It's funny to me that the whole "Salinger is overrated" thread revolves around Catcher in the Rye, with no mention of his other works.

There's a good argument to be made that Catcher in the Rye is, indeed, over-rated. (It's one of those books which is so highly regarded, and so widely read, that it can fairly be called "over-rated" even if you think it's pretty good). I would definitely argue that "Nine Stories" is a better piece of work. If you haven't read "The Laughing Man", you should take half an hour out of your life and do it immediately-- I think it's one of the best short stories ever written.

(Short digression: I once had the pleasure of meeting a successful writer of musicals, and for some reason, I spent 20 minutes talking to him about how I thought "The Laughing Man" would be great to adapt into a musical. The writer seemed to be amused by the whole idea, or at least he didn't try to back away from me slowly. Of course I now realize that the whole conversation was moot-- he never would have gotten the rights!)

Anyway:

"Catcher in the Rye" belongs to a very specific genre which, let's face it, not everyone likes. It's a coming-of-age novel about a relatively wealthy and privileged teenager who is being groomed for a specific type of wealthy and privileged adulthood, and who realizes at the start of the novel that he does not want the sort of life he is being groomed for. (See also: Siddharta, Tonio Kroger, and on and on).

Not everyone wants to read a novel about that, and that's fine. But I think Catcher in the Rye will keep attracting fans simply because the narrative voice is so distinctive. Remember when the Onion published an obituary of Salinger that was written in the style of Holden Caulfield? Everyone got the joke, because Holden's voice (or even an imitation of Holden's voice) is one that you recognize immediately.

I'd also argue that what Salinger did-- writing a full length novel which is narrated by a child/adolescent-- is pretty hard to pull off successfully. Mark Twain did it with Huckleberry Finn, and there was a good novel by Mark Haddon which did the same thing (The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time), but I can't think of too many other examples.

Remember those? An early attempt at a "modular" PDA. It worked OK, but the concept went nowhere. The basic unit became obsolete quickly and most of the available "add-ons" were simply built into next-gen PDAs.

Anyway, aren't most of the proposed add-ons (battery packs, external displays, pulse oximeters) already available for existing phones?

I was being flippant, but let me try to restate my point more seriously:

There is something problematic with the idea of classifying a "personality disorder" as a type of medical disorder-- especially when the personality disorder is defined by qualities such as "arrogance" or "lack of empathy". The implication, which of course is never stated in so many words, is that "narcissism" is a condition similar to rheumatoid arthritis, and that we musn't blame those who are "afflicted" by it.

(The diagnosis of "gender identity disorder" is problematic too, for a different reason. Most transgendered individuals would bristle at the idea that they have a medical disorder. They would point out that prior to 1980, homosexuality was classified as a medical disorder as well).

Kind of an absurd turn of phrase, isn't it? It's a bit like saying that someone "suffers from" being an asshole.

(Whether Manning deserves to be called a narcissist at all... that is, of course, a whole other question).

In fact, I stopped treating children with ADHD in large part because I decided I did not agree with the standards of practice in child psychiatry. (I don't, in most cases, think that children should be given psychiatric meds).

The difference between me and you is that I actually understand what I'm disagreeing with, and understand the arguments that can be made on both sides of the issue. I also understand how hard it is to tell the parents of a troubled child that medications may not offer a solution.

You, on the other hand, are just hurling rude words like an angry schoolboy. The funny thing is that I probably agree with some of your beliefs. But you're not a very effective spokesman for those beliefs.

Yeah, that was odd that they didn't have ANY data on what kind of soda it was-- one would at least want to know if it was caffeinated or not. (The authors sort of apologize for this in their discussion).

On the other hand, really *detailed* information about the kind of soda wouldn't have been useful, largely for statistical reasons. There's a fair amount of literature on the relationship between artificial colors/flavors/preservatives and ADHD. And if you look at that literature, they tend to lump all of the chemicals together-- concluding (in some studies) that these additives are possibly harmful IN AGGREGATE. They can't narrow it down to say "Red No. 5 is bad but sodium benzoate is OK", or anything like that. The data just isn't there and any attempt to mine for it would be statistically underpowered.

OK, let's be honest now: did you actually read the effing article? Or just the summary?

If the answer is "yes" to question #1, please be good enough to explain how you would change the study design to make it better.

Agreed. Bad parenting is an obvious confounder. The other obvious confounder is low socio-economic status. (Picture a devoted-but-overwhelmed mother who is raising her kid in a food desert, with limited income, bad schools, high crime rates, and no support from Dad... and who is perhaps not too well educated about healthy food choices to begin with).

So let's look at the article: The authors made a valiant attempt to statistically correct for factors like this. They looked at a long list of confounders (income, maternal depression, paternal incarceration, exposure to household violence... see the linked article for a full list). It's really a solid piece of research.

Of course you're right, the soda-drinking may well capture some element of bad parenting which is not accounted for by the other socio-demographic variables. (Who the hell lets their kid drink 4+ sodas per day?) But in the end it may not be very important-- the implications for treatment are the same.

I used to treat kids for ADHD (although I don't do it anymore), and I *always* asked basic questions about the kids' diet and TV/video game watching habits. If you don't ask about this stuff, and if you don't encourage the parents to bring these things in line with what most people would consider sane and sensible... well, you're a f*cking moron. And if the parents aren't interested in talking about these things, then you know why their kid is f*cked up.

I would imagine that the US military has more than a few days' worth of reserve fuel and could keep supply lines running for quite a while, especially within its own borders. Anyone with a military background care to comment on this thread?

I like a lot of poetry of this era (so I'm not necessarily put off by the formalism, heightened style and Classical references)... but nonetheless my opinion of this poem ranges from "mediocre" to "fucking awful". It's also more than a little insulting to its target audience of prospective immigrants.

And I gotta say that the actual statue is the most hideous thing I've ever seen. What a horrible first impression to make: "Welcome to the U.S., where we have no taste in art or literature!" (Not saying that I actually believe that about the U.S., just that this is the impression it makes.)

Not necessarily. There are all sorts of incentives for technology-- increasing human happiness, increasing safety, preserving the environment. A few (randomly chosen) examples of the above: the electric guitar, quick release ski boots, catalytic converters. None of those had anything to do with "the elimination of human labor".

There are too many potential confounders here to count. For example, thiests are probably more prone to suggestion bias, which is a MAJOR issue in psychiatry. The impressive-looking guy with a fancy degree gave me an antidepressant and a pep talk about how effective antidepressants are, so I guess I must be feeling better.

The linked abstract indicates that there was NO PLACEBO GROUP. They missed an opportunity there, because the real question of interest is whether religious belief affects placebo response.

I've noticed a general tendency in psychiatry for people to publish warm-and-fuzzy papers about how religion or spirituality leads to "better outcomes". No one ever talks about the potential harms of religion. I've got some recovering-Catholic patients they need to meet.

Thanks for the link. A long time ago, I worked in a lab which did a much less sophisticated version of this experiment. They took oligodendrocyte precursor cells (a cell line called 02A), which were genetically engineered to express some kind of easily-seen marker protein (forget which one). The cells were isolated and cultured (which was a pain in the ass to do) from a special breed of non-shiverer mice with the marker protein. Then they were injected into the dorsal columns of shiverer mice, much like in this figure.

From what I recall the results were broadly similar to what these guys achieved. Getting the precursor to differentiate and myelinate nearby axons was not a problem-- they did that on their own. The big problem is that they did NOT proliferate in the spinal column and they did NOT migrate around much. So you would get a little patch of myelinated axons around the injection site, like in figures G and H from the link, but of course the rest of sthe central nervous system was unaffected and it had no effect whatsoever on the shiverer mouse's symptoms or or survival.

The innovation here is that they somehow got skin cells to turn into oligodendrocytes, which is neat. But it doesn't seem to hold much promise as an actual treatment.

My initial reaction to that is 1) Both of those fees are ridiculous, and 2) a competitor could cut those fees in half and put Kickstarter out of business. How complicated is it to run a website like this anyway?

But I'm not a business person, so perhaps someone can explain to me why I'm wrong.

To my surprise, no one is bringing up the real problem here: Patients have a right to be informed about their treatments and about the risks and benefits of each treatment. If you give someone a placebo (outside the context of a medical study) you're deceiving them and that is a breach of medical ethics.

It *is* OK to give a placebo within a medical study, but that's a special circumstance which is governed by very strict rules. One rule is that the patient is fully aware that they are participating in a study and that their treatment is randomized-- they might be assigned a placebo or might be assigned an active drug. There are lots of other rules too (e.g., you can't randomize someone to placebo if there is a proven therapy for the illness they have; instead you have to randomize them to proven therapy vs. experimental therapy. Also, the whole study has to be approved by an institutional review board. Etc.)