inkbluesky

Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art -Intelligence in Recent Public Literature

That conclusion: pain, coercion, and threats are unlikely to elicit good information from a subject. (Got that, Jack Bauer?) As one writer puts it, “The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information.” (130) The authors hedge their bets, however, by suggesting repeatedly that more research needs to be done on this question. (Any volunteers for these experiments?)

The mistake that opponents of torture make is bringing up studies like this and injecting rationalism into their  arguments about the lack of effectiveness of torture. Then pointing out the blowback that makes the efficaciousness of torture a merry-go-round which invites reciprocating behavior from the other side. None of that really matters to the pro torturer. They simply enjoy the idea of inflecting pain. In that sense its a fetish and getting a hardcore fetishist to give up the their peccadillo requires therapy rather then good debating techniques.

blue gray. simple and minimalist.

from a book review of CLEAN: History of Personal Hygiene and ­Purity

By the late 19th century, the United States was much cleaner than Europe. Towns and cities in the young country were newer and easier to equip with municipal sanitation and water systems. Amer­icans liked innovation, and hotels proudly advertised showers and flush toilets as tourist attractions. As more young women took jobs in offices and factories, the shortage of servants sped the introduction of new cleanliness technol­ogy into the average home. In an age of class upheaval and upward mobility, the black educator Booker T. Washington preached the “gospel of the tooth­brush” to his students at the Tuskegee ­Institute.

A few months ago I caught part of a program on the history of public sanitation in America on the History Channel. Its astounding how much influence the quest for cleanliness and the efficient disposal of waste has had on the planning of our cities, commerce, medicine and advertising.