Saturday, June 01, 2002 More of the Ever-Delightful Erika Sweeny By Diana Hsieh @ 8:44 PM I was just delighted to receive the following private e-mail from Erika Sweeney, who I recently ejected from the Nathaniel Branden Forum. She is obviously responding to my post about the relationship between psychology and philosophy, which is reprinted below. (I'm glad to see that opening up the archives of the group to non-subscribers has come to good use. :-/) More delightful messages from Erika can be found here and here. Normally, I respect the privacy of correspondence. But respect for such privacy is only warranted for reasonable people sending welcome correspondence, not for abusive people sending harassing correspondence. So enjoy the entertainment, folks! Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:21:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Erika Sweeney <erikasar_99@yahoo.com> To: diana(at)dianahsieh.com Subject: Re: [nathaniel_branden] Steady Hand You are a philosopher!!! I just love it. Someone like you who can't think around the corner pontificating about ineptitude amongst psychologists. And your recent work on honesty. Love to hear what you say in that respect. No doubt you were talking in general terms and said nothing about self-honesty. How about a book about hiding one's feelings, never being sincere, acting like you are concerned about doing great things with your life, while all the while undercutting anything that smacks of ability, efficacy, and individual achievement. I think you and the Royal Highness are a little more than imposters. The tag against the Royal Highness has always been that he loves to play to adulators but shys away from anyone who can see through his act. I'm convinced. It will take you some time also but it will happen. By the way, I bet he is paying you peanuts!! Ask me how I know. Erika Ah, sweet hatred! Link / Noodles / Trackback Philosophy and Psychology By Diana Hsieh @ 5:18 PM In response to a question about whether therapists ought to be trained in philosophy, I recently posted this following comment to the Nathaniel Branden Forum: The issues of psychology and philosophy are often deeply intertwined, particularly in ethics. In my recent work on honesty, I found great benefit in reading the psychological literature. And that psychological literature often referenced the philosophical literature. In other words, philosophy and psychology are often studying the same subject, just from different perspectives. However, in the course of my readings on these interrelated issues, I have often noticed a great ineptitude on the part of many psychologists in dealing with the philosophical analysis. They routinely overlook important distinctions, ignore the long-range consequences of the actions in question, fail to consider relevant alternatives, and so on. (For an example of what I mean, see my review of psychologist Paul Eckman's book Why Kids Lie.) Of course, I know that most philosophers are no better when it comes to psychological analysis. Philosophers often construct epistemological and moral theories that are grossly at odds with our scientific knowledge of how people's minds work. I'm sure they commit other psychological sins that I am simply too ignorant to identify at this point. So just from an academic perspective, I would argue that philosophers and psychologists need some cross-disciplinary training. (In fact, one of the reasons that I enjoy philosophy so much is that good philosophy requires a knowledge of history, economics, anthropology, psychology, and so on.) These same problems emerge in the psychotherapeutic context. Moral issues and psychological issues do not neatly separate themselves when a patient enters psychotherapy. And psychotherapists are not necessarily equipped to handle the moral issues that their patients bring to them every day. This problem of ignorance is one of the reasons why there has been a fair amount of interest lately in philosophical counseling, to deal with precisely these philosophical issues. Additionally, the success of the Dr. Laura Show has much to do with her interesting blend of moral and psychological issues. Dr. Branden's work, of course, also integrates psychology and ethics in a highly useful way. I suspect that many of the problems that drive people to therapy start as philosophical problems and end up as psychological ones. Thus I also suspect that more integration of good psychological and philosophical counseling would bring many people great benefit. Link / Noodles / Trackback Six Myths By Diana Hsieh @ 9:21 AM A few weeks ago, Paul sent me this link to a pro-Palestianian document about the "6 most common Israeli myths recycled during Israel's supposed 'War on Terror.'" The "myths" are: Myth 1: There is no moral equivalence between suicide bombings on the one hand, and Israel's killing of Palestinians on the other Myth 2: Israel's invasion of Palestinian cities and refugee camps is self-defence against suicide bombings Myth 3: Arafat Refuses to Condemn Suicide Bombings in Arabic Myth 4: Arafat has not done enough to stop terrorism Myth 5: Arafat Spurned Barak's generous offer at Camp David and broke off negotiations with Israel Myth 6: Arafat started the Intifada It's worth a read. Link / Noodles / Trackback Friday, May 31, 2002 Fun and Water Games By Diana Hsieh @ 10:28 PM John Caldera of the Independence Institute has a funny commentary on droughts and water rights in the Boulder paper. The opening paragraph is priceless. Link / Noodles / Trackback Crossing the Line By Diana Hsieh @ 8:29 PM Erika Sweeny just crossed that blessed line. She was ejected from the group for this message: Diana Either you are so lost to yourself, or you are just unable to hear what is being said, or I would think beyond that, you just don't care. Tell you what! I don't care anymore either. And I see intelligence doesn't work when nothing is there. You and Dr. Branden deserve each other. Big talk and expectations but in reality the Moe and Curley of incompetence. Remember that great Irish firemen at the rally in New York for those killed at the WTC. His name was Mike Moran. Do you remember what he said. If you can't remember he said to bin Laden, YOU CAN KISS MY ROYAL IRISH ASS!!!! Moderation can be a pleasure! Link / Noodles / Trackback Grading on a Curve By Diana Hsieh @ 5:07 PM Eugene has the only decent defense of grading on a curve that I've ever read. In fact, it's pretty convincing. (I particularly appreciated the point about the variations in the professors as generally much greater than the variations between classes.) Go read it! Link / Noodles / Trackback Of Living Death By Diana Hsieh @ 2:06 PM I have often wondered why we tend to simply lump people affected by an attack into three categories: unharmed, injured, and dead. After all, a scrape on the forehead is hardly the same as the loss of a limn or paralysis, yet both count as injuries. And even when we use the distinction of "minor" versus "serious" injuries, we don't often hear about the nature of those serious injuries or about their long-term inpact on the person's life. But the WND article Survivors face agony in suicide attacks details the damage. Here's the worst of it: Reports of people being injured in suicide bombings are not rare. Since September 2000, 498 Israelis have been killed and 4,021 injured in acts of Palestinian violence. In suicide bombings alone, 208 Israelis have died. On Monday, there were several reports on the suicide bomber who killed an 18-month-old baby girl and her grandmother and left 27 people injured. The reports, however, rarely go into the medical details to explain just what is meant by "injured." At a Tel Aviv nightclub June 1, a suicide bomber left 15-year-old Alona Shportova with serious brain damage and paralysis. She also had some of her limbs lacerated. In the suicide bombing of Dec. 1, Eran Mizrahi suffered a nail through his skull. He was celebrating his 16th birthday at a restaurant in Jerusalem. His injury left him paralyzed and in a catatonic state. Messing said one of the victims he saw while in Jerusalem had around 300 individual metallic fragments within his body. The metal fragments, measuring from millimeters to centimeters, were imbedded in the young man literally from head to toe, he said. "Several of the fragments penetrated into his vital organs. He sustained a punctured colon, a collapsed lung, and a lacerated liver and kidney. I could actually feel the nails under his skin where they had burrowed and lodged," Messing recalls. The victim underwent painstaking hours of exploration to try to remove the metal fragments that were accessible. "He suffered multiple organ injuries, but was saved with successful emergency room care and surgery," he said. "Other victims suffered amputated limbs, severe burns, fractures, lacerations, paralysis, deafness and blindness." Sometimes the fragments will cause more damage if they are taken out, Messing said, so some of the victims live the rest of their agonizing lives with shrapnel still inside of them. "It is common knowledge here that light injury can be losing a limb; medium is nearly dead or doubtful if he will live or radically altered functionality," Legomsky says. "Serious almost always means most of these victims wish they were dead physically." I am reminded of the title of one of Ayn Rand's essays from VOR: "Of Living Death." Link / Noodles / Trackback Google Zeitgeist By Diana Hsieh @ 11:59 AM I've been wondering about the popularity of various Google searches for a while. Now I know, thanks to Google Zeitgeist. So now I just need a way to work all those popular search terms into every single blog entry. The problem is that I don't know what the hell most of them mean. Sure I know who "chandra levy" is, and "david blaine" sounds familiar. But I'm not sure about "roland garros", "monica bellucci", or "roy keane". And what is "eurovision"? And "gta3"? And "cbse results"? And "e3"? And finally, is "big brother" the TV show or the totalitarian government? Ah, screw it! It would be impossible to work all those terms into a post! Link / Noodles / Trackback More Fun With Moderation By Diana Hsieh @ 11:32 AM Oh, the saga of the Nathaniel Branden Forum continues! Two fun letters arrived this morning. Ray Bronski wrote the following in response to Nathaniel's messages defending my moderation and urging people to take responsibility for discussing topics of interest to them (emphasis added): Dr. Branden, Without doubt, I have received my answer. Disappointing but one must accept reality. On the other hand, I have seen the workings of this forum and do not share your optimism. If this is self-esteem in action, efficacy, rationality, consciousness applied to a goal, I will have to go shopping in a different market. I have all the confidence in the world, that with Diana Hsieh at the helm, the vessel will shipwreck with everyone aboard. I am off to greener pastures, hopefully in search of rational discussion. Oh, hooray! I will cause a shipwreck! (Talk about an overblown metaphor...) But it gets better. Whistling Lass wrote in a reasonable question about libertarianism, specifically concerning what would happen to immoral businesses. (She even included an introductory comment saying that she was asking this question here because her interest in libertarianism was sparked by reading Branden's books.) So I fired off a quick reply: On Fri, 31 May 2002, whistling_lass wrote: > If the government stays out of the marketplace, and we have > laissez-faire capitalism, what happens when a company is immoral? Can you give a more concrete example of the behavior you worry about? If a company were dishonest about its products or broke contracts, that would be fraud -- and punishable in either criminal or civil courts. And let me add this: one of the worst side effects of government regulations is that businesses tend to equate "moral" with "permitted by the government." So the airlines still give out metal forks in first class, even though they could be used as weapons. When they were asked about it, their defense is that the FAA allows it. (Personally, I'd rather allow people to have these items, but arm the flight crew.) The point here [is that] the business is only concerned with complying with government regulations, rather than deciding for themselves what is the right thing to do. That's downright dangerous. P.S. I've posted plenty of essays on politics Dr. Branden's site, so you're on good ground here! Nathaniel even wrote a reply to me, posted to the entire list, saying that he was going to write essentially the same reply, but that I beat him to it. So now comes the nasty response from Erika Sweeney: Wow!!!!!! Wow!!!!!!! You people are simple amazing. You have really taught me a lesson. One person after another is asking for topics about Nathaniel Branden's books and ideas, and what happens. Dr. Branden and his moderator, Hsieh, encourage a discussion on capitalism. Great Dr. Branden. What is next to be discussed: The Objectivist theory of concepts? I am simply flabbergasted. I responded oh-so-politely: Oh, you must be unfamiliar with Dr. Branden's many writings and lectures on the subject of libertarianism. Here's a list of what I found in a five minute search on the web site: The Objectivist Ethics in an Information Age Economy http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/ess15.html We're All Libertarians Now http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/ess04.html Foundations of a Free Society http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/ess02.html A Culture of Accountability http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/exc02.html Question from 31 May 1998: In your discussions with Ayn Rand, did she ever indicate whether she agreed with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms? How would that be compatible with her view that government properly "holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force"? http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/que10.html Question from 10 May 1998: Since libertarianism intimately connects to self-responsibility, and self-responsibility intimately connects to self-esteem, does it follow that all high self-esteem individuals are libertarians? http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/que07.html Labor Unions http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/ton03.html The Question of Monopolies http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ess/ton01.html Of course, not everyone is acting nuts. Phaethon Enterprises posted a nice comment on the role of the moderator: Having served as a deckhand on several coastal ferries, I think a more appropriate metaphor for Diana's role should be that of harbor master. Each list participant is master of their own vessel, responsible for following the rules of the road only in order to prevent accidents. The harbor master intervenes only when ships create a hazard to navigation. A role which Diana has performed judiciously so far. Now that's a good metaphor! Two particularly amazing elements stand out to me in all this brouhaha over moderation. First: I have been the object of hatred on the net before, mostly as a result of tweaking Peikovians on Usenet. And I've moderated large, passionate mailing lists before, namely OWL. But I never have been the object of so much hatred by so many people for so little reason. I have acted reasonably in my job an list administrator. The owner of the list, the venerated Nathaniel Branden, clearly stands behind me. In response to ludicrous questions and abuse, I have acted with a great deal more self-restraint than I would have thought possible. So the blaming and hatred is all rather unfathomable to me. Second: I don't understand how people interested in Nathaniel Branden's work could be so oblivious to a call for self-responsibility. They seem to want someone to come in and provide and interesting discussion for them. They get angry and blame others when the discussion does not suit their interests, but they make no effort to create a discussion that does interest them. These people aren't just clueless about how mailing lists work, they are defective in some mysterious way. I hope that this agitation quiets down soon, but I suspect that I might have to boot some people. Link / Noodles / Trackback Spider-man By Diana Hsieh @ 10:49 AM Paul and I went to see Spider-man last night. I can definitely understand why the movie has been so popular. Spider-man is the quintessentially American hero, particularly in these post-9/11 days. He's the geeky good guy, who has to learn how to be a superhero in both the moral and physical sense. He has to learn self-discipline and self-restraint in order to protect those he loves. He is unwilling to sacrifice anyone to evil. He is utterly devoted to fighting crime, without sinking into bitter revenge. Three cheers for Spider-man! For me, the movie did involve a bit of strange cognitive dissonance. I recently watched The Cider House Rules, in which Tobey Maguire plays an orphan trained as an obstetrician. So in Spider-man that orphan obstetrician became a superhero. How weird! But it will be even stranger for Paul, when he finally gets around to watching The Cider House Rules, for then Spider-man will give up being a superhero to become an obstetrician. Link / Noodles / Trackback Thursday, May 30, 2002 Some Advice For Those With Children By Diana Hsieh @ 11:30 PM If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two Aspirin" and "Keep away from children." (Thanks to Richard Blane for forwarding.) Link / Noodles / Trackback Top Political Blogs By Diana Hsieh @ 11:00 PM Hey, I want to know why I'm not on John Hawkins' list of top political blogs. I bet that I was excluded just because my posting has been spotty for the past month and don't often talk about politics. How unfair! I suspect liberal bias in this so-called Right Wing News! (Perhaps the name is simply a sugar-coated cover for a bitter pill, like "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.") The real problem with the list was the lack of tingling anticipation at the holder of the #1 slot. Who else could it be? Oh, but where was Best of the Web? Or does that not really qualify as a blog? Link / Noodles / Trackback The Joys and Pains of Moderation By Diana Hsieh @ 2:03 PM Overall, I've been having fun administering Nathaniel Branden's new discussion forum on Yahoo Groups. It's working much better than the old board, as I can now kick off people who are abusive. (That's the extent of the moderation.) But today in particular, people started clamoring for per-message moderation, starting with this message by Ray Bronski. Unfortunately, personal attacks on my motives and competence were part of the package. It was infuriating. I suspect that this whole issue came up solely due to some rather personal and heated arguments between some of these pro-moderation people and Monica Pignotti regarding Thought Field Therapy. Monica was very forcefully arguing for the effectiveness of the therapy, when some people started attacking her personally. (She defended herself well, so I didn't jump in, although I probably should have.) These people saw TFT as irrelevant to the discussion of Nathaniel's work, even though he uses TFT in his practice and specifically invited Monica to the group to talk about TFT. (Some of them, I gather, didn't know that NB uses TFT.) So the pro-moderation crowd wanted to discuss something other than TFT, like self-esteem. That's all well and good. But none of them actually posted anything on such subjects that was of sufficient interest to the group to start a discussion. And so suddenly they were clamoring for moderation, presumably so that TFT posts would be banned. It was silly. If it was my list, rather than Nathaniel's, I would have told these people to get lost, but probably not so nicely. Instead I posted two messages (one and two) arguing against per-message moderation. I also argued that people ought to take responsibility for creating discussions on the list of interest to them. Well, that didn't seem to help. But finally Nathaniel chimed in with four messages, in support of exactly those two points. It seems that the pro-moderation crowd has been quieted. Thank goodness. Nothing like an argument from an authority! I really wonder sometimes about people who are deeply interested in discussing self-help. Perhaps I came into my adult life too well-adjusted to understand the desire to speak about one's own personal growth experiences. Perhaps I am too intellectually inclined. Perhaps I value my own privacy too much. Perhaps I'm not empathetic enough. Perhaps I'm too reason-oriented rather than emotion-oriented. Perhaps I'm just thick-skinned when it comes to heated intellectual debate. Perhaps Paul has been secretly brainwashing me against self-help psychology while I'm asleep. Whatever the reason, I just can't relate. Link / Noodles / Trackback Brainwashing By Diana Hsieh @ 12:23 PM A highly critical introduction to Scientology on Operation Clambake says this about the techniques of Scientology: The results of applying their crackpot psychotherapy (called "auditing") is to weaken the mind. The mind goes from a rational state to an irrational one as the delusional contents of the subconscious mind are brought to the surface and are assumed to be valid. It also makes a person more susceptible to suggestion since it submerges the critical thinking faculties of the mind into a partial subconscious state. It results in a permanent light hypnotic trance and so from thenceforth that person can be more easily controlled. The person will, to a much greater extent, believe and do whatever they are told. And of course this is used to the full in persuading them to hand over further money and dedicating themselves further to the cult. The results of applying their oversimplified and inapplicable rules in life is to lose the ability to think rationally and logically. A person loses the ability to think for themselves and so they lose the ability to challenge incorrect ideas. This makes them easier to control. It also isolates and alienates the person from society so that they withdraw from normal society and into their "Scientology" society. This further increases their susceptibility to the influence of their group. They end up being afraid of society, believing all society to be controlled by a group of drug companies, psychiatrists and financiers all of whom report to more remote masters. In other words they are in a state of mass paranoia. They therefore avoid reading newspapers and the like since they fear it will disturb their safe Scientology world. It is a downward spiral into madness. I wonder about the psychology of brainwashing. What is actually happening to such a person's mind during the process? Short of a neurological defect, I suspect that it is impossible for a person to entirely "lose the ability to think rationally and logically." After all, even the most brainwashed Scientologist must use reason and logic in order to get through the day. Even obeying orders requires us to think. So the tactics of Scientology can't possibly eliminate all thinking, although perhaps it can eliminate critical thinking about Scientology itself. As for strongly discouraging critical thinking about Scientology, both internal and external pressures can certainly be effective. If a person believes that the outside world is totally corrupt, that Hubbard will fix these abuses as soon as he learns of them, that thoughts critical of Scientology are a sign of mental illness, and so on, then critical thinking about Scientology becomes extremely difficult. Those are the internal pressures. If voicing any criticism will result in punishment or expulsion or loss of privilege or social ostracism, then critical thinking about Scientology becomes all the more difficult. Those are the external pressures. The combination of these two can be deadly. These internal and external pressures exist for people in regular life all the time. A wife might not want to think about the meaning of her husband's infidelity, so she pushes it out of her mind. A parent might refuse to acknowledge child's drug problem, for fear that her friends will think her a bad mother. A Catholic may fear leaving the church for fear of going to hell. These are all pressures not to think, or at least not to think too much about something. What makes brainwashing different is, I think, simply the amount of pressure exerted and the effectiveness of that pressure. The goal of the group, in such cases, is the precisely elimination of critical thought about the group. As a result, the pressures exerted are more likely to be strong and effective. When such pressures take hold in a person's mind, the likelihood that the person will engage in critical thinking may sink to just about zero. Perhaps an accurate description would be that such a person has effectively lost the capacity to think rationally about a given subject. Of course, that doesn't mean that the capacity to think has been lost. After, if it was completely gone, it would be hard to explain how people like Monica Pignotti leave Scientology if all capacity for rational thought about Scientology had been compromised. I admit that bursting through these internal and external pressures not to think may require more mental effort and endurance than most people have at their disposal. But an unwillingness to resist the pressures of Scientology is not the same as an incapacity to do so. Of course, for most, the distinction is likely to be sadly irrelevant. Link / Noodles / Trackback Wednesday, May 29, 2002 Ethics?!? By Diana Hsieh @ 9:42 PM This article seemed like the usual apology for suicide bombings. The author argues: When a people have been stripped of everything they have, are denied the expression of who they are, humiliated by those occupying their land, homes destroyed, schools closed, children not being allowed to play, put in jail without trials, executed without being tried...life becomes intolerable. In fact, the notion of simple earthly pleasures becomes out of reach. The Israelis control every facet of Palestinian life. Suicide bombings are a reaction to this oppressive control of life. These people are telling Israelis, "You can starve us, beat us, humiliate us, but you will never control our spirit. We will choose the day of our death, and in the process make you feel a bit of the pain you, our occupiers, inflict on our entire society." Palestinians exist in an environment so dire that the prospects of death overshadow their prospects for life. Imagine your mother spat upon by a nineteen-year-old Israeli soldier simply because she was your mother...imagine our neighborhood being bombed by powerful planes and helicopters and we had no way to protect ourselves. Suicide bombings are acts of desperation and mean that a people have been pushed to the brink. There is not one incident that leads to one of these actions. Rather it is a systematic matrix of actions by Israeli occupation that terrorizes an entire population. Palestinians have been pushed so hard that they no longer fear death nor the enemy. The "rightness or wrongness" of these suicide bombings can be debated by everyone, but failure to understand why these happen will make certain that they will continue. Without understanding the causes that lead to the bombings, one will never eliminate them. This simple truth seems to evade most commentators, pundits, politicians, and of course seems to be missed by most Israelis and those that support them. Ho hum. But then I read the byline. "Mr. Jaffer Ali is a Palestinian-American businessman who writes on business Ethics, management theory and political topics. This guy is an ethicist?!? Sheesh! I guess that's what happens when the government doesn't license philosophers. ;-) Link / Noodles / Trackback Three Cheers for Capitalism! By Diana Hsieh @ 9:17 AM Kate and I are headed up to Alameda East today for suture removal. I'm just so relieved that we made it through these 12 days without her ripping out her stitches again. I'm very pleased with her post-op progress. She is very stable and active on her new artificial hip. Although she is on leash at all times while outside, she no longer just totters outside for a few moments just to go potty. For the past week, she's been taking short walks with me down to the front gate. And for the past few days, she's been accompanying Abby and me to the barn to feed the horses. (She gets tied in a corner while I'm working.) It's pretty amazing that an ordinary dog could have access to such advanced medical technology. The surgery wasn't cheap, but I could have afforded it back when I was living frugally on a $35,000 salary in Los Angeles. Three cheers for capitalism! Link / Noodles / Trackback Bothering People By Diana Hsieh @ 9:01 AM Mr Instapundit pointed me to this great CS Monitor article on the Israel's help of US in dealing with terrorism. And damn, we do need help. On talk radio yesterday, one of the hosts was saying how he had gotten through security at two different airports with a pair of six-inch scissors. The first time, he was singled out at the gate for extra inspection. They didn't find the scissors. The second time, they put his bag through the X-ray machine three times before clearing it. Amazing! Here's how Israeli methods differ from ours: Israeli specialists have a low regard for American security searches. They say they tend to cause unnecessary discomfort for travelers, while being prone to missing potential assailants. "The United States does not have a security system, it has a system for bothering people," Dror says. "The difference between the Israeli and American systems is that we are looking for the terrorist, while the Americans look for the weapons," he adds. At the heart of the Israeli system is the questioning of the passenger, which Dror says is done not only to get answers, but also to gauge the passenger's behavior. "The reason we open the suitcase is to have another few minutes with the passenger, to ask some more questions," he says. The questioning also serves as a way to quickly decide who to send to the plane without probing more thoroughly, he adds. Dror advocates Israeli-style security clearances for all workers at the companies for whom he consults. They entail checking a person's history by interviewing acquaintances and family "We check the man himself, not documents." But Dror adds that Israeli methods, even if fully adopted, will not stop all attacks. "There is no 100 percent in security. If you want 100 percent security on flights, every passenger has to take all his clothes off, have his suitcase checked, and be handcuffed and tied to his seat. For sure this can never be. The idea is to enable people to continue their lives while making an attack less possible." It sounds like those Israelis are familiar with the methods in The Truth About Lying, an excellent book I just read on spotting deception. I'll write up a review in the next few days. Link / Noodles / Trackback Tuesday, May 28, 2002 Postmodernist Generator By Diana Hsieh @ 10:37 PM I love this postmodern shit. Link / Noodles / Trackback The Evils of Scientology By Diana Hsieh @ 10:28 PM I just finished the best article on Scientology I've ever read. In it, Monica Pignotti gives oodles of details about her life in Scientology. The story details how she got sucked in, why she stayed so long, and how she got out. And it is all frighteningly plausible. Link / Noodles / Trackback Indecision By Diana Hsieh @ 10:44 AM My body can't seem to decide whether it is sick or well. For the past five days, I've had mild cold symptoms: stuffy nose, sore throat, swollen glands, and exhaustion. The first few days, I kept expecting to actually develop a cold. But that hasn't happened yet. But I don't seem to be getting much better either. Ugh. I haven't actually been sick in about 3 years, thanks to working from home. (The last time I got sick was from my beloved Paul, who caught something on the airplane, shook it off himself, but gave it to me. Thanks, dear.) So I hope that returning to school won't put me back on my usual schedule of two illnesses per year. In the meantime, I'd just like to shake whatever virus I am laboring under at the moment. Link / Noodles / Trackback Monday, May 27, 2002 My Beloved By Diana Hsieh @ 1:17 PM I have been reluctant to blog this news, as it is so personal and painful to me. But since I have spoken of my kitties here before, it seems appropriate. Last Friday, the 17th of May, my most beloved cat Clara disappeared. We have been searching diligently for her, but have yet to find her. I have filed a lost cat report with our county animal control and the Denver Dumb Friends League. (Thankfully, she is microchipped.) A notice has been posted at the entrance of the neighborhood and flyers given to all of our immediate neighbors, but no one has seen her. I have gone on many kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty-Clara calling walks, to no avail. Living in the semi-rural area that we do, we fear that a coyote caught and killed her, but there is just no way of knowing. She is a large and savvy cat, so I am hopeful that she will turn up. Clara is the Platonic Form of Catness. She is reckless, curious, and demanding. She is my favorite of our three cats. I can only hope that she returns soon. Link / Noodles / Trackback Atheists in Foxholes By Diana Hsieh @ 1:10 PM Tapped has a nice bit on atheists in foxholes. Two comments: 1. The atheist "emblem of belief" is goofy. 2. The atheist who yells out "God save me!" while in the midst of battle is most likely saying more about the monstrosity of war than about his religious views. Link / Noodles / Trackback Sunday, May 26, 2002 Rape Fantasies By Diana Hsieh @ 11:04 AM Glenn Reynolds might be trying to attract as many "teen sex" hits as he can lately, but I've already inadvertently cornered the non-porn market on "rape fantasy" hits. I'm number 15 on Google's search for rape fantasy, thanks to this 1998 post to the randian-feminism list. Now that I've mentioned it on my blog too, I'm sure I'll get even more traffic! The numbers of queries involving rape and fantasy are pretty amazing in comparison to the numbers for everything else. See for yourself: May 1st to May 26th: Listing the top 30 queries by the number of requests, sorted by the number of requests. #reqs: search term -----: ----------- 123: rape fantasy 23: fantasy rape 20: ihealer 19: rape fantasies 18: marx species being 14: mila 18 12: species being marx 11: diana hsieh 8: plea bargaining 7: naked bosnian girls pictures 7: aristotle's doctrine of the mean 6: equity feminism 5: abaaya 5: nathaniel branden 5: criticisms of foucault 5: kant against aristotle happiness 4: ascetic ideal 4: women rape fantasy 4: habermas foucault 4: kant and copernicus 4: genealogical history of morality 4: why kids lie 4: nietzsche ascetic ideal 4: fingarette heavy drinking disease 3: women rape fantasies 3: prudent predator habit 3: altruism in animals 3: marx and species being 3: nietzsche criticism 3: essays on masculinity 1018: [not listed: 890 search terms] Oh, and that naked bosnian girls pictures is just a fluke -- an odd assortment of keywords on Google's current cache of my main blog page. I swear. On a more serious note, I wonder how many of those who are searching for phrases like criticisms of foucault, aristotle's doctrine of the mean, and marx species being are actually students looking to plagiarize a paper. For those who are, may you live a short and miserable life! Link / Noodles / Trackback

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