Dr. X's Free Associations

Vintage Photos: 1922

'The Chester Children ' (D.C.)  Left-click photo to enlarge.

Dueling Domains

A reply to Ideas and Rules for the World in the Aftermath of the Storm. by Noni Mausa

There are two domains of risk, which I will nickname "air" and "earth", and they need to be handled differently.

One of them, air, cannot be reliably governed. Air is fluid, compressible, expandable, and subject to unpredictable currents.

It resembles the vast world ocean of investment, banking and money markets which, being abstractions, are inherently vulnerable to inflation, bubbles, instant losses and gains in apparent value, misrepresentation, and so on. This ocean can be sort of governed (and must be) and is useful in ways not related to dollar values.

They Only Pick on Sarah Palin's Kids

Ed Brayton reports on reaction at Free Republic to Malia Obama wearing a t-shirt with a peace symbol:

"A typical street whore."

"A bunch of ghetto thugs."

"Ghetto street trash."

"Wonder when she will get her first abortion."

And as the Vancouver Sun notes:

    The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."

Anthropomorphic Twitter of The Day

Sarah Palin:

Great day w/bear management wildlife biologists; much to see in wild territory incl amazing creatures w/mama bears' gutteral raw instinct to

protect & provide for her young;She sees danger?She brazenly rises up on strong hind legs, growls Don't Touch My Cubs & the species survives

& mama bear doesn't look 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything; biologists say she works harder than males, is provider/protector for the future

So true.  Mama Bear doesn't look to 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything because she kills and takes whatever she needs.  No voluntary social or commercial relations there.  She's a predator, acting on instinct, unmodulated by conscience. We should never forget that, in human terms, she is quite stupid and dangerous.  She can be observed cautiously, from afar, but human beings should avoid any direct contact with her. 

Vintage Photos: 1921

 

Wrecker parked outside a D.C. garage.  Left-click image to enlarge.

Sotomayor, Empathy and Ricci

Greenwald:

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Sam Alito used his opening statement to emphasize how his experience as an Italian-American influences his judicial decision-making (video is here):

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country" . . . .

Vintage Photos: circa 1920

Baby plays a tuba while a fireman watches. Left-click photo to enlarge.

Ricci vs DeStefano

I'm a little late with this one.  My psychologist readers might find two articles from the SIOP site interesting.  The first is a discussion of the legal issues in Ricci  The second is an opinion written after oral arguments were presented, but before the court ruled.  The second piece provides some interesting information about the construction of the battery that was tossed by New Haven.

I'm not a lawyer or an I/O psychologist, so I have no firm opinion on the legal matter.  But the idea that a union can decide composition and weighting of components in a selection battery is problematic for validity.

I offer the following extreme example to illustrate what was at issue in Ricci:

Imagine that a city and a city workers' union agree that an IQ test will be used to select hirees for ditchdigging positions.  It would be a fairly safe bet that the IQ test is going to be much more valid as a race-sorting instrument than a predictor of actual job performance for ditchdiggers, but let's say, for the sake of our example, that the city doesn't realize this beforehand.  So, you end up with the worst of all worlds with this method: high-adverse impact with a low validity coefficient for actual job performance.  Let's also imagine that an alternate test with less adverse impact and a higher validity coefficient for job performance was available--maybe a ditchdigging simulation.

After the fact, when the results from the IQ test come in, the city's hiring officials worry that they blew it.  They wonder if the IQ test did a better job of sorting applicants by race than by future job performance.  Fearing a lawsuit, they get a panel together to review the matter.  They learn that an alternate battery was available--one that would have sorted less by race while actually doing a better job of predicting job performance.  Realizing that this situation was ripe for a lawsuit, the hiring officials decide that it would be best to toss the results and start over using an alternate method that could better withstand a legal challenge.

My example is extreme and makes the case very easy.  Ricci was much muddier than that.  Whether the battery and the weighting of components used by New Haven really was that bad and whether an alternate battery or a different weighting would have been better--don't know and can't say.   But that was the testing issue in a nutshell.

Vintage Photos: 1916

Ethnologist Frances Densmore records the voice of Mountain Chief, a Piegan Indian.

Monday Links & Loose Associations

Indignation and Vindication

I was headed south on Western Avenue in Chicago--a heavily-trafficked local artery with two lanes running in each direction.  Some asshole in a lowrider-like vehicle was driving erratically, right on my tail.  As I slowed down for a traffic signal ahead, the fool swerved into the parking lane to pass me before speeding through a solid red light.  My irritation gave way almost immediately when I noticed one of those red light cameras perched above the intersection.  Ah... satisfaction and vindication.  I imagined the administrative reviewer approving the $100+ ticket for Mr. Lowrider as he remarked to himself that the guy in the silver car--the one who stopped for the light--is a good citizen and a responsible driver.  Will I receive an administrative commendation in the mail next week?

My moment of Satisfaction Notwithstanding

I have mixed feelings about police surveillance cameras and red light cameras that are sprouting everywhere in Chicagoland.  I am not thrilled about police agencies engaging in 24/7 remote surveillance, but I understand the good intention behind the remote surveillance cameras.   The idea is that by placing these cameras in high-crime locations, criminals can be identified or at least deterred.   But do these cameras do anything about crime, other than moving drug sales and prostitution to other locations, giving rise to the need for more cameras and more extensive surveillance of the public?

Reminder to myself: Government is like a paranoid person.  It sees no problem with subjecting others to unblinking scrutiny, but it freaks when it's being watched.

Red Light Cameras

These cameras have been peddled to the public and to state legislators as accident prevention tools, but The Chicago Tribune finds that, instead of placing the cameras at locations where they might reduce the number of serious accidents, they're located where they will raise staggering amounts of cash for suburban governments. Is anyone surprised?

I've yet to get dinged by a red light camera.  I adhere to traffic laws scrupulously.  I don't speed and I don't roll past stop signs or through intersections when turning right on red.  That isn't because of moral scrupulosity on my part;  I just don't like paying fines.  E-tickets (my name for them) are virtually impossible to contest successfully, but they don't add points to your license.  Like parking tickets, they are administrative tickets that target vehicle owners rather than drivers.

Evanston, Illinois: A Small City Along the Lakefront, Just North of Chicago

I was driving behind one of the city's ubiquitous parking enforcement jeeps.  They crawl this 'burb like ants, enforcing Kafkaesque parking regulations that change from block-to-block.  If you spend any time in Evanston, you cannot avoid an occasional parking ticket.

Anyway, Parking Enforcement Guy is cruising along with that long marking-stick extended from his right side window as he breezes past lines of parked cars.  I notice that he passes many cars that lack a proper neighborhood sticker--the one that would allow them to park for more than two hours.  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he stops and marks the tire of a single car before moving on past another line of cars, some with and some without local stickers.  Then it hit me: he marked the car with an out-of-state plate.

I've got my own little beefs with Evanston traffic enforcement.  Twice, while driving cars displaying an Enterprise Rent-a-Car bumper sticker, I've been cited for an expired meter when there was plenty of time left on my meter.  Mistakes?  Both times?  Maybe.  But that has never happened with my own vehicles.

Another time, just as I was exiting my car, an Evanston parking enforcement officer was punching my plate into his hand-held ticketing device.  Jeez, would you give us 30 seconds to deposit change in the meter or are we supposed to throw quarters at the slot as we pull into the space?

Murderous Scrupulosity

A married father of two, devout official in his Lutheran congregation, one-time Cub Scout leader, and by-the-book code enforcement officer in his hometown of Park City, Kan., Dennis L. Rader appears from the outside to be the least likely candidate for serial killer.-- Newsday

I am not suggesting that everyone in law enforcement is a killer, but rule-enforcement can have a murderous dimension to it.  Just as coins have more than one side, people have more than one side.  But with people, the side that looks good and proper from a distance often carries a disguised payload from the dark side.  I'll not say more, even though one of my blogging friends says that I should write more about unconscious life instead of the mundane stuff I usually cover.

That isn't to say that mundane stuff isn't suffused with unconscious stuff.  I just don't think blogs are the best medium for direct discussions of unconscious life.  Or maybe it's just that I'm just not the right guy for the job.  I do sometimes sneak in a reference to unconscious phenomena, but I do so more obliquely than directly.  Once in a while a reader will catch it--signaling assent with an equally oblique reference.  It's like a knowing glance exchanged with a friend or an intimate in a public place as you both see something and know that the two of you are sharing a thought that ought not be spoken aloud.