"False memories of sexual abuse lead to terrible miscarriages of justice/To avoid the innocent being convicted, police, lawyers and judges must understand the fickle nature of human memory."

No! That's not a new article. That's from 2010, in The Guardian, but I'm reading it now because my son John posted it yesterday on Facebook.

Typically such cases occur when a vulnerable individual seeks help from a psychotherapist for a commonly occurring psychological problem such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and so on. At this stage, the client has no conscious memories of ever being the victim of childhood sexual abuse and is likely to firmly reject any suggestion of such abuse. To a particular sort of well-meaning psychotherapist, however, such denial is itself evidence that the abuse really did occur....

During therapy, and often as a result of "memory recovery" techniques such as hypnotic regression and guided imagery, the client may gradually develop clear and vivid memories of abuse having taken place, typically at the hands of parents and other family members.

On the evidence of a huge amount of well-controlled research, we can now be confident that these memory recovery techniques are highly likely to give rise to false memories – apparent memories for events that never took place.

For contrast, here's WaPo yesterday: "The junk science Republicans used to undermine Ford and help save Kavanaugh."

Mara Mather, a professor at the University of Southern California, has performed laboratory studies in which volunteers are given electric shocks or subjected to loud noises while they look at a set of symbols — to find out which ones they remember while their brains are flooded with the same chemicals released during trauma.

“I guess the Republicans have been debating why does she forget getting home, but that sounds very plausible," she said. “It focuses the brain on whatever stands out at that moment. The things that are not standing out are even more ignored.”

Like other researchers, she could not recall a single case of a sexual assault victim misremembering a known attacker — save for rare instances in which people, often children, were coached into falsely accusing friends and family members....

IN THE COMMENTS: Michael K said: "I initially thought she had recovered memories but I have come to the conclusion that she is lying."

The Senators and pundits were operating under rules of engagement that put it off limits to inquire into whether Christine Blasey Ford might be lying. That led them into a lot of discussion of the mysteries of memory, and if the science got weak or bad, it might be because it stood in for something else that they were committed not to talk about. I'd like to see some serious defense of whatever good memory science there might be out there, but the WaPo article is not serious. It's propaganda, purporting to straighten us out on the science, but exploiting science in service to a political end.

Read More

"I believe that the flat-6 chord in the bridge of 'Peggy Sue' (F major in the key of A major) when Buddy Holly sings 'pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy Sue'..."

"... was a prophetic moment in early rock ‘n’ roll — a rare example of an uptempo ‘50s rock song to venture outside the conventional 1, 4, and 5 chords — that probably inspired the Beatles to make similarly bold chord choices in songs like 'I Saw Her Standing There.'"

Writes my son John (at Facebook). The occasion to think about that song is the death of Peggy Sue Gerron. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal has the obituary:

Gerron, an Olton native, went to Lubbock High, where she met and dated Jerry “J.I” Allison, who along with Holly was a founding member of the Crickets, according to A-J Media archives. Her namesake song, which went to No. 3 on the charts for Holly in 1957, was originally titled “Cindy Lou” after Holly’s niece, according to A-J Media archives. The title was changed to “Peggy Sue” - then Allison’s girlfriend - after the couple were briefly broken up.

Gerron and Allison were married through much of the 60s, but later divorced. Gerron went on to Pasadena Junior College in Pasadena, California, becoming a dental assistant. She would re-marry and had two children and multiple grand-children....

[Bryan Edwards, now living in New Mexico after operating the business called Edwards Electronics in Lubbock] remembers that he knew Peggy Sue from Lubbock High School, and in recent years she had asked him about ham radio. “She said, ‘Ive always wanted to be a ham.’ At the time, I thought it was just a passing comment. Then she said, ‘I want to get a ham license.’ A couple of other guys and I started helping Peggy, and the result was that she got a ham radio license. In the mid-1990s, we decided we wanted to have a special event station commemorating Lubbock and Buddy Holly, and Peggy would always take a very active part in that. She would come over to my house and spend hours talking to people on the special events station. We might talk to from 1,000 to 1,500 people all around the world during the time commemorating Buddy Holly. Peggy would be the one who would be talking to people, and it was fascinating for her to tell stories to those people. When they would mention an association with Buddy Holly, she would immediately have a fantastic comeback. She would share with people from all over the world — it was a really great time.”

How strange to be declared pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty over and over again all your life and to know the prettiness that inspired the declaration belonged to Cindy Lou (who?!).

And then there's Jerry “J.I” Allison, the divorced husband and former Cricket. He seems to still be around. Here's a 2015 interview with him. My favorite thing about it is this picture of his surrealistically preserved childhood home:



ADDED: This post has been corrected to reflect John's correction: "I meant 'I Saw Her Standing There'; I inadvertently mentioned another Beatles song, but I changed it now. Thanks to a reader who noted the mistake."

Read More

Slate — at the behest of my son John — corrects a false accusation that Kavanaugh lied.

Here's a link to the tweet.

Here's the follow-up correction tweet:

On 9/12 I criticized @thinkprogress for a headline claiming that Kavanaugh "said" he'd overturn Roe. On Friday I made the same mistake, writing that Kavanaugh "claimed" he was legal to drink in HS. Thanks to @jaltcoh for catching my error.

That thanks @jaltcoh (my son) and links to the correction at Slate, where the article is still called "Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee—Repeatedly."

Update, Sept. 30, 2018: This article originally said that Kavanaugh “claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18.” Kavanaugh’s exact words were: “The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal, senior year in high school, people were legal to drink, and we—yeah, we drank beer.” These words could imply that his beer drinking at age 18 was legal, which would be false, since the drinking age in Maryland was raised to 21 before he turned 18. Alternatively, they could imply that his drinking at age 17 was understandable, if he was with 18-year-old seniors who were legal at the time. In keeping with the standard applied to others, it’s incorrect to report that Kavanaugh “claimed” his beer consumption that summer was legal. Therefore, the sentences have been removed.

Read More

"Governor Jerry Brown virtually admits it's a bad idea even while signing it: 'I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation.'"

"A terrible law, which will be bad for women and men. Laws and economics are not zero-sum; we can all lose," writes my son John, facebooking "California becomes first state to require women on corporate boards" (NBC).

Brown's statement continued: "Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message." Is he talking about the Kavanaugh hearings?? Crystal clear. It's not even crystal clear what he's referring to. Spare me your California crystals.

Who will challenge this thing in court? What's the argument that it doesn't violate equal protection? It won't matter if no one sues. It seems easier to just put a woman on the board than to fight the law.

ADDED: A challenge could occur if the state tries to enforce the requirement against a company, and it's put in the defensive position. Maybe a flaw that is "fatal to [the law's] ultimate implementation" is that the state will never enforce it because then it would need to defend the law in court, and it can't. Passing the law is for show, and the law makes a show of requiring that corporations do something for show. And the corporations will probably put on the show, and that's how it's intended to work.

Read More

"Sorry, Democrats, but America is unlikely to have a Democratic president before 2025...."

"[I] you look at historical patterns from the end of the 19th century to now, you’ll see that a party (Republican or Democratic) almost always holds the presidency for at least 8 years. Notice I’m saying a 'party,' not a 'president.' For example, Ronald Reagan was a Republican president for 8 years, followed by another Republican president, George H.W. Bush, for 4 years; that’s 12 continuous years of Republicans, so that whole time follows the 8-year minimum rule, even though one of those presidents was in office for only 4 years. There’s been only one exception since 1897 (when the first 20th-century president took office).... Jimmy Carter...."

Writes my son John (at Facebook).

It sounds like a very strong rule, but there is that one exception.

Read More

"I reported the Bloomberg article to Facebook as 'False News.'"

Writes John at Facebook, linking to a Bloomberg article with the headline, "Kavanaugh Wrongly Claims He Could Legally Drink in Maryland."

From the hearing transcript:

My friends and I sometimes got together and had parties on weekends. The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school, and was 18 in D.C. for all of my time in high school. I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer..

That does suggest he drank beer when he was underage, but I don't see him claiming that it was legal.

Read More

"25 years ago today, on September 21, 1993, Nirvana released its third and last studio album, In Utero..."

"... the defiantly raw and noisy follow-up to Nevermind, their much slicker breakthrough album... And if you really want to feel old, think about this: In Utero is an older album today than the Beatles' White Album was on the day In Utero was released!"

Writes my son John on Facebook, with audio and commentary on various album cuts. [ADDED: Also presented in blog form, here, where it's easier to read and enjoy.] Example:

“Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” is one of my favorite Nirvana songs, with manically oscillating guitar noise over relentlessly thumping drums. Most of the song is not quite “radio friendly,” but it gets most melodic in the bridge, with Kurt Cobain offering uncharacteristically straightforward advice: “Hate, hate your enemies/Save, save your friends/Find, find your place/Speak, speak the truth.”

As I wrote in the comments over there:

“Hate, hate your enemies/Save, save your friends...” made me think of a book I just read, which identified that sort of thinking as one of the "three great untruths" that are ruining the American mind...

The book is "The Coddling of the American Mind," which identifies "The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Evil People." From Chapter 3 of the book:

The bottom line is that the human mind is prepared for tribalism. Human evolution is not just the story of individuals competing with other individuals within each group; it’s also the story of groups competing with other groups—sometimes violently. We are all descended from people who belonged to groups that were consistently better at winning that competition. Tribalism is our evolutionary endowment for banding together to prepare for intergroup conflict. When the “tribe switch” is activated, we bind ourselves more tightly to the group, we embrace and defend the group’s moral matrix, and we stop thinking for ourselves. A basic principle of moral psychology is that “morality binds and blinds,” which is a useful trick for a group gearing up for a battle between “us” and “them.” In tribal mode, we seem to go blind to arguments and information that challenge our team’s narrative. Merging with the group in this way is deeply pleasurable—as you can see from the pseudotribal as you can see from the pseudotribal antics that accompany college football games.

But being prepared for tribalism doesn’t mean we have to live in tribal ways....

It's not easy to forget that Kurt Cobain committed suicide, but, reading those lyrics, I feel that it's worth reminding you that he shot himself to death less than a year after writing that.  It's hard to know, reading lyrics, whether the writer is speaking in his own voice or inhabiting a persona whose views he hates. Lyrics Genius, annotating those lyrics, says:

Kurt Cobain was not about forgiving one’s enemies. In his personal journal, he wrote:

John Lennon has been my idol all my life but he’s dead wrong about revolution… find a representative of gluttony or oppression and blow the motherfuckers [sic] head off."

And then he blew his own head off, and somebody else blew out John Lennon's heart.

ADDED: Perhaps the Cobain suicide expressed the terrifying old realization: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Read More