Dr. X's Free Associations

Monday Links, Associations and Meanderings

The Tribune has a story about John Cappas, a Catholic high school graduate turned cocaine kingpin who served a long stretch in federal prison for drug dealing.   At the time of his indictment, the local press gave heavy coverage to Cappas's flashy, big-spending lifestyle.

Cappas has been out of prison for a few years and he is opening a hot dog stand.  He promises "free sodas" for police officers.  Many of his old 'friends' are turning out to support him in his new venture.  It's an interesting story worth the read, but if you really want some insight into Cappas, you should check out the website for his motivational speaking business--talk about not getting it.

Not getting it

Eric Zorn noticed that commenter reactions to an earlier post on Kennedy-Chappaquiddick news coverage appear to be determined almost entirely by partisan identification, so Zorn posed this interesting question to his readers: Aren't all such predictably partisan arguments fundamentally tedious and useless?

I'm not sure they are useless, but what is interesting to me is that hardly any of the commenters even try to address the question.  Most just go right back to beating their partisan war drums.

Perhaps partisanship is detrimental to intellectual curiosity--not always, but often enough to become tedious.

Ted Kennedy

How does Google complete a search beginning with the words If Ted?

A famous satirical Volkswagen advertisement was created back in a time when tragedies in the news were followed by a slew of insensitive jokes that circulated widely through American society, often within a matter of days.  The seriousness of the tragedy didn't seem to matter and almost nothing was sacred.  I must have heard half a dozen jokes about serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the first week after his arrest.

It was often said that these jokes originated with traders--a group known for dark humor.  I don't think tragedy jokes are told much anymore.  Did they end with 9-11 or did their demise come earlier?

I'm neither approving nor lamenting their demise. Just noticing and wondering.

The good-enough brain

Michael Price interviews psychologist Gary Marcus in the APA Monitor.  Marcus is the author of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind.

The human mind has been good-enough to keep us around as a species, but as the word kluge suggests, the workings of the mind aren't always pretty.

Vintage Photos: Summer Vacation

Playing Cards at Tent City, Far Rockaway Beach, NY.  Left-click image to enlarge.

Vintage Photos: c 1900

Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia. Left-click photo to enlarge.

Betsy Ross and her husband John rented the house where they ran their upholstery business from 1773 to 1786.  Subsequently, the building served as home to dozens of shopkeepers until 1937 when it opened as a museum.

The house today.

Vintage Photos: 1880-1899

Girls of the paper mills, Appleton, Wisconsin. Left-click photo to enlarge.

Vintage Photos: 1936

Cotton picker in Southern San Joaquin Valley, California (Dorothea Lange, FSA). Left-click photo to enlarge.

Vintage Photos: 1929 Movie Still

Allen 'Farina' Hoskins, Joe Cobb & Bobby 'Wheezer' Hutchins (Our Gang: Election Day).  Left-click image to enlarge.

Election Day was a 2-reel, silent short film released in January 1929, four months before Hal Roach studios began shooting the Our Gang series using synchronous "sound on film" technology (talkies).  Election Day ran in theaters with music and sound effects played on phonographic discs.

More on Election Day below the fold.  It's worth a read if only because the unusual name of Farina's sister is revealed.

Does Compassion Aid Healing?

In-Mind.org:

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have recently published findings that suggest empathy, provided by your physician, may be the fastest way for you to get over the nagging cold that has been plaguing you for the past week, above and beyond the benefits of taking cold medicines, vitamins, and other common remedies. In their study, participants were divided into three experimental groups, which manipulated the amount of attention they received from their doctor and ranged from having no interaction at all to the physician asking lots of relevant questions about the participants’ symptoms, providing detailed information, and displaying genuine compassion to the patient. The participants then rated their physician along several dimensions, including perceived interest in their problem, helpfulness, compassion, empathy, and concern.

The Findings

Vintage Photos

Unidentified child between 1909-1923. Left-click photo to enlarge.

Too Smart to Be A Police Officer?

A higher score on a municipal employment test could hurt you.  This is an old employment selection case that I hadn't heard about before:

A US man has been rejected in his bid to become a police officer for scoring too high on an intelligence test.

Robert Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took an exam to join the New London police, in Connecticut, in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

I don't know if a cut-off at the high-end of IQ is common practice in screening police officer applicants, nor do I know if there is any good data to support the practice.  I do know that screening for other occupations sometimes excludes applicants with high IQs because of the expectation that highly intelligent persons would be bored by the work.  The trade-off is a higher retention rate in exchange for the marginal improvement in job performance (if there actually is any) associated with a few extra IQ points at top end of the IQ scale.

By the way, it looks like the New London police used the Wonderlic to test applicants.  If that's the case, the acceptable range for applicants was an IQ between 100 and 115 (roughly, between the 50th-84th percentile of intellectual functioning).  Mr. Jordan's score placed him in the neighborhood of the 95th percentile.

Put Your Hands Up, Little Boy

When funny isn't funny (from Joe the Cop):

38 year old off-duty Chicago cop with questionable judgment rides a dolphin carousel kiddie ride at a suburban mall.  Check.

Crying child on the ride causes a disturbance.  Check.

Off-duty cop displays handgun to carousel operator and asks "Do you want me to take care of the problem for you?"  Check.

Suburban cops show up and handcuff "the offender" and march him to security office for further investigation.  Check.

Suburban cops extend professional courtesy to idiot off-duty cop once he identifies himself.  Check.

How does the cop repay the favor?  He retains a lawyer and makes noises about a lawsuit because of the emotional distress the incident caused him.  Read more at Arresting Tales