and lower-income students easy prey for aggressive higher education and student-loan marketing. The end result has been an unprecedented, debt-fueled wealth transfer from students of modest means to the increasingly affluent higher education industry and its student-loan lenders. Unfortunately, as this damage continues to reveal its depth, its consequences are likely to become more evident by the day.

A generation of students has been reduced to the equivalent of the underwater homeowner: resigned to a fate where the amount owed to finance their schooling might be greater than the value of the education they received (and, therefore, beyond their capacity to repay it).

Government student loans and grants are little more than indirect handouts to the academic institutions in whose pockets they end up.

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 12:45 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

"Don't cut that."

Kinsley: Whether it's an op-ed piece, a speech or an open letter to the president, there are certain familiar elements to the budget season's special pleadings.

Posted by The News Junkie at 11:16 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Weds. morning links

Are Christians Obsessed with Gays and Abortion?

Hansen in 1986: 2°-4° warmer in 2010. Reality: No change

It's not from The Onion, and it's not about a community college: "Community college overwhelmed by dumb students"

Food price inflation

Wind Farms Blamed For Stranding Of Whales

Also slice up hawks

J Street: 'Maybe Israel really ain't a good idea'

Why It’s Bad Business to Hire the Long-Term Unemployed

Prelutsky: Trying to Make Sense of Liberals

Nearly 2/3 Of Americans Say Afghan War No Longer Worth Fighting

Paul Krugman Admits He Lives in a Bubble

GOP 2012 theme: American 'decline'

I suggest "Hope and Change"

Slacking off as self discovery: The Rebranding of Indolence as ‘Emerging Adulthood’

Reynold's Law:

“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people.

But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”

The case that Immigration Doesn't Hurt Native-Born Workers

Intellectuals and tyrants: The Intellectual as Courtier

Powerline: The White House is trendy and ignorant

Tennessee:

"This General Assembly will not be intimidated by nomadic bands of professional agitators on spring break bent on disruption," he said. "We talk through our differences here. Tennessee is not Wisconsin."

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:44 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

We got close

How close did we get to the Humpback whales last week, on the Zodiac? Almost close enough to touch them. You can see another one underwater, swimming under the Zodiac. Friendly whales who like to interact with Zodiacs.

Posted by Bird Dog at 05:27 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Tuesday, March 15. 2011

Not James Galway this time

This little kid is in the music more than in the performance, it seems to me. Her body says so.

Posted by Bird Dog at 18:26 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Tuesday cocktail hour links

What it's like to have an ax murderer in your classroom

A survey … invited the very rich to write freely about how prosperity has shaped their lives and those of their children

Grabar: No Longer Academic: When Activism Is on the Curriculum

We missed this: Question Insanity: What to Ask Progressives - An ex-Soviet immigrant goes Socratic on his liberal American critics.

Smart comment from Eric: Have conspiracy theories have become the modern equivalent of P.T. Barnum's freak shows?

Yes, like the warmist hysterics.

Good details of the battles of Staten Island at Walking the Berkshires

Sipp: Marketing, Advertising, and Sales 101. Great video ad for Telluride. Skiied there one week, a few years ago. Great. I hate the chair lifts without bars, though, especially when you're going over canyons. Yikes. I still have the Osprey backpack I bought there for dumping kids' clothing in when it warmed up during the day, and things were shed. You find challenging and exciting skiing there. Same as tennis: keep those knees bent.

Scorsese’s Gangs of New York: How the Left Misuses American History.

It's called "propaganda."

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 17:08 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Peas for snorkeling

The BD family contains avid snorkelers, but only Mrs. BD is a skilled scuba diver. But even snorkeling, she can swim down 20 feet easily to inspect something. Loves it.

But about the peas. On good advice we bought a big bag of frozen peas at the Cabo WalMart, filled a plastic water bottle with them and then added water to the bottle. When you are diving or snorkeling near rocks or a reef, just squirt a few peas out of that bottle. You will be swarmed with tropical fish. Works like a dream. Like tossing bread to pigeons in a park. Fish were crashing into me, some over a foot long, and one bit Mrs. BD while trying to get to the pea bottle. Very cool thing to try. Wish I had had an underwater camera.

We had to go on a goofy party boat to get to a good snorkeling area, and they provided the equipment. Unlimited free drinks. It was jolly. On the way back, Mrs. BD danced the Macarena and YMCA without touching a drop of drink (not a photo of her). I didn't, and I did.

Posted by Bird Dog in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation, Travelogues and Travel Ideas at 13:24 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Top dressing, and lawns in general, for your Spring chores list

An annual re-post -

Lawns are dumb things to have, but almost everybody has some. It's expected nowadays, but gardens and plantings are more interesting, look more natural, are more inviting to birds and other friendly critters, and offer more privacy - and shade. On the other hand, everyone needs a space for croquet and badminton.

Once the preserve of the wealthy, lawns became de rigeur for the aspiring middle class during the 20th century, as new homeowners attempted to create miniaturized versions of grand English estates on 1/4, 1/2, 1- and 2-acre building lots.

The orgin of lawns was sheep-grazed fields. Sheep are the primitive machine which transforms grass into wool and mutton.

But the subject assigned to me is top dressing. (Bear in mind that I am talking about Northern and mid-western lawns with Bluegrass and fescue in them. That's all I know about. Southern lawns are an entirely different breed.)

I top dress my lawns every spring, and I know Bird Dog does too. He does it casually, but I do it methodically. I mix about 1/4 leaf compost, 1/8 light sand, 1/8 topsoil or potting soil, 1/4 peat moss and 1/4 composted manure in the big wheelbarrow and toss it around the ground after around the second grass cutting of spring. Probably plain peat moss or composted manure would do the trick just as well. Ideally, it all should be rather dry, but life is never ideal. Then I lightly rake it in - or have the lawn guys rake it in - so it doesn't compress the grass. I apply it rather heavily, and use around 40 wheelbarrow loads for the lawn areas I care about.

It's about stewardship of the land, and not a cheap nitrogen-intoxicated superficial green. We have to remember that lawns are not natural things, but they aren't plastic either.

(More lawn info and advice below the fold)

Continue reading "Top dressing, and lawns in general, for your Spring chores list"

Posted by The Barrister in Gardens, Plants, etc., Our Essays at 12:07 | Comments (29) | Trackbacks (0)

Infectious Fun-- Party Rock Zombies

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 11:14 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Tuesday morning links

T-shirt via Q&O -

Belmont on urban renewal: Saving the village in order to destroy it h/t Dr. Sanity

Are People Nicer In Cities?

Family breakdown was elephant in the room at anti-bullying circus

Medicare paid $3.1M for Viagra, other erectile-dysfunction drugs

Dead Men Risen: The snipers' story

Why is there no looting in Japan?

The Law of Demand: Pirates Cut Ransom Demands

Re taxes: How Much Money Do the Rich Have?

Internet will soon be top choice to get news in America as it overtakes newspapers for first time

Is the iPad magical?

Hennessey: The President’s budget: whistling past the graveyard

Breaking: Bill Clinton Diagnosed With Psychiatric Disorder

Not a joke

Military 'diversity': more DC silliness

God forbid you bought an original Powerbook in October 1997 instead of buying shares (in Apple)

When Are Religious ‘Progressives’ Going to Get Serious?

Not from The Onion: Climate Change Advocates Glom Onto Tsunami to Advance Arguments

Always remember: It's always the Jews' fault

Steyn: Dead Jews Is No News

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:35 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

Monday, March 14. 2011

Bratwurst and Kandinsky

Met the pupette in NYC yesterday to take her to brunch and to take her to look at some Kandinsky at the Guggenheim. Clever of those Guggenheims to buy so many Kandinskys before he became too well-known, but you have to figger they got rich by being perceptive.

Readers know that I am a Kandinsky fan.

Mrs. BD wanted to get lunch first at the Viennese cafe, Cafe Sabarsky, in the Neue Gallery up the street. Having been in Vienna last summer, I can say that it sure feels like Vienna in there. Wonderful. Gallery worth visiting too.

A few more pics below -

Continue reading "Bratwurst and Kandinsky"

Posted by Bird Dog in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:55 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

Business-friendly?

Insty points out what we have been bitching about for years:

CHANGE: On April 1st, U.S. Will Have World’s Highest Corporate Tax Rate. Note how everyone else’s rates have been going down.

How come everybody else understands that business taxes harm consumers (who ultimately pay them) and harm job-creation? Everyone, except American Democrats. There should be no corporate taxes despite the fact that it would put a lot of tax lawyers and accountants out of work.

(BTW, I'll be in Bermuda the rest of the week. Business plus pleasure, ie golf and maybe tennis.)

Posted by The Barrister at 14:11 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)