Deborah Campbell, 25, said she phoned in her order last week to the ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name [Adolf Hitler Campbell] spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.
Karen Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration.
"We reserve the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate," Meleta said. "We considered this inappropriate."
The Campbells ultimately got their cake decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said....
The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.
Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated....
Friday, December 19, 2008
One part silly, one part spooky...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
SAFTEY ALERT: NO SCHOOL FRIDAY!
Here Comes Another One...
The next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is currently being put together. Each edition (I, II, III, IV, IV-revised) has grown larger and larger, as many more "syndromes" and "disorders" are added every time. The clinicians who contribute to the book- which, by the way, is a huge money maker for the American Psychology Association- vote on which disorders get put in and get taken out. Yes, that is right. They vote.
If you think that this means that the scientific basis for, say, a diagnosis of Bi-polar is shaky, well, then maybe you are right. After all, oncologists don't vote on cancer, do they?
Read the article.
And keep this in mind, also from the Times:
More than half of the task force members who will oversee the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s most important diagnostic handbook have ties to the drug industry, reports a consumer watchdog group.
The Web site for Integrity in Science, a project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, highlights the link between the drug industry and the all-important psychiatric manual, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The handbook is the most-used guide for diagnosing mental disorders in the United States. The guide has gone through several revisions since it was first published, and the next version will be the D.S.M.-V, to be published in 2012.
The American Psychiatric Association’s Web site has posted the financial disclosure of most of the the 28 task force members who will oversee the revision of the D.S.M.
It’s not the first time the D.S.M. has been linked to the drug industry. Tufts University researchers in 2006 reported that 95 — or 56 percent — of 170 experts who worked on the 1994 edition of the manual had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker in the years from 1989 to 2004. The percentage was higher — 100 percent in some cases — for experts who worked on sections of the manual devoted to severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, the study found. (For a Times story on that report, click here.)
The American Psychiatric Association allows members who work on the upcoming fifth edition of the handbook to accept money from drug firms. However, from the time of their appointment until the completion of the work, their annual individual income from industry sources cannot exceed $10,000. “We have made every effort to ensure that D.S.M.-V will be based on the best and latest scientific research, and to eliminate conflicts of interest in its development,” said Dr. Carolyn B. Robinowitz, president of the organization, in a press release.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Where is the Real Drug Problem?
If you want to read an excellent, moving, and well written book that asserts some profound benefits of medication for people diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder try Kay Redfield Jamison's
An Unquiet Mind. If you would like to read up other sides of the issue, try this blogpost from Psychology Today or this good summary of a point of view that accepts the premise that psychological disorder have a "medical" reality, or this view that such a diagnosis is more socially driven than biological, or this rather convincing (to me) overview of the criticism leveled at the whole assumption that neurochemicals and behavior have a proven, causal relationship.
There is alot out there to read. Basically, the drugs are largely unproven and have dangerous side effects. But the behavior to be treated can be fantastically destructive of human potential and causes enormous suffering. Some drugs seem to work sometimes, but usually not much better than placebo. The universities, big corporations, publications, and clinicians that profit from the drugs are not honest brokers.
Now look at this (from Furious Seasons):
Many of you are already aware of the two-year-old lawsuit brought by the State of Texas against J&J/Janssen over allegations that the drugmaker worked to influence the Texas Medication Algorithm Project to favor its star atypical antipsychotic Risperdal and made payoffs to state officials, among other allegations. A similar children's medication project is under investigation by state officials.
Yesterday, the state amended its complaint to include allegations that the company gave out false marketing materials and used fake advocacy groups to get its then-expensive drug (which is now a generic) used in the state MedicAid program. Although the state isn't naming names in its complaint (who is the mysterious fake advocacy group?), the complaint is worth reading. You can download it from the Dallas Morning News' website.
I've read the complaint and it's the usual set of allegations that J&J/Janssen took a drug designed to treat schizophrenia--not a very efficacious drug at that--and pressed to have it used off-label in adults and children for a number of other indications. In the process, the company used state officials as pitchmen for its drug and somehow got its drug on the children's list--which was never implemented and was recently suspended altogether--eight years before it was approved for use in kids and teens by the FDA. Earlier this year it was revealed that Texas officials and researchers wanted to use McDonald's gift certificates as inducements to get kids on medication trials.
Trouble with the phones
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Justice
The students now meditate four days a week in the morning, and have short periods of meditative silence just before lunch and at the very end of the day. We offer courses in yoga and meditation, as well as in a psychology class that is oriented towards well-being and self-observation.
We have also used a quirk in our current enrollment- that we have a large group of seniors and freshman, but little in the middle- to structure more deeply the orientation for the young students and the oversight for senior projects and college applications. We currently have one current student teaching study skills that she learned this past summer at Phillips Academy, and a recent graduate- a prolific and able writer- teaching an intro to writing course.
What is next? A more integrated music program. Also, building on the work we accomplished last year with getting students to evaluate and more forcefully shape the curriculum here. This will require a greater degree of self-knowledge on their part, and much clearer, more collaborative advocacy on ours.
Most heavily on my mind has been the role of social justice at school. There is a program nearby that helps families wracked by domestic violence. One of their difficulties has been getting presents together for their older children. Everyone donates the little kid stuff. So our students gave a hundred dollars of the money they have raised over the last couple of years, and raised another one hundred fifty more to fill that need. Efforts such as this are admirable, but they don't require an integrated view of the world. They address a problem without raising questions of justice.
Can social justice be addressed non-ideologically? Is it even desirable to try? At TAS we don't preach "buddhism". We teach certain techniques and emphasize few rituals. Students who wish to go deeper can, and do. They learn to treat each other justly because they are treated justly. But is that enough. Should we be instilling a stronger ethic, a broader awareness? Or do we plant a seed and let it be?
A Soft Spot for Mollusks
But I find myself moved most of all by the little details of our carelessness projected into the future. To wit:
(10:32 16 December 2008 by Catherine Brahic, New Scientist)
Swimming through warmer, more acidic oceans will feel like swimming through molasses for jumbo squid.
Jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas), also known as Humboldt squid or red devils, are best known for their voracious appetite and for decimating fish stocks
Rui Rosa of the University of Lisbon in Portugal and Brad Seibel of the University of Rhode Island, put jumbo squid in tanks that mimicked the warmer and more acidic ocean conditions expected for 2100 if industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are not curbed.
The team found that the squid's metabolic levels dropped by one third and the length of time the squid spent contracting their muscles dropped by almost half.
Jumbo squid blood carries very little oxygen - with each cycle through its body, the oxygen can be used up entirely. This means they must "recharge" constantly, and makes the animals very dependent on what oxygen is available in the water around them. Yet, the warmer water is, the smaller the amount of oxygen it can hold.
To make matters worse, the squid's blood cells are able to carry even less oxygen in acidic water. The bottom line is that jumbo squid in warm, acidic sea water are more lethargic, says Rosa. "They may become more susceptible to predators and less able to capture prey."
Last year, the first study to simultaneously track a predator and its prey suggested that sperm whales may take advantage of moments when jumbo squid slow down to catch them.
The tracking study also showed that jumbo squid undertake a daily migration between the surface and the deep ocean. Rosa and Seibel say in future, the range they are able to survive in will become narrower, possibly forcing them to find new habitats.
In fact, there are already signs that changes in the oceans are pushing jumbo squid into new waters.
Surveys carried out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium show that over the past 16 years, the squid have become permanent residents of Californian waters. It is believed that warmer temperatures have helped push them north of their usual hunting grounds off Mexico and Central America.
Squid are literally held into shape by the pressure of their environment. Darting, epic, and fleeting, they are masters of their strata. But on land, a sprawling gunk. More helpless than a fish. A bit like those soaring thoughts one has, that when spoken, flop helplessly to the ground.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Math and English
Scroll down to p. 37 of this for the distribution chart. Go here for the website of BC's International Study Center.
I can't help but wonder why the press seems to focus almost exclusively on the math and science scores. After all, don't it seem that the new economy is all about communication?
Maybe your average journalist is a little math-neurotic.
from the NY Times:
U.S. kids make math gains...
Sam Dillon
American fourth- and eighth-grade students made solid achievement gains in math in recent years and in two states showed spectacular progress, an international survey of student achievement released on Tuesday found. Science performance was flat.
The results showed that several Asian countries continued to outperform the United States greatly in science and math, subjects that are crucial to economic competitiveness and research.
The survey, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or Timss, found that fourth-grade students in Hong Kong and eighth-grade students in Taiwan were the world’s top scorers in math, while Singapore dominated in science at both grade levels.
“We were pleased to see improvements in math, and wished we’d seen more in science,” said Stuart Kerachsky, acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Education Department, which carried out an analysis of the performance of American students on the test.
The latest Timss study, the world’s largest review of math and science achievement, involved testing a representative sample of students in each country in 2007, the first time the tests had been administered since 2003. The results included fourth-grade scores from 36 countries and eighth-grade scores from 48 countries. The tests cover subjects taught in all the participating countries, including algebra, chemistry, geometry and physics.
The study is directed by the International Study Center at Boston College.
Asia’s continuing dominance in math and science, first demonstrated in the 1990s, was especially apparent in the latest results, which showed rising percentages of high-scoring students there.
Nearly half of eighth graders scored at the advanced level in math in Taiwan, Korea and Singapore, compared with 6 percent of American students.
Comparing educational performance in the United States, a diverse country of 300 million people with 50 state educational systems, with city-states like Singapore and Hong Kong, which have populations of 4.5 million and 6.9 million people, respectively, is a bit of apples and oranges.
Still, experts said the Timss study again confirmed the tremendous gains those societies had made in just a few decades.
“It was good to see that the United States has made some progress in math,” said Ina V. S. Mullis, co-director of the Boston College center, “but I was surprised by the magnitude of the gap between us and the highest performing Asian countries, and that should cause us some concern.”
Students in Massachusetts and Minnesota, which participated in a special study that attributed a score to the states as if they were individual countries, also demonstrated stellar achievement, outperforming classmates in all but a handful of countries.
In eighth-grade science, for instance, Massachusetts students, on average, scored higher than or equal to students in all countries but Singapore and Taiwan.
And in Minnesota, which has worked to improve its math curriculum, the proportion of fourth-grade students performing at the advanced level jumped from 9 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2007, a gain that was one of the world’s largest.
But on average, the results showed several Asian countries increasing their dominance.
In the fourth-grade math survey, scores in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, England and Latvia were higher than in the United States.
I don't understand what is behind the constant drumbeat about Math and Science scores only. It seems pretty clear that language skills are not only inadequate among great swaths of the population, but that the nature of those skills now needed are changing. Yet, I rarely see much on that subject at all.
On the other hand, Bush bashers must admit that the Educator in chief can take some credit for this. Ironically, education reform and accountability was a major part of his original agenda until scuttled by his V.P.