why torture doesn't work

From time to time, this blog has discussed the morality of torture, which, for its proponents, hinges on one thing: whether it works. But even the severest utilitarian would have hard time justifying a practice that, as far as we can tell, is worse than useless. Consider the newly-released details of the CIA's investigation on Abu Zubaida. Ed Brayton points to the story, found in the Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Zubaida's "confessions" produced garbage, yet his captors, even when faced with evidence that further waterboarding was pointless, continued to torture him. Brayton comments,

This is one of the main problems with such interrogations and it has nothing to do with those famous "ticking timebomb" scenarios we hear so much about. They're convinced they have a high value target in detention but in fact he's just a low level flunkie who has little to tell [them]. So when he doesn't give them useful information, they're convinced they have to torture him to get the information they're sure he has.

And even after they torture him and he tells them everything he thinks they want to hear to make them stop, and even after they waste time and resources chasing all the false leads he gives them, they never think to question their own assumptions either for that person or for others. Even after the failure of their first instance of torture, they continued to approve others.

I see at least two reasons for this. First, in the heightened emotional state brought on by the combination of crisis-thinking and moral abnegation, the ordinary distortions of confirmation bias are amplified until the noise drowns out the signal. Second, torture is a sort of moral Rubicon--once crossed, there's no going back, no possible admission of failure, for it would reveal a truth too ugly to comprehend--not only to the outside world, but to the torturer.

students are brilliant

Yesterday, in the middle of a discussion of "you," specifically as it pertains to narrative fiction (and more specifically in The Death of Artemio Cruz) one of my students referred to the pronoun as "the unanimous person." We had just written full-page pieces directly addressing "you," and shared snippets from each one, reading around a circle, creating an instant poetic tapestry similar to those found in Fuentes' masterpiece. Afterward, reflecting on the process, the student let slip the phrase.

It might have seemed like an error to some--substitute "anonymous"--but in the context of the discussion, it made perfect sense. Intuition tells us, and research confirms, that narrative focused on "you" can be strangely compelling. Its multiplicity, its simultaneous singularity and generality, make it both universal and personal. The mirror of the Whitmanic I. The "unanimous person."

I am still jealous. That is positively brilliant.

playing chicken in the legislature

The budget details from the Senate are out, and if you're an educator, or anyone who cares about educational quality in Washington... better grab your beta-blockers.

Senate Democrats delivered on a promise to slash state spending, unveiling a proposed budget this morning that includes more than $1.3 billion in cuts to public schools and higher education.

Budget documents indicate cuts of $877 million for public schools. Lawmakers would reduce funding for Initiative I-728, which was approved by voters in 2000 to reduce class sizes; trim levy equalization money for property-poor districts, and cut spending for other programs. Exact cuts by category were not immediately available.

I-728 would be practically eliminated--a 93% reduction. In the Olympia School District, where I teach, that would mean the loss of 48 full-time teaching positions. There's simply no way retirement or other normal attrition can account for that, which means that should this budget pass, we're facing steep, painful cuts.

Or is all this a ploy to get Washington's citizens to pay higher taxes, and to force Governor Gregoire into a political corner? A spectacular game of legislative chicken?

Update: The House budget is only slightly less painful.

e-cigarettes: back to the future

Life, always a few miles per hour below the speed of parody:

Last summer, a Florida company began aggressively marketing e-cigarettes - which emit a nicotine vapor with the help of a computer chip - but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now seems poised to pull e-cigs from the market because the agency considers them "new drugs." That means they need approval from the FDA, which requires companies to back up their claims with scientific data....

Invented in China several years ago, the e-cig not only "smokes" like a cigarette, it also looks like a cigarette, feels like a cigarette, glows like a cigarette and contains nicotine like a cigarette.

But it's not a cigarette. It's a slender stainless-steel tube.

Wonder if they drew their inspiration from the source of all foolishly great ideas: The Onion.

Don McLeroy, a Texas-sized embarrassment

"Somebody's got to stand up to experts that are just--I think--I don't know why they're doing it, they're wonderful people, but the fossil record doesn't do it--why take it out, if evolution is so true and has no weaknesses, I can't see any reason for putting it in there, all it does is give them an extra standard to argue for it. Yes, it's hard to stand up to very brilliant, wonderful people."

Wish we could say the same about Don McLeroy. It's tough to find a worse extemporaneous speaker. (Don't worry, it's not impossible, just tough.)

[via Reed Cartwright]

elite eight: Whitman sings the blues

For inspiration on this first day of the Elite Eight, we turn not the spirits of the game, who are notoriously fickle, but rather to the spirit of Walt Whitman, the mangy prophet.

Song of a Quarterfinal

I loaf and lounge in the TV's gaze, observing a game of college hoops.
I, now thirty years old in close-to-perfect health begin,
hoping to cease not till commercial break.

I recline and let the apparitions of a thousand layups, fadeaways, alleys-oop,
born of the merging of desire and dream,
play and re-play on this electric canvas.

The jumpers and the dribblers, the passers and dunkers: the same.
The short, the tall, the lunky, the lanky: the same.
The Lawsons, the Thabeets, the Aldriches, the Hansbroughs: the same.

Glass, steel, cord, hardwood, paint,
glaze of sweat and the supplication of a halfcourt heave,
out of this tumult of noise and smell and motion,
four visions arise.

Tigers, shelled by a shot-block, innards drooping from the husk.
Panthers locked in death-dance with wild-cats, brother against brother, clawing and scraping until the elders collapse in defeat.
Cardinals swooping, spiraling, unstoppable.
Tar Heels choking in the dust of a hundred thousand covered wagons.

I recline, lodged between the seeing and the knowing,
waiting for the whistle, this call in the midst of the crowd:
My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.

an open letter to CBS

Dear CBS:

63-62 with :26 left > 85-66 with 6:52 left.

So what's with the manic back-and-forth?

Regards,

Me

now Discover Card knows they're making me angry

But do they know why? That visit length--0 seconds--troubles me.

what I did today

1. Today I encouraged students to write in a fresh way: to abandon punctuation, or to embrace it with inexplicable passion. It massively disrupted their thinking, and led to insightful discussions and some darn clever pieces.

2. I have several students who, whenever we're blogging or researching things online, almost literally have to be dragged away from Google Maps. The lure of nostalgia is too strong. I thought I was immune until today, when I buckled and spent five minutes virtually walking through the streets of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. Memories surge back, and yet they're thin, missing the smells and sounds and textures of the place, which I suppose I'd have to recover by actually going there.

3. My NCAA brackets are just about completely gone. (Don't pick a team that can't shoot free throws. Don't pick a team that can't shoot free throws!) I watched them implode this evening. After Mizzou's performance, I have high hopes for Gonzaga. They are irrational and I accept them as such.

4. My urge to immortalize the tournament in verse, however, is as strong as ever. The Muse crouches at the door.

5. Today I received my first official 30th birthday present, over a week late.

stop me if you've read this before

Two and half years ago I linked to an article describing how scientists had learned how to create "déjà vu on demand." That kind of research is providing a window into consciousness, turns out.

It is possible that both Moulin and Cleary are correct. The perirhinal cortex may store information about spatial relationships, rather than time, place and sequence of events, and so normal familiarity feelings could come largely from layout and configuration, backing Cleary's findings. Indeed, there may be many ways to produce false familiarity, according to psychologist Alan Brown of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, author of The déjà vu experience (Psychology press, 2004). His own experiments indicate some other possibilities. For example, he has induced the feeling by distracting volunteers while they saw a glimpse of a scene and then moments later giving them a good look. "If you take a brief glance when distracted, and look at the same scene again afterwards, it can feel like you've seen it before but much earlier," says Brown. He has also induced it by showing people images of things they had forgotten. "Just as a stomach ache can hurt the same way but be caused by lots of different processes, it could be the same way with déjà vu," he says.

The real problem with explaining déjà vu, however, is not how we can get familiarity without recognition, but why it feels so disturbing. "We'd get it all the time if it were just familiarity with real experiences," says Ed Wild from the Institute of Neurology in London. He suggests that mood and emotion are also important contributors to the sensation of déjà vu. We need the right combination of signals, not just the layout of a scene but how we feel at the time, to believe something is familiar when really it is not.

The entire article's well worth a read.

worst-case scenario

David Goldstein outlines the scary no-new-taxes budget coming out next week:

Discover Card is making me angry

I've been a Discover Card holder for a decade now, mostly happy with the service. All my gas purchases go on the card, for a hefty 5% rebate each month. Five percent is nice. (Spend it on a Borders gift certificate and it's 6%. Even nicer.)

Tonight I call to activate two "new" cards. The automated system takes all my info, and I reach the final choice: "Press 1 to activate another card; press 2 to finish." Can't I just hang up? Weird... But I press 2 and hold my breath.

After a couple rings, a voice. "First and last name please.... thank you... 3-digit number on the back of the card... thank you." Great. So now I'm verifying the information I already entered. Second red flag.

"Okay, Mr. Anderson. I see you've been with Discover for ten years--thank you for your business. I also see you have a large reward headed your way. Do you understand how to request it?" After ten years, I'd better, I think, but only say "Yes."

"Excellent. You're also eligible for a double Cashback bonus on all home improvement purchases in April, Mr. Anderson, and I'll send you a letter with the details." Whatever, it's your stamp. "And I'll also send you a packet of information about our Identity Theft Protection--with enrollment it's only $9.99."

Oh, no. Not again. A couple months ago I had to deal with this nonsense: Discover employee talks about the program, says they will send info, adding some ambiguous phrase about enrollment costs, only on the next month's statement, you discover--that, my friends, is a world-class pun--that you've been charged ten bucks for merely acquiescing to what you thought was just an information packet.

I cut off the rep. "No thanks--I'm not happy with the fact that you're preemptively enrolling me in something I don't want."

Though she doesn't dispute the claim, she fights back anyway. "But it's a great service that--"

"It may well be. But I've been a member for a decade and I think I'd know if I wanted that service by now."

"But a lot of people don't know about the option--"

Boy, is she persistent. So am I. "That's nice. I do. And all I wanted from this phone call was to activate my new cards."

That shuts her down, and the call ends after fifteen seconds of formal non-conversation. As I set down the receiver, I imagine her sighing and muttering about how she's just doing her job and reading some stupid script, or maybe she's being chewed out by some smarmy middle manager for failing to hook another customer, or maybe she's blithely on to the next sales pitch, just another cog in the factory churning out canned bullshit.

Discover Card folks, if you're out there, care to tell me why you're treating long-time customers this way?

Japan defeats South Korea in an instant Classic

I'm glad I was able to make it back from tonight's staff development / cult recruitment in time to watch Japan edge out South Korea in a hard-fought contest. There's something magical about a stadium rocking with baseball fans--truly insane, be-costumed fanatics--in March.

I hope the World Baseball Classic can work out its kinks, which mostly involve coddling Major Leaguers, and eventually become the true World Series. (We can rename the World Series the Professional Championship of Mostly American Franchises With an Increasingly International Flavor.) Maybe someday, after the Mayan Calendar expires, we'll all live together in perfect post-apocalyptic harmony and settle our global differences on the diamond.

P.S. Oh, and why would you pitch to Ichiro with runners in scoring position in the top of the tenth? The guy's sworn mission is to triumph over the South Koreans. (It's why I picked Japan to beat the U.S. in the semifinal.)

P.P.S. The wife, looking up from her novel about 9:43 p.m. PST: "Oh, it's over, Japan wins." Except it's an hour early--and a clip from 2006. Good predicting, though.

RIF option on the table for Olympia School District

Anyone who's been following this year's state budget implosion will have seen this coming. The Olympia School District is investigating a RIF process as a way to balance the budget in the face of declining revenue, an email from the District's HR Director Beth Scouller reports.

This evening at the Board of Director's meeting, the Board of Directors will be asked to approve Resolution 451. This resolution directs the Superintendent to recommend a reduced education plan, including a reduced staffing plan, for the 2009-2010 school year. As required by state law, such action is necessary when the District does not anticipate the financial resources to maintain programs and services at the present levels.

At this time it is unfortunate that the District does not know the extent of the impact on District revenues due to our current state and national economic situation. Although we are hopeful that cuts and reductions will be minimal, the District is preparing for a reduction-in-force in case deep cuts to programs, staff and services become necessary.

Appendix A in the OEA/OSD Bargaining Agreement addresses the specific steps and processes for a reduction in our certificated staff. Please feel free to contact your OEA building representative, OEA President, or me if you have questions regarding the language or process of a District reduction in force. At this time, no reduction-in-force (RIF) notices are being prepared. You will continue to receive communication from me as we move through this process.

I couldn't make the meeting, so I don't know what action has been taken on the resolution. (My guess is they passed it; the RIF process isn't binding, but it's necessary to make any future cuts.) I'll post an update when I know for sure.

Seven years of teaching in the district; three RIFs, potentially. I'm not the albatross, am I?

First Update: Perusing the minutes, it appears the resolution was presented for first reading, which means it wouldn't be approved until the next meeting, April 20th. I'll update again when the podcast is posted and I can have a listen. (If you were there, feel free to comment. The Olympian--which we should now refer to as The Tacoma News-Extension--isn't much help today.)

Second Update: I spoke with a source in the District who noted that I-728 funds are potentially going to be axed by the State. The District employs 50 teachers using these funds, which would not only necessitate a RIF process, but likely deep cuts in other programs as well. One thing is certain: class sizes will be larger next year.

e-neo-ough

You are allowed only one neo- per noun.




[via Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing]

419 for the 411

Teaching a little lesson on critical thinking and reading for information, I had students skim over a 419 scam email, without telling them its nature, and had them highlight the passages that would help them answer the question, "Is this a good deal?" We discussed what we'd highlighted, and then I told them to use a different color to mark any "red flags." (I was amazed at how many had never heard the idiom.)

Finally, the jig was up, and I told them that I'd received the spam in my email that morning, and that it was a complete and total fraud. Some of them were glad to have their suspicions confirmed, while others were totally shocked that someone could lie so blatantly in an email. In the end, the lesson worked on two levels: as a way to focus their reading, and as a way to keep them from losing big bucks to a crafty sleazeball.

If only this U.S. attorney had taken my class.

let my yes be no

Earlier this year, I volunteered to observe teachers at other schools. We ended up visiting North Thurston High School, Bush Middle School, and Reeves Middle School, watching a variety of classes and teaching styles. The experience was so useful and invigorating that I volunteered to lead another team of observers. And then, flush with leadership, I volunteered to undergo "Professional Learning Community" training--although, despite the wishes of some, not in order to become a principal.

Four sessions at the ESD, three hours each. My calendar could fit four sessions, but it turns out the PLC training is actually six sessions long.

Thus, if you have a favor to ask of me, do me a favor and don't.

sweet 16: an NCAA bracket poem in sixteen lines

Old Father Gumption and his mistress, Lady Luck, have together whittled the NCAA bracket down to sixteen. Eight games arrive Thursday and Friday. Only poetry can provide a prediction of the outcome. Poetry with YouTube links, that is.


2009 Sweet 16 Bracket Prediction Poem

Forget the past. '08 is just a memory.
Mizzou falls to the cats from Memphis, Tennessee.

Sorry, Purdue. You beat Huskies from Washington,
But Calhoun earns top dollar, so your time is done.

Xavier, in a down year, brought back super yields,
Until the crash. Meet Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields.

The Pope declares: hatred of Duke is not a sin.
Duke gets the calls, no doubt. But 'Nova gets the win.

Gonzaga brings their A-game against UNC;
The spirits forecast Heytvelt over Psycho-T.

The Orangemen hope to dominate Blake Griffin's squad,
However, sadly, nothing rhymes with Devendorf.

The Arizona Wildcats--only 12th seed left--
Will take the game from Louisville. A major theft.

Lastly: this year's Kansas takes on Izzo's crew.
'08 is just a memory. Winner: MSU.

an Orwellian nightmare compliments of the Blackberry Curve

Q: What if delivery people ran the world?

A: 1984, plus a few dings, dents, and scratches.

how Nestle Toll House Milk Chocolate Morsels nearly ruined my birthday

Mom made two batches of Nanaimo bars for my 30th birthday. Below is how they're supposed to look, fresh outta the oven. Notice the smooth, glistening chocolate topping. Heaven on earth.



And this is how they look if you should mistakenly use Nestle Toll House milk chocolate morsels. Lumpy, chunky, grainy. Gross.



Thank goodness Mom made two batches.