Motorways and Tramlines: 2007

Here's the quick and dirty on my trip to Boston last weekend, including some 100% must-see videos.

1. Tom and Jane were delightful hosts. I kept them up past their bedtime, and probably behaved worse than the title character from Problem Child, but they graciously absorbed my antics and returned them with nothing but kindness and an ample supply of Cherry Coke.
>

2. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Association can bite me.

I had a lovely Friday planned with my friend Curt up in Gloucester. Basically, we were going to play video games all day long. Wii, Guitar Hero, probably some Martian killing games... it was going to be awesome. But then my bus was wicked late, and which made me just miss my subway connection. So then I forked over $25 to have a cabbie drive me Dale Earnhardt style through the streets of Boston to the commuter rail station... where I missed my train. By 3 minutes. The whole day was shot.

A curse on both your houses, MBTA. A curse on both your houses.

3. Clutch Hitting Saves the Day. Tom pulled some strings so that I could rejoin my old co-ed softball team for one more glorious run. I repaid him by muffing a two-out line drive... an error that ultimately led to 5 more runs for the other team. Oops. BUT, our team came up with a bunch of clutch hits, including the game-winner by my good friend Amy who laced a walk-off single into left.

4. I will NEVER allow myself to be videotaped while singing karaoke. Fortunately for us, others aren't nearly as shy.

5. Tara was a gorgeous bride. Corey was a gorgeous groom. The bar was open. Wheee! Congratulations guys!

6. Hurray for guy time. Here was the line up for Sunday at Jeff's house: Watch football, eat, drink, play football, eat, drink, watch baseball, eat, drink, play poker, eat, drink, drink, drink, drink, play Wii, drink, watch rugby.

7. Sometimes you just have to get up on the roof and dance. It looked like these people were warming up for Brazil's Carnival. Boys in white playing some sort of mamba rhythm. Girls dressed like peacocks shaking what god gave them. Bless them all.

[+/-]

A Good Summer Read

I'm adding this book to my reading list.

Speaking of which... have any of you watched The Good Shepherd? If not, give it a shot. It's more methodical than suspenseful and you'll need some snacks to get through it, but it's fascinating none the less.

*******
Pulled directly from Boingboing.net:
*******

Psychological "torture bible" published in 1961 reappears online

Hombre sin nombre tells Boing Boing:

If you were to begin researching interrogation, interviewing, and brainwashing techniques, you would eventually notice that one particular interesting-sounding volume appears over and over again in the relevant bibliographies: something called The Manipulation of Human Behavior, published in 1961 [by John Wiley & Sons].

Based on the compelling title and the fact that just about every publication in the subject area cites it, you would then probably try to seek it out for yourself--only to discover that it has never been reprinted.

Then you'd find out a bit more: the book is a compilation of seven research reports, and funded at least in large part by the United States government. You can even track down the table of contents online, and your jaw may drop when you read the chapter titles:

* The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects Brain Function
* The Effects of Reduced Environmental Stimulation on Human Behavior: A Review
* The Use of Drugs in Interrogation
* Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information
* The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation
* The Experimental Investigation of Interpersonal Influence
* Countermanipulation through Malingering

These articles were written by the people who were paid by the US government, mostly in the 1950s, to research brainwashing and interrogation techniques by giving people drugs, placing them under sensory deprivation, hypnotizing them, etc. etc. Many of these experiments essentially involve torture and are likely to be widely regarded as highly unethical. This is fundamental research, and if there was any followup research done, it has not yet been published for public consumption.

This book is of enormous historical importance, and yet is largely unavailable. If you live in the United States, this is some of what your government was up to in the fifties. I doubt that their funding of these ideas stopped with the publication of this volume.

Link to copy of the complete text.

This book was referenced in a popular post from 2006 on the political blog Daily Kos: Link to "Frankenstein's Children: Modern Torture's Scientific Bible."

It's also available in scanned form on Questia.com, but I find that website a total pain in the butt to use.

Amazon shows a few used copies if you're so inclined.

[+/-]

Oh, Shenandoah.

[+/-]

A Trip to Goldsboro

[+/-]

A Visit To Great Falls

[+/-]

Eric and Rocky, Redux

There is one slightly Twilight Zone aspect to our house.

From the beginning....

When I was a wee lad, I LOVED dogs. I counted our dogs among my best friends and - since I spent most of my time working outside on our farm - they were my constant companions. They were by my side as I fed the cows, worked in the fields, rode my fourwheeler all over tarnation...

One of my first dogs was a German Shepard, whom I named Rocky.

(A note here on pet names: As a child, I had a tendency to think out of the box when it came to names. My first cat I named Christmas Tree, because he was completely black, just like it's really dark out all the time around Christmastime, which is when the Christmas trees are lit. Such was my logic as a four-year-old. My second cat was named Jeff The Wildcat, in honor of my cousin, Jeff, who played football for a team who's mascot was a wildcat.)

Rocky was awesome. He looked really tough, had a fierce bark, and scared the bejesus out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who dropped by every 6 months or so. He was also really sweet, clearly preferring to lick strangers rather than bite them.

Alas, he also had a unquenchable desire to chase cars. And one Christmas eve, when I was 10ish, he finally caught one. May he rest in peace.

Boy, was THAT a crappy Christmas.

Contributing to the emotional load was the fact that my parents had purchased one big gift for me that year... a stuffed dog that looked almost exactly like Rocky. Their idea, and it was brilliant, was to give me a way to have Rocky inside the house even though the real Rocky wasn't allowed inside.

Mom and Dad, of course, were in a complete bind. They didn't have time to find another gift for me. So their options were to a) not give the stuffed dog to me and somehow explain to me why they didn't get me any presents or b) give the dog to me and hope that I didn't have a complete emotional meltdown.

They gave it to me.

And that day it was both terrible and horrible to have this immediate reminder of my best friend who was now dead. But over the coming months most of the terribleness dropped away, and I grew to love that stuffed dog.

I still have him today and I fully intend to pass him on to my kids.

OK, so here's the Twilight Zone part of our new house:
Our downstairs neighbor is named Eric.
He has a dog.
That dog is named Rocky.

How weird is that? Of course, in terms of appearance, our Rocky's couldn't possibly be more different. But this Rocky is a sweet little dog too, and is quickly becoming on of our favorite guests.

And, yes, his tongue almost always hangs out the side like that.