Month: May 2017

Suicide Bombers and Mental Illness

It’s as Insane as It Looks

Most of us, after we have recovered from the initial shock and horror of a suicide bombing such as the recent atrocity in Manchester, ponder the mystery of the suicide bomber. What could be the motivation for something so horrific?  Here is a person who commits an act that he knows 99.9% of humanity will consider monstrous.  It is an act done for a cause which any rational person will conclude is doomed—if by “cause” we mean the creation of a worldwide caliphate ruled by psychopaths such as the leaders of the Islamic State.

It’s irrational, and a lot more irrational than the common wisdom supposes. We generally conceive of the suicide bomber as a self-identified martyr—s/he is not crazed any more than the first wave of soldiers to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Are suicide bombers “sane?” Some say that self-destructive zealots are sane if their acts are based on a belief system made legitimate by authorities who purport to translate the Mind of God.

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Goodby, Autonomy – Not That You’d Notice

Beyond Fake News: Hidden Persuaders Shifting the Ground beneath Our Feet

Fifty years ago, Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders drew attention to the methods by which advertisers manipulated the psyches of consumers to desire certain things—in part to gain advantage over competitors selling things people needed (food, medicine, soap), and in part to get people to desire what they did not desire until the advertiser influenced them to (Caribbean vacations, cars with enormous fins, hula-hoops).

The advertising game has not changed a lot since then, and many of the devices used to influence consumers have become so transparent you’d think most of us would simply laugh—making an association between a car and an ocean wave, a candy bar and a seduction.  But somebody’s not laughing, otherwise sponsors would not be dishing out humongous gobs of money to keep the games going. (For now we leave aside the question of sponsors themselves  being duped, forking zillions over to ad agencies  for advertisements that don’t get proportional results.)

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Cross Me, and I’ll Cut You Off at the Knees

Susan Collins, of All People, Engages in Double Speak: A Manifestation of Fear?

Maine Senator Susan Collins’s defense of the firing of James Comey was a very peculiar move—Collins being someone who is known for her willingness to buck the party line, in particular supporting the funding of Planned Parenthood (successfully), and voted (successfully! joined by McCain and Graham) against repeal of Obama administration regulations restricting methane emissions. (Whether Pruitt will enforce the regulation is, unfortunately another matter.)

So. . . what calls for explanation:

What’s most troubling is that an independent-minded Republican would resort to specious public statements in defense of Trump.

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War on Women Grinds On

Trump Gang Pulls Plug on Women’s Empowerment

In addition to slashing the U.S. contribution to the United Nations, the Trump administration plans to take the axe to a State Department program promoting women’s rights around the world: The Latest Blow to Women Worldwide

It’s another measure to find funds to increase the Defense Department’s budget by $54 billion.

It’s also another slab dumped on the mounting pile of wrongs meant to overwhelm the opposition.  The Trump administration is waging war on many fronts: Women, the Poor, the Sick, Immigrants fleeing war and rule by street gangs, Science, Climate Change Resistance, Habitat Protection, Oceans, Lakes, and Waterways Protections, Renewable Energy, Voting Rights, the National Parks and Monuments, Native American Rights, Black Lives Matter. . . the list goes on.

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Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse. . .

Science Takes Another Hit from Trump Administration

In case you didn’t catch this, Trump has appointed, for assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS  a woman who believes that abortion can cause breast cancer.  When challenged by the New York Times, instead of citing studies, Charmaine Yoest argued that scientists are “under the control of the abortion lobby.”

There may be more than one reason for opposing abortion, but making claims about a connection unknown to scientists at the CDC is a long leap into the Alternative Facts Universe (AFU).  Forgive me for playing another of my hunches as to the AFU mindset, but I imagine that Yoest’s claim is based on the fact that some women who have had abortions later get breast cancer.  Undoubtedly. I’m sure Charmaine Yoest has heard of more than one. The question then to ask is, how many women who never had an abortion also get breast cancer? That is, does the rate of women getting breast cancer after an abortion exceed the background breast cancer rate?

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The Denialist Penitentiary

Republicans Who Know Climate Truth Are in Lockdown.

A convert to climate activism describes the dilemma of ambivalent Republicans as being in a “denialist penitentiary”—whose unforgiving  jailers are the Tea Party.

An interview of onetime denier Jerry Taylor by Sharon Lerner in The Intercept explains the path by which he became converted. As a conservative, he frames his case to “conservative elites” in terms of gambling.  In the face of dangerous uncertainty, the smart money hedges its bets. “We don’t know exactly what will happen. Given that fact, shouldn’t we hedge?” He emphasizes speaking in a “dispassionate” way to get his points across, and eschews talk about needing fundamental economic change—”to most conservatives, that’s just nails on a chalkboard.”

For interview of Taylor see How Jerry Taylor reversed course on climate

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