Annals of Med’cin

Before you visit another doctor or take another pill, I suggest a reading of Gary Greenberg’s “Manufacturing depression: a journey into the economy of melancholy” in the May 2007 Harper’s (not yet online, but widely available at newsstands and even supermarkets. Better yet, subscribe and get access to the WHOLE archive, back to !!1850!!). Here’s a bit of what you’ll encounter:

…in more than half the clinical trials used to approve the six leading antidepressants, the drugs failed to outperform the placebos, and when it came time to decide on Celexa, an FDA bureaucrat wondered on paper whether the results were too weak to be clinically significant, only to be reminded that all the other antidepressants had been approved on equally weak evidence. (pg 40)

and

…irresistable ideas about who we are only come along every so often, and here at Mass General they’ve gotten hold of a big one. They have figured out how to use the gigantic apparatus of modern medicine to restore our hope: by unburdening us of self-contradiction and uncertainty, by replacing pessimism with “optimization,” by inventing us as people who seek Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction, who will buy from the pharmacy what we need to forge ahead toward Well-Being unhindered by Depressive Symptomatology, to pursue antidepression if not happiness. Who can resist this idea that our unhappiness is a deficiency that is in us but not of us, that it is visited upon us by dumb luck, that it can be sent packing with a dab of lubricant applied to a cell membrane? (pg 46)

Syllepsis for the masses

It’s always a comfort to learn a new bit of terminology, especially when a favorite bit of lyric is attached, and thus further clarified. Today’s case in point, from Language Log, invokes a song that’s been warming my little heart these 40 years, Michael Flanders’ and Donald Swann‘s Madeira M’Dear. If you don’t know it (and I can see by the look of you that some of you don’t, as Flanders was wont to say), a tiny fragment (but without the delicious syllepsis) is available via Amazon. Or you could watch a version, via Eric Storm and kwego:
Have Some Madeira M'Dear - kewegoHave Some Madeira M’Dear – kewego

Have Some Madeira M’Dear – kewego
Humorous song written by Flanders and Swann.

Video from ptolemy

While you’re at it, if you don’t already know The Gnu Song, here’s your opportunity, though once again not at the hands of the Original Authors.

Still trying to figure out spam

I don’t hold any brief for the Importance of this thread, but to the degree that I’m a student of human communication (a hat I sometimes try on in front of the mirror), I’m fascinated by stuff that’s at the edges of the comprehensible. This morning I saw the spamsubject “actication actifation actiwation actigation” and just had to look at the message it was shilling for. Here it is, and once again I’m baffled (and this time no Louisa May Alcott that I can discern…):

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What can the Semantic Web make of this?

Another new genre?

uncharacteristically bacteria
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He yourselves causate
chiropractor untie
Go millard my distraught

I’ve been continuing to grab spam subject line text, but I’ve just discovered a NEW possibility that seems to unlock a Joycean reservoir of litrachur in a genre I didn’t even know existed, and can’t imagine how it’s generated. W&L’s new spam filter lets you see the content(s) of a spamunit before you discard it. Here’s one:

but??voice, van corked the bottle at a blow, threw down the corkscrew, spells hard, fussy words, like chi-rog-ra-phy and bron-chi-tis as their favorite nourishment is the seed-cake; apples also are freely
but but by train. nowadays there are fewer trains and henry, a: could you tell her to give doug a call when she gets back???the instant she saw him she felt that there was no hope, for she
the instant she saw him she felt that there was no hope, for she??and rose began to cuddle it in the fond, foolish way women have ‘i don’t worry about sat looking at the friendly words, as they took a new meaning, and
from the doctor to “hold the lamp a little higher, please,” or an “oh, put basin, sponge, towels, and a block of brown soap into my hands, eyes with her hand, and took a long look at a figure down in the??by storm, and held her position, in spite of doctors, matron, and
“i saw her going down the avenue??him that his dear mistress was coming back on the following saturday. “we’ll remember, mother!” and drift along blindly. watch and pray, dear nat; and while your hand
twice round the triangle without stopping, a star for emil, who “yes, dear, that is the true can never be the polished gentleman that my poor departed friend, ball,” proposed audacious molly loo, always ready for fun.??f: where
then, as she vanished,??”she will wait and wait, mother, so dazzled by the brilliancy and beauty that has suddenly of years gone by, and put up a splendid procession of ladies
another with every aggravation they could invent, as they and passion. to regard them as soberly as the enthusiastic mamma did. and??flash:??gods, and i will try to like yours,’ said bess, beginning time is 8:45.
henceforth.” wrathful, &c. none of the stories are precisely those of aesop, last, “and that is to return to the nome king and oblige him world.??whose kind old heart was full of sympathy, which he longed
“i do not know,” said the head; “but last, for the mirror had plainly told her that she was ‘a don’t expect perfection, but i should like one as good as model, and let us see you,” said her uncle, with an approving??voyage. it was a very different story from the written one;??half-fierce, half-imploring eyes of a wild animal caught in
those who had missed so great a blessing. to get upset about. were continually dodging his long arms

I’d have thought it was nowt but fluke, but then along comesd another:

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What interests me here is that these texts don’t mean nothing, indeed may really mean something if one has the Magic Decoder Ring. I continue to await developments, and hope others can shed some light on What It All Means.