Here are a few Lewis W. Hine images of working kids that I haven't previously posted.
Six-year-old berry picker near Baltimore. Click photos to enlarge.
Another little berry picker near Baltimore.
More images below the fold...
Continue reading "Photos of the Day: Working Kids 1908-1917" »
"a break in the case came on Tuesday when a friend of Ms. Duplaga’s [the victim] sent her a congratulatory text message on the return of her stolen computer. “She said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and her friend said, ‘Well, you popped up as being online,’ ” Mr. Jackson said.
"He said that Ms. Duplaga immediately signed on to another Macintosh computer and, using a feature called “Back to My Mac,” was able to gain access to her missing laptop remotely. She could see that that the person who had her computer was shopping for beds, Mr. Jackson said. Then it occurred to her that she could activate a camera on her laptop and watch the thief live.
"At first, the photo application revealed only a smoky room and an empty chair, Mr. Jackson said, but then a man sat down. Ms. Duplaga, again using remote technology, typed in the command to snap a photo. “When you take a picture with that computer, it shows a countdown, and when it does, this guy figures out what’s going on,” Mr. Jackson said. “It all clicks for him, and he puts his hand up to cover the lens, but it was too late. She had already taken the picture.”"
$1.00 per gallon? That's what the manufacturer of this backyard ethanol brewery says:
"A company banking on drivers' weariness of skyrocketing gasoline prices unveiled a home refinery device on Thursday offering another option: ethanol. E-Fuel Corporation says its EFuel100 MicroFueler can produce up to 35 gallons (132 liters) of ethanol a week that consumers can pump directly into their cars and trucks. There is no combustion inside the device, which runs on a standard household 110- to 220-volt AC power supply (consuming about 150 watts per day) and uses a membrane system to distill the sugar, yeast and water solution required to make ethanol rather than combustion heating elements, as commercial ethanol producers do.
"Interested drivers in the U.S. can put in their orders now for their own EFuel100 MicroFueler at the company's Web site with a $3,000 down payment toward the total $10,000 tab; the first units are expected to ship some time this fall...
"One of the company's main objectives with the program is to keep the cost of ethanol less than $1 per gallon...
"Automobiles do not require their fuel to be 100 percent ethanol, so greater savings are possible if drivers dilute the finished product with water (as long at that mixture contains at least 65 percent ethanol)... Read more...
With her dog, Mr. Downbeat, in New York (William Gottlieb, 1946). Left-click photo to enlarge.
A few more Gottlieb photos
Numerous studies have found associations between facial/body symmetry and a variety of perceptions, conditions and predispositions. For example, researchers have identified associations between symmetry and the perception of health, mother's facial [a]symmetry and susceptibility of offspring to autism, and asymmetry and aggression in males.
I was, however, unfamiliar with a 1995 study that found an association between male body symmetry and the number of orgasms experienced by female partners during sexual intercourse. Vaughan at Mind Hacks reports:
The study was led by biologist Randy Thornhill and recruited 86 young couples who completed a number of relationship questionnaires, including one on how often the female partner orgasmed during sex. The males then had their bodies measured and assessed for how much one side differed compared to the other - a measure of bodily asymmetry.
In the final analysis neither the male's age, wealth, social skills, physical attractiveness or relationship style predicted the frequency of female orgasm. Only male bodily symmetry was statistically associated with the chance of the women climaxing during sex.
Scientific American has an interview with sociologist of science, Harry Collins. Collins makes a number of interesting points. Some excerpts follow:
"What's wrong with ordinary people weighing in on scientific subjects?
"It is easy to imagine all sorts of horror stories if we abandon the idea that there are some people who know what they are talking about and some who don't. Most scientific disputes that concern the public are at the cutting edge—the place where things are not completely certain. Examples are the safety of vaccines, the true importance of global warming, the effects of farming genetically modified food crops, and so forth.
"Even now, in the U.K., the relatively dangerous disease of measles is becoming endemic as a result of a widespread consumer revolt against the MMR vaccine about 10 years ago. Parents believe that even though doctors assure them that vaccines are safe, those doctors may be wrong. Therefore, the parents think they are entitled to throw their own judgment into the mix. Quite a few social scientists are pushing this trend hard...
"We believe that you can work out whether someone has the right scientific expertise and experience to make some sensible contribution to scientific debates. It doesn't mean they're right. What you have to do is not sort out the people who are right and wrong; what you have to sort is the people who can make sensible contributions from those who can't. Because once you stop doing that, things go horribly wrong...
"Are evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins fanning the flames in the way that they engage creationists?
"Once scientists move outside their scientific experience, they become like a layperson. I'm not a religious person, but if I want to talk religion with someone, it won't be a scientist; it will be with someone who understands theology (who might be either an atheist or a believer). I believe people like Dawkins give atheism a bad name because their arguments are so crude and unsubtle. They step outside their narrow competences when they produce these arguments...
"How do you distinguish the people who can and can't contribute to a specialized field?
"The key to the whole thing is whether people have had access to the tacit knowledge of an esoteric area—tacit knowledge is know-how that you can't express in words. The standard example is knowing how to ride a bike. My view as a sociologist is that expertise is located in more or less specialized social groups. If you want to know what counts as secure knowledge in a field like gravitational wave detection, you have to become part of the social group. Being immersed in the discourse of the specialists is the only way to keep up with what is at the cutting edge."
Here are a few more images by FSA-OWI photgrapher, John Collier, Jr.
Children with dog in Richwood, West Virginia (1942). Click photos to enlarge.
More Images by John Collier, Jr. below the fold...
Continue reading "Photo of the Day: More Children (1940s)" »
Chicago (North Shore):
By the time authorities finally cornered the offender under a porch, it was too late.
He had done enough damage that Vicki and Mark Royal and their four kids were forced to flee their house and move to a neighboring suburb as men in protective suits stripped the building to its studs and threw out most of their belongings.
When the family saw the skunk that started this ruinous chain of events, they were struck by one thing: "It was actually very cute," Vicki Royal said.
The situation remains dire nonetheless. A year into the ordeal, the Royals' 5-bedroom, 6.5-bath house on Sheridan Road in Highland Park remains devoid of carpeting, drywall, appliances and belongings—most of which they say had to be thrown away.
Clothes hang from racks in the garage, unworn because the Royals say they are "crunchy" after being treated with chemicals. Their son was called "skunk boy" at school.
Last July, an odor removal expert from the Chicago-based Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, sniffed the house with a Nasal Ranger, a foot long device worn over the nose. Dr. Alan Hirsch described the odor as "putrid, sewer-like, musty, swampy, musky, uriniferous and stale... It was like being slapped in the face," he said.
The Royal family is in a legal standoff with their insurer and recently filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Chicago:
They claimed the insurance company mishandled removing the stench and then tried to cancel their policy in August while it was still unresolved. They said they paid about $9,000 for insurance coverage in 2007.
Joe Norton, a representative for American International Group Inc., the parent company of American International Insurance in New York, said he could not comment because of client confidentiality.
The company, in a statement detailing the more than $500,000 it has paid toward the Royals' case, listed about $235,500 toward vendors for painting, landscaping and removing carpeting, drywall and appliances; and $169,000 to clean clothes, cover content loss and move the family. Another $100,000 went toward housing and feeding the family of six, first in a hotel, then at the Glencoe house, according to the statement, which was provided by the Royals.
Read more: uriniferous and stale
Boy in Trampas, New Mexico. (John Collier, Jr. 1943). Click photos to enlarge.
More great photos of children below the fold...
Lille, Grand Isle, Maine, (John Collier, Jr). Click photo to enlarge.
There are posters in English and French on the classroom walls at Notre Dame du Mont Carmel school. On the Maine border with Québec, most of the residents of Lille spoke Valley French as a first language.
PET, MRI, fMRI, SPECT got you confused? A group authored post at Neuroanthropology briefly explains modern methods of brain imaging that have emerged with advances in computer technology.
The story is here.
I worked for a year in an Illinois State psychiatric facility back about 20 years ago. I have no idea what our state hospitals are like today, but my experience back then was that I'd never encountered a more small-minded, apathetic bunch of mopes in my life -- and I am referring to the staff. Certainly, part of what I observed was due to the grinding effects of working in a bureaucratic state system that sapped the energy of those who wanted to do more than merely collect a paycheck and retire with a state pension. At that time, many if not most of the positions were filled with political patronage hires rather than qualified people, so, for example, clerk typists would just laugh in your face if you asked them to type up something very brief. It's entirely possible that the typists didn't even know how to type. Although I witnessed no serious patient abuse and there were no allegations of abuse while I worked there, the atmosphere was saturated with a kind of petty cruelty and disrespect, both for patients and staff members.
Pistol Pete has a thoughtful post on voting and the responsibility of the American voter:
"economist Bryan Caplan... writes in his book The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies :
'voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and vote accordingly.'
"I think it’s much more complex than this. I think by the time it comes around to voting, rational thought has long since been thrown out the window. Irrational thinking shapes our daily lives in subtle, subversive ways, in what we say and do, in how we spend our money - in short, in how we choose to live."
Aroostook County (John Collier, Jr, Farm Security Administration). Click photo to enlarge.
At age 16, John Collier, Jr. was apprenticed to painter Maynard Dixon. Collier was introduced to photography by Dixon's wife, Dorothea Lange.
A few photos by Lange: Shoofly, NC 1939; Country Store: 1939; Oakland, California 1941; Bakersfield, California 1940; Coca Cola Baby Bottle;
Dennis has a story about a cocker spaniel hooked on toad toxins.
Morris Burke Parkinson was a photographer in New York City until approximately 1900 when he opened a studio in Boston.
The girl reminds me of Bette Davis.
Yesterday, I read a very strange but interesting article in the Chicago Tribune. I found it strange because the article presents an anonymous retraction of an accusation of homophobia that appeared in some vaguely referenced article published last week. You can't tell who is offering the retraction, what the article was actually about or when, just exactly, the article appeared in print.
Nonetheless, I found the piece interesting because the writer challenges the use of the term "homophobia" on the grounds that it is a clinical description that is "unfairly broad to the point of inaccuracy." I'm not so concerned about the "unfairness" in this instance, but I would agree that the term is inaccurate. That's why I generally avoid using the word.
I've always had something of a problem with the casual application of the word homophobia (coined by psychologist George Weinberg) to anti-gay bigots in general. Fear can be a factor in prejudices, but the presence of underlying, presumably unconscious, fears do not a phobia make. Consider someone with a snake phobia: the fear of the phobic object is conscious and you certainly don't see such a person looking for snakes to attack. A phobic person is paralyzed with fear in the presence of the phobic object. A person with a phobia often understands that the fear is disproportionate to the real danger and even, sometimes, consciously wishes to overcome the fear. Anti-gay bigots don't wish that their feelings about gays would abate. In many instances, they revel in their bigotry.
As a rule, I don't like using psychiatric diagnoses as moral weapons in a political fight. It is, perhaps, not the intention, but doing so indirectly demeans people who suffer with genuine psychological afflictions. I'm sure it would likewise grate on me a bit if anti-black racists were said to be suffering blackophobia. In any case, I think the word bigot is a less misleading word to characterize someone who shows contempt for whole groups of people merely for being who they are. But, I'm not strident about the word homophobia and only bring this up because of the unexpected, quirky Tribune piece. My real problem is with bigots, not with the language of the people they hate.
Trucks waited as much as 24 hours for potatoes to be graded and weighed.
Photos by Jack Delano (Farm Security Administration). Click photos to enlarge.
More photos by Jack Delano: Eggs (1940); Vermont State Fair (Rutland, 1940); More Vermont State Fair photos; Brockton (Massachusetts) Enterprise newspaper office; Santa Fe Railroad Super Chief 1943; Brockton, MA Hardware and Plumbing store, 1940; Connecticut;
Julia Carter, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, and her colleagues, set up experiments that showed starlings will keep away from their food dish if a human is looking at it. However, if the person is just as close, but their eyes are turned away, the birds resumed feeding earlier and consumed more food overall.
Carter said "This is a great example of how animals can pick up on very subtle signals and use them to their own advantage". Read more...
This isn't the first research that raises some tantalizing questions about birds and some sort of primitive theory of mind. For example, experimental observation of scrub jays hiding worms found that the birds' behavior was affected when they were being watched by other birds:
"They allowed jays to hide worms either while they were alone or when another bird was watching, and to recover the hidden items in private later that day. Worms are the 'Belgian truffles' of the jay's gastronomic world, so the researchers anticipated that birds would make every effort to protect their stores. They found that when jays were allowed to return to their stash, those that had hidden worms under the gaze of a would-be thief moved them to new sites. Birds did not move worms they had hidden in private, however."
This doesn't prove, nor does it even suggest, that starlings or scrub jays have a theory of mind that is phenomenologically comparable to our own, but these studies do show that these birds have some impressive monitoring systems. It leads me to wonder about any possible overlap in the types of unconscious mechanisms underlying human theory of mind and functionally similar mechanisms in some animals.
Marilyn Monroe & Tommy Noonan (Gentleman Prefer Blondes:1953). Click to enlarge.
View Jumbo size: Top Image; Bottom Image
More Marilyn Monroe below the fold:
Mother & children ,Tulelake, Siskiyou County, California (Dorothea Lange, FSA). Click photo to enlarge.
Cagney and Joan Blondell: The Crowd Roars (1932). Click photo to enlarge.
One more James Cagney below the fold...
With the American flag as a backdrop, Doris Day (I'll See You In My Dreams, 1951)
Bing Crosby (Dixie, 1943). Click photo to enlarge.
I realize that this may offend some readers, but that's the idea. It was extremely offensive and all I've heard so far is that no apologies are owed to the Jeremiah Wrights who grew up with this bullshit right in their faces. The Jeremiah Wrights of this world had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground that was yielded by a racist America. There were no apologies and every inch was ceded with bitterness and resentment.
It's not surprising to me that men like Wright are also bitter. Yes, Wright's bitterness has taken the form of blinding, destructive arrogance, but I would like to know how many Americans who ridicule the man ever told a racial or ethnic joke in the past even though they act now as if they are morally separate from the soot of racism that has only recently cleared from mainstream white American culture. We've made great progress, but frankly, I think there are tens of millions of Americans out there who are loathe to admit that they really did have a part in racism – a part that they would simply prefer to forget.
When I grew up in the 60s and 70s, racist and ethnic jokes permeated the humor of white America. People pretended that it wasn't actually racist to find cruel stereotypes a source of great amusement. When, finally, objections to this humor began to arise with consistency, anger about political correctness surfaced among those who resisted the cultural pressure to reject this form of cruel, debasing humor. I clearly remember the resentful squawking about oppressive political correctness because you couldn't even tell a joke anymore. How great, indeed, was the yoke of oppression when you could no longer tell a vile joke that was denigrating to blacks, Italians, Jews or Hispanics.
But, many who complained about political correctness now owe it a perverse debt of gratitude. Political correctness has so quickly cleansed the culture of this type of humor that it almost seems believable that few Americans over forty were ever a part of a kind of humor that permeated the culture of their own early years. Well, that's baloney. Those vile racial and ethnic jokes and cruel stereotypes were acceptable among large swathes of mainstream America well into the 1970s and even a bit into the early 1980s. Now, pretending that their own hearts are pure, some pick up the biggest stones and hurl them at a ranting, bitter older black man. Sorry, if it offends some people, but I just can't cast those stones with you.
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