Dr. X's Free Associations

Vintage Photos: The War on Drugs

New York City, 1949.  Left-click image to enlarge.

Career criminal Joseph V. Basile was arrested in connection with the seizure of $2.6 million worth of narcotics.  Standing is NYC Chief of Detectives William Whalen.

Vintage Photos: New York, 1947

 

Left-click image to enlarge.

A patron of Sammy's Bowery Follies sleeps at his table while the resident cat laps at his beer.

Congratulations Dr. Sharna

Sharna Wood writes:

After twelve years of concerted effort, slave labor, seemingly endless waiting and more money than I want to think about, my license for the independent practice of psychology, issued by The Great State of Texas arrived in the mail today. So the training wheels are off and now I'm finally a real boy.

She plans to refocus her blog on clinical and practice matters.

Everything Taking Too Long

WASHINGTON—An overwhelming sense of restlessness and impatience engulfed the U.S. this week when citizens determined that everything—the morning commute, phone conversations, getting a table at Chili's, making coffee, commercial breaks, everything—was taking entirely too long.

From The Onion

Vintage Photos: 1931

Farmer (Coryell County, TX, George W. Ackerman).  Left-click photo to enlarge.

Vintage Photos: 1951

 

Elk's Lodge: 310 6th Ave North, Nashville, TN  (Charles Cushman).  Left-click to enlarge.

I am still buried in assessments and report writing, so it might be more pretty picture posts for a while.

Be sure to check out more great Charles Cushman images below the fold.

Nicholas Kristof, Give me a Link

Just a hat tip.

Me, March 23:

Foxes and Hedgehogs

Kristof, March 26:

Learning How to Think

The Collapse of Asian Exports

Source

No wonder the Chinese are on board with stimulus. Whether it will save them remains to be seen.  But, to me, the precipitous drop in Chinese exports isn't the only staggering figure.  Chinese exports more than tripled over the six years leading into the collapse.  And we know who accounts for the largest share of that increase--fueled with lots of borrowed money.

Vintage Photos: 1939

Movie Still: The Real Glory, Gary Cooper.  Left-click image to enlarge.

Global Warming

I don't write about global warming, but I decided I'd post up this comment from Ed Brayton because it expresses my viewpoint so well:

Cognitive shortcuts are leapfrogs over study and analysis to reach a conclusion without going through those intermediary steps. The most common type of shortcut is group identification. If you place yourself within a group - political, religious, ideological, etc - and you are confronted by an issue you do not understand, the default response is to accept whatever the position of that group is and to presume that it must be correct even though you have not taken the time to do any study that would justify that conclusion.

If you're a conservative, you will blindly accept the standard conservative position on global warming. The leaders of the group you place yourself in have assured you that global warming is a myth, perhaps even a cover for evil intentions, and that is all you think you need to know. If you're a liberal, you will blindly accept that global warming is a serious problem for the same reason, because the people you respect and follow have told you so.

But in reality, a vanishingly small number of people in either group has ever looked at the actual data and an even smaller number is capable of understanding it, analyzing it and reaching rational conclusions about it. And that includes me. If I took a long period of time and researched the subject, I am certainly capable of understanding it and reaching well-informed conclusions. Though I am a layman without any particular training in science, I have long done so in regard to evolution and the geological history of the earth and that is why I can confidently and reasonably take positions on those subjects and defend them.

I have not done so with global warming, which means I'm using a cognitive shortcut as well. I defer to many scientists, some of whom and I know personally, who assure me that the evidence for global warming and a significant human role in making it worse is real. I defer to people like Chris Mooney, who has taken the time, in researching an entire book on the question and interviewing those at the center of the dispute, to do what I have not.

But I recognize that this is still a cognitive shortcut and that's why I rarely make bold claims about global warming, because I don't feel like I can defend them and I don't think it's intellectually honest to make bold claims one can't defend.

Read the entire post.