Comments on: Al-Nashiri’s Swollen Nerves, the CIA’s Apology to Abu Zubaydah

By: fatster

fatster — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:20:14 +0000

I’ll certainly be looking for that book, skdadl. To be where Hawthorne once stood and wrote–how wonderful! None of my Nawthun ancestors were in Salem. They stayed at Plymouth, until they started migrating around up to Maine and so forth. I do agree with your wish about Miller, too. Many thnx.

By: skdadl

skdadl — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:41:43 +0000

The best book I know about Salem is not recent; it’s a meticulous social history called Salem Possessed (Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Harvard UP, 1974), and it has the virtue of putting the whole story in a context that is practically and humanly understandable, if no less tragic.

I made a pilgrimage to Salem in the mid-eighties and picked the book up by chance at the museum. It’s still one of the most gripping pieces of writing I know, based heavily on demographic analyses of Salem and Salem Village (present-day Danvers), but finally so complex in its analysis of all those troubled people that I felt I knew them. It’s the kind of book you keep on a special shelf. Much as I love Arthur Miller, I wish he had read that book and written yet another play.

I went to the Customs House where Hawthorne worked when Salem was still (but only just) a thriving port. If you’ve read The Scarlet Letter, you know the Customs House from the introduction. The building has been so beautifully kept — you can see, from the velvet chain at his office door, the high desk where Hawthorne worked, and they have one of his walking sticks leaning up against the wall in one corner. That was what just took my knees out from under me, to be close enough to reach out and touch that wonderful man.

Salem is a funny modern town, but the old port is lovely. The House of the Seven Gables is just across the street from the Customs House, and the vault in the Customs House is a thing of terrifying beauty. If you ever need to hide Fort Knox somewhere, at least part of it could go to Salem.

By: fatster

fatster — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:01:28 +0000

Very readable summary (with link to a list of the dead–though the two dogs are omitted) is here:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/facult.....L_ACCT.HTM

All but a handful of those accused of being witches were women.

This occurred in Salem, MA, a Puritan community that went bonkers between June-Sep 1692.

By: drational

drational — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:39:22 +0000

thx for suggestions, will edit.

By: Basharov

Basharov — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:54:33 +0000

Someone who showed an interest in weeds for example, would find herself (and it was typically female) under suspicion for witchcraft, and that merest suspicion was all that was necessary for the zealous religious leaders of the community to burn the “convicted by suspicion” witch at the stake.

In the interest of historical accuracy, it should be noted that the Puritans did not burn witches at the stake; instead, they hanged them (or, if the witch refused to plead guilty, he or she was pressed to death under a board on which heavy weights were placed).

Burning at the stake in colonial America was reserved for black slaves who plotted crimes against their masters (as happened in New York City in 1741).

By: Garrett

Garrett — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:07:07 +0000

This graf from the LA Times:

Monday’s disclosure, representing a rare allegation [my emphasis] by a detainee that he lied while subjected to harsh practices, also could raise new questions about whether the techniques worked.

Where do you even start?

Orwell, Politics and the English Language?

Vague semi-legalistic words strung together (a disclosure representing an allegation), to obscure awareness of the distinction between an allegation and an admission.

By: perris

perris — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:22:09 +0000

I just read your diary and it is excellant stuff

I can’t wait to see the updates as more info is disclosed

By: fatster

fatster — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:50:33 +0000

A lot depends, does it not, on whether the med is being prescribed to treat the patient or to control the patient. There is a tendency, particularly among patients such as you describe (dementia), to try and keep patients sedated so they are easier to manage. GIven reimbursement rates for long-term care, there may not be enough staff available to ensure such patients are safe and pose no threat to other patients without those meds. Very sad, and one more measure of what our society values–or doesn’t.

By: brendanx

brendanx — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:49:33 +0000

Here’s the “Simplest Methods which Break the Will” excerpt:

http://www.informationclearing.....le9236.htm

By: behindthefall

behindthefall — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:45:35 +0000

I don’t know if you want to look over the wording here (the Kos post):

Basically in the legs (and arms) there are muscles, arteries and veins and nerves that run for a section through a “compartment” that encloses the structures in a water impermeable fibrous sheath. If the compartment fills up with fluid

You might want to state explicitly that the water entering the compartment is exuding through the walls of the vessels that pass through it and being trapped there. Something like “if water leaks through the walls of the vessels into the compartment, it cannot escape through the compartment’s impermeable walls …” It just made me stop for a while: “wait a second; how do you fill an impermeable compartment?” (Yeah, I know. The logic is obvious.)