Dr. X's Free Associations

25 Most Awesome Homeless Guy Signs

Some of these signs are pretty funny.

(Via Taxing Tennessee)

Murder in Broad Daylight

This heart-wrenching video shows the brutal, unprovoked murder of Chicago teenager Derrion Albert.  Albert was caught in a melee involving rival neighborhood gangs.   By every account, Derrion was a good kid--a solid student, well-behaved, no gang affiliation and absolutely no problems with the law. At the time of his murder, Derrion was exactly where he was supposed be, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing--walking straight home after school.

The story behind this tragic incident is familiar to anyone who knows much about what goes on in Chicago schools.  Tensions between a core group of criminal students escalated for a week, eventuating in the savagery we see in the video.  Teachers and school personnel are almost always aware when such tensions are rising.  Sometimes they succeed in diffusing those tensions before violence erupts, but often they are helpless in the face of determined, havoc-wreaking thugs who hold their schools and neighborhoods hostage (see my previous comments on the subject). 

Joe the Cop (a suburban Chicago detective) notes that after school brawls occur regularly on the south and west sides of Chicago.  They represent a constant drain on police resources.  As the Derrion Albert murder video has gone viral, plenty of outrage has been expressed, but Joe is not hopeful that Derrion's murder will lead to any meaningful improvements in this sorry state of affairs.  I'm inclined to agree with him.

Joe does offer one suggestion I haven't heard before--supplying citizens with video cameras and offering rewards for turning videos of crimes over to the police.  The Derrion Albert video did, in fact, lead to the quick arrest of four suspects.  Three more teens are being sought by police.

Vintage Wireless: c 1947

Dorothy McGrath using Walkie-Talkie (Los Angeles).  Left-click photo to enlarge.

More vintage wireless: 1910

Vintage Photos: 1908

Photo by Lewis W. Hine. Left-click to enlarge.

A young mine worker:  Turkey Knob Coal Mine, Macdonald, West Virginia.

Monday Links and Associations

This one is going to be all over the map.

A Day of Wrath, Onslaught and Sacrifice: an interesting article about the Yom Kippur war in JPost.

Judicial Arrogance?

Perhaps one of my attorney readers will help me to understand this:

A bank accidentally sent confidential customer data to a random Gmail address.  The bank asked Google to deactivate the recipient's Gmail account.  Google said no.  The bank went to federal court where Judge James Ware (Northern District of California) ordered Google to deactivate the user's account.  The hell with the consequences to the Gmail customer who is accused of no wrongdoing whatsoever.

I could understand the judge ordering Google to scrub every trace of the errant email from Google servers, but what possible reason is there for severing the customer's access to unrelated  personal and business emails, documents and contacts?  Maybe I don't have all the relevant facts, but I'm left to wonder if the judge understands how damaging this decision could be to the innocent Gmail user.

Not that it has any direct bearing on the Gmail case, but perhaps you recall hearing about the judge in this case, James Ware:

In 1998, Judge Ware was reprimanded by the Judicial Council of the Northern District Court of California for fabricating the story of being the brother of Virgil Ware[5], a 13 year old black boy shot by teenage racists in Alabama in 1963 on the same day as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. According to a story Judge Ware had told many audiences, he was riding his bike with his brother Virgil on the handlebars when Virgil was shot and killed by white racists.[6] The incident was a real one, however it happened to a different James Ware.

The Line Between Democratic Representation and Bribery

Over at Capital Gains, Andrew Samwick says:

I heard a fascinating presentation on lobbying yesterday.  The most shocking figure was the $4 million that Senator Baucus has taken from the health and insurance sectors in his political career...Why should it be legal to make a political contribution to a candidate who is not running for an office that represents you as a constituent? I do not think it should be. Imagine how different this senator's incentives would be if he could only raise money from the residents of Montana as individuals and not from organized interests.

On The Lighter Side:

The Times ran an article about one of New York's last seltzer men.  I fondly recall the seltzer man from my childhood in New York.  Brooklyn had the best tap water I've ever tasted and the seltzer made from that water was even better.  Well, the seltzer men have mostly gone the way of the once ubiquitous knife sharpeners and dilapidated carnival ride trucks that once cruised the streets of New York. 

Michael Gerson, Your Shtetl Pass Is Revoked

Spencer Ackerman just noticed:

What the hell, it's almost Yom Kippur, so I can always atone for my tone. But seriously: Michael Gerson needs to shut his fucking mouth before he ever even thinks accusing a Jew of insufficient vigilance against antisemitism. I don't know what lack of self-awareness convinces right-wing evangelicals that they're the true guardians of the Jews, but that condescending and parochial nonsense is its own form of antisemitism. We Tribesmen do not need some wire-rimmed enabler of one of the most destructive and inept presidents in American history to protect us from the perfidies of the world. It's us and not him who will pay the price for antisemitism, so if Gerson wants to actually act like a righteous gentile, he can start by not accusing Jews of apathy to their own people's wellbeing for the sin of not sharing his politics.

So to conclude: Gerson downplays the worst excesses of right-wing hatred, which displays itself through a more prominent and influential platform than does online hatred of any political coloration; and then he hijacks someone else's religion on a laughably flimsy pretext to defend his blind spots. Good to see, at least, that a Bush administration veteran is at least nondenominational in that approach.   

Vintage Photos: 1939

A method for indefinitely preserving sweet cream is discovered.

The photo isn't very interesting, but I enjoyed the story behind it.

Rants from the Fringe: Proof That The President is a Communist

Chuck Baldwin :

Lest anyone doubt the communist leanings of President Barack Obama, look no further than to his decision to hoist the Red Chinese flag (for the first time in history) over the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, September 20.

According to China Daily, "Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President's residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC [People's Republic of China] . . .

Trying to find words to describe the extreme offensiveness of flying the Communist Chinese flag over the White House challenges my vocabulary. Words such as UNBELIEVABLE, UNREAL, HORRIFIC, OBSCENE, even TRAITOROUS quickly come to mind. Maybe Obama really is the Manchurian Candidate.

Except the ceremony that provoked Baldwin's foaming tizzy didn't take place on the White House grounds.  It was at a park adjacent to the White House grounds. But the communist Chinese flag has been hoisted at the White House:

April 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao and George Bush, South Lawn ceremony.

Sunday Links

This is amazing (and a bit disturbing): researchers have created a system that allows remote control of a live flying beetle.  Neurophilosopher has the story and the video.

Sympathy for Creationists:  Greg Downey offers a refreshing change from the brilliant but obnoxious Richard Dawkins.

Cheryl Fuller comments on the publication of Jung's Red Book.  Related thoughts from BluetoBlue.

Sandy Andrews discusses difficulties developing friendships during major life transitions.

Neuronarrative has a fascinating discussion of the use of drawings to detect lying.

Doctors in the Australian state of Victoria call for an electronic Munchausen's blacklist.

Coglanglab challenges Dick Morris's claim that college professors don't work as hard as everyone else.

Change Blindness

Change blindness refers to the failure of an observer to notice large changes in a scene.  For change blindness to occur, a brief visual disruption or a disruption of the scene is typically required.

Via the Situationist Staff, the video below depicts a change blindness experiment by Daniel Simons and Chris Chabris.  If you aren't familiar with this research, you should definitely check out this clip.

One more from Daniel Simons: Take a 30-second visual attention test.