Entries from April 2008 ↓

I took that insane test today. The EPPP. Was I ready? No. I should have been studying all year, but instead I was doing other things. I made a big push over the past six weeks or so, but half of that was interrupted by unforseen Very Bad Things that required all my time, and the other half was marked by my standard not-really-dedicated approach to things.

You are allocated 4 1/2 hours for the test, and I took all but about 15-2o min. of that. I went nice and slow, reading carefully, marking and revisiting confusing items, etc. The good news is that the test questions themselves aren’t (in general) nearly as poorly written as some of those in the Academic Review study materials I’ve been using. The bad news is that this probably didn’t matter. When you don’t got it… you don’t got it. I’m mentally preparing myself for the “you did not pass” letter. Which will arrive in “several weeks.” Most inconvenient.

I was a little too clever for my own good. I tried to keep track of how I was doing by putting little dots on the whiteboard-thing I was given for notes. I put a dot under a smiley face for every item I was almost certain I had answered correctly, a dot under a worried face for each item I figured I had about a 50/50 chance on (this is multiple choice) and a dot under a sad face for those I knew absolutely nothing about. The results:

:-) 113
:-S  70
:-(  38

I know that’s not 225, so I must have counted wrong, but it’s close enough for an estimate. I multiplied the “sure” total by .9, to account for being sure and also wrong (this happens with disconcerting frequency in my life); the “maybe” total by .5 (because I assumed that, overall, I might get half of those right), and the “no freaking clue” total by .25 (because I was just guessing on those).

The result: My estimated score is 147. That sounds OK, until you realize that 158 is the cutoff.  So, I’m pretty sure I FAILD. It’s always possible (though, by definition, unlikely) that my crazy guessing was more successful than I realize, but that’s not a realistic hope.

Oh well. I can do this again in the Fall, I guess.

When you don’t clean your electric toaster oven for, say, 5 or 6 years, could this cause it to suddenly just stop functioning?

This is not a hypothetical question.

The world sometimes gets better even as it gets worse:

#1: Author Clay Shirky’s interesting ideas on how the death of the sitcom (among other things) has freed up tons and tons of time and effort in our world, and some of those newly-liberated resources are being devoted to worthwhile projects (like Wikipedia, for instance).

#2: About. Freaking. Time.

I been said dat!

From the Clay Shirky Article:

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it’s not, and that’s the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it’s worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

McCain, if he continues to be as inconsistent as he has hitherto been, might turn around once in the White House, stop his on-again-off-again fetish with being the lap dog of the ultraconservative GOP money base, and do some good things. Clinton, if elected, might become reliable, honest, noncorrupt, and for some reason uninfluenced by her hefty campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and oil companies. However, neither of them has expressed any intention of working to fundamentally reverse the anti-constitutional, antidemocratic policies that our current administration has turned into the executive office’s status quo.

Bush’s (and his lackeys’) use of signing statements, the State Secrets privilege, the Justice Department, and other less obvious loopholes and tactics has begun to turn this nation into something much less than the republic our forebears signed up for, over 200 years ago. Shoot, less than the one we thought we lived in, even 20 years ago. Almost anything can be done by government agents citing “terrorism” as the reason, the police have sweeping powers and near impunity to implement any “anti-terrorist” actions (which are beginning to look like warm-ups for martial law), and nearly every government-related agency seems to be turning into police, whether they like it or not. We flout the very international war conventions we pushed so hard for after WWII. The President, at his discretion, has taken disturbing precedents going back to the 1960s to a new level, essentially claiming the right to unilaterally declare war. He ignores his constitutional limitations and keeps questionably legal actions from public scrutiny while citing privileges that no president before him has used to this extent. Notably, a congress full of Democrats seems too cowed to call him on most of these things, so he keeps doing them.

As a side note, perhaps you can understand why I have little hope left that we will see the end of 2008 without another unjustified war of aggression in the Middle East.

Barack Obama has gone farther than the other candidates in expounding a clear intention to adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the constitution reverse these trends, and bringing the real power of the Executive Branch back down to where it was intended to be, under our constitution. My hope is tempered, as every single candidate, including Barack, has reserved the right to use signing statements in at least some situations. On the other hand, Barack, if elected, will be less beholden to special interests for his election, and have (arguably) a stronger record of keeping campaign promises, than any president in at least a generation.

I firmly believe that the consequences of letting the executive branch hold onto the power that the Bush administration has grabbed will be far greater and have worse long-term consequences than any decision (pro or con) on the other substantive issues that seem to be driving the elections. More than immigration. More than civil rights. More than abortion. More than  economic policy. More than military policy. More than foreign policy. This is partly because the question of executive power can, conceivably, subsume all of those other issues.

Of course, Obama is a politician, and he’s only human. I can only hope that (a) he gets elected, and (b) he does what he says he will do. This is still a great nation, despite our apparent economic comeuppance. However, unless we fix the trend toward allowing our presidents to dominate through military/political fiat, our children might not get to live in this beautiful nation. They will live in a nightmare, and they will simply accept it as their dismal reality.

What it is with the completely irrelevant crap on the EPPP (the national licensure exam for psychology)? It makes no sense to me that (a) aspiring clinical psychologists have to know the details of Industrial-Organizational psychology, or (b) we should be required to have an intimate understanding of all the archaic psychotherapeutic missteps and quackery we know do NOT work and that nobody even practices anymore cough*FREUD*cough.
I figure, if AATBS (the folks who make the exam) were in charge of medical licensing, your family M.D. would have to answer questions like these before he or she would be allowed to see patients:

1. Which of the following is the most accurate representation of leech theory, as prominently endorsed in the 19th century?
a. Leechiotides are responsible for cleansing the patient’s ill humours
b. A goodly leech may purge a stout man’s augured spirits
c. The leech, if applied delicately, will remove all disease-prone impurities from the blood
d. Accurate leech placement is a feather in the cap of any competent physician

2. Galen’s humorific disease model would explain pancreatic cancer as:
a. A stygian compromise between black and yellow bile
b. A confluence of the miniature demons of the gastrointestinal tract, in the context of phlegm and bad blood
c. Unbalanced bilious secretions being overly cooled by the brain
d. The heart fire losing its steam before untimely extraction

3. Under the neoclassical Greek model of women’s medicine prevalent in the early 1900s, which of the following is sufficient reason for removing a woman’s uterus and ovaries, thus imparting better-than-even odds of condemning her to death by sepsis in the weeks of forced convalescence in a filth-ridden and psychopathology-inducing “hospital” following a horrifically nonsterile operation?
a. The wandering uterus is a threat to masculinity everywhere and must be stopped at all costs
b. Melancholy, unfeminine delusions of political equality, or a measurable sex drive are fates worse than death anyway
c. Ours is not to question why; ours is but to do what the only financially solvent member of the household — the husband — tells us to
d. She is a woman; no justification is required

4. Proper chiropractic alignment of the lumbar vertebrae and the sixth chakra will result in which of the following:
a. Improved posture, removal of bodily toxins, mental awakening and self-actualization
b. Improved posture, gait-balance correction, self-actualization and enlightenment
c. Self-actualization, aural cleansing, recovery from autoimmune diseases and viral resistance
d. None of the above; there are only five chakras

5. The ethical code for licensed massage therapists requires biannual:
a. Update of patient personal information and muscle tension profiles
b. Plea-bargain pre-agreements in the case of national or state-level congressional clients
c. Bloodborne pathogen screening and criminal background check
d. Cross-referencing of sex-offender registries with client lists

6. As a medical anthropologist, you are asked to evaluate the physical and mental health of a group of Quiche Maya in the highlands of Guatemala. Your first step should be:
a. Approach the village council and ask for your horoscope according to the Tzolkin
b. Build relationships with the women’s circles
c. Prescribe antibiotics and antiviral agents
d. Declare your allegiance to the traditional healing methods of the shaman

7. Consulting as a marine biologist for West coast fisheries, you encounter evidence of illegal commercial fishing in the salmon migration waters. The best course of action for maximum preservation of the endangered population is:
a. Geotagging a random sample of salmon
b. Relocation of at least 1,000 salmon breeding pairs to freshwater hatcheries
c. Political activism in the context of the Endangered Species Act
d. What the hell do inane questions like this have to do with becoming licensed as a medical doctor

Rowan eats a Timbit, much as residential treatment facilities may eat children’s souls

USA Today has an article about deceptive marketing, poor staff training, abuse, and even death of children in “boot camp” residential treatment facilities around the country (including, unsurprisingly, Texas). I’ve been trying to follow developments in this area (as much as I can) for several years. My conclusion is: when you let corporations run your juvenile incarceration facilities, why are you surprised when they act like corporations?

…not that my actual freshman roomie was like this. Sometimes psychological diagnosis is difficult and counterintuitive. Sometimes the categories don’t form “natural kinds” to the untrained eye. However, sometimes they absolutely do. I was struck just now, studying for the EPPP, of how very, very familiar the following diagnostic category is. I think everyone has known at least a couple of people like this in their life:

At least 5 of the following criteria present, in a stable pattern, starting at least in adolescence, and continuing throughout most of life:

• feels uncomfortable when not the center of attention
• often inappropriately sexually seductive or provocative
• emotions are shallow and shift rapidly
• uses speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacks detail
• displays exaggerated emotional expression
• is easily influenced by others
• considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are

Or maybe I have just had some weird (girl)friends.

When I cruise around online, and sites ask me for personal information, my standard practice is to lie. Really, it’s the only approach that makes sense. I make up names, give my spam-magnet email addresses, type in fake phone numbers, etc. Well, apparently I made up a particularly sarcastic fake name at one particular site, and it has come back to bite me. Is this what karma feels like? Oh, how I long to click the link and prove my non-fecality.

Facebook sliced me the unkindest cut, however. Remember the messages that you saw inside your m&ms  and Snickers wrappers, back in the eighties? You are Not a Winner. Well, yeah, but I don’t need my junk food habit to remind me.

Facebook seemed to feel that I needed similar self-esteem correction, today:

It wouldn’t be so bad if I had more friends in real life…

The White Stripes’ Fell in Love With a Girl is not about a regular ol’ romance. It’s probably about a gay guy falling in love with a girl. Right? Bobby isn’t her boyfriend; he’s his boyfriend.

…Bobby says it’s fine; he don’t consider it cheating…

But I’m still good at some things. Like, um…

I’ll get back to you.

I was in my late 20s before I realized that “The Beatles” was spelled the way it is as a riff on “beat.”

Until then, I just thought they wanted to spell it differently from “beetles,” just to be cool or something.