International Captive Elevator TV Speak!
I used to be a bit of a kill joy about the kid's Esperantophilia but it's looking pretty good now.
Look, nerd, that social entrepreneurship bicycle smoothie machine that will help third world people enjoy smoothies isn't going to sell itself.
Arrest this man! He buzzes like a fridge.
Is there an actual thing you're alluding to, TRO?
Maybe you should read the fucking material you post, moron!
I thought the after ones were better. Have I gone bad?
Ugh. Tangentially, here in North Carolina, a state senator just introduced S.B. 593: An Act to Improve the Quality of Instruction at the Constituent Institutions of the University of North Carolina, mandating that all UNC system professors teach a minimum of 8 classes per academic year or have their pay prorated. This senator's college degree, it should be noted, is from the Reisch World Wide College of Auctioneering.
5: I will give that due consideration.
6: I don't know but I am definitely going to punch you in the face.
9: I think that in good conscience I have to let you.
"Time was you could count on the English--especially Northern English--to stiffly resist American nonsense."
-- goes on to cite no American examples of this phenomenon, only English, Scottish and Australian
This senator's college degree, it should be noted, is from the Reisch World Wide College of Auctioneering.
Wow. Cue "Hey pretty lady, won't you give me a sign?" earworm.
I'm sure someone is doing this kind of stuff where I am, but I find it very easy to avoid.
7 -- We had an auctioneer for a US Senator for 18 years. Worst senator since statehood? Maybe!
By the way, that shrieking teakettle noise you folks can just barely make out is the steam coming out the ears of our legislative leaders. Overwhelming (but not veto-proof) Republican majorities in both houses, tea party leadership backed up by Koch funded local attacks on moderates, and they're still losing votes on things like (a) license to discriminate and (b) Medicaid expansion. We're out of the woods on (a), and not quite on (b), but the leadership thought they had expansion bottled up in committee but enough Republicans joined the Dems in forcing it to the floor, and passage in the Senate. (It's not full expansion, but may capture up to 50k of the 70k or so eligible for real ACA expansion. Of the 70k, by the way, 20k are Natives.) There's also the dark money disclosure bill, where the leadership has been dealt a pretty decisive loss. Oh, and personhood isn't going to get on the ballot (it would require 17 of the 21 Dems to vote for it, and that is not happening).
Obviously, the budget isn't going to be great, and infrastructure spending will have to wait until people who believe in civilization are in charge again. But we definitely don't seem to be headed for NC territory.
12: Maybe this Kieran Healy person just feels like he needs to get in an anti-American dig just to prove he hasn't been tainted by association with Americans, the hater.
7. So the UNC system will be wound up or what?
Presumably it's not actually going to pass, even with the crazies in NC.
My mom always told me about how Jesse Helms was the most powerful politician in North Carolina from about 1965 to 1995, and that he rose to power on a platform of saying "UNC = University of Negroes and Communists". And yet it's only now, when Big Business is also opposed to public education, that public education is being targeted for destruction.
I would presume it will not pass (though really, nothing out of this General Assembly would surprise me any more; the winged monkeys have well and truly taken over), but rather will achieve the goal of making other attacks on the university system seem more reasonable by comparison.
The thing about the tone is, yes it sounds stupid and smarmy, but... when you have a bunch of different people working on an institutional website, and everybody does their individual part in their own way, reflecting their own uniqueness as a special snowflake. you end up with a shitty institutional website. If you were reading a University website that was partly written in a very formal tone, and partly in a casual tone, and partly someones crap attempt at dry wit, it would reflect that maybe the University's communication and outreach office kinda doesn't have its act together.
So they got to settle on a tone, and have a document explaining the tone, so when some dim, enthusiastic undergrad on work-study who's all excited about using the rhetorical tricks he's learned in creative writing class comes up with some ludicrous flowery prose about the math department's new digital whiteboards, or what have you, you can say, "no, that's not our tone..... here, imitate this."
And I'll be first to say that some of the efforts that were cited by the OP actually suck, but that doesn't obviate the need for having a tone policy. Unfortunately, no matter how you do it, some of the things that need to be explained are likely to be painfully embarrassing. Which is probably why these policies should be hosted on the university's intranet, not shared with the world on the public website. But that's a different problem.
20: Being massively attacked by their own state government helped Wisconsin win.
22: I haven't been keeping up. What did they win? Things looked pretty dire last I checked.
I just mean they beat UNC. I don't know what has happened since.
The internet says they play Arizona in a few hours. I don't know which state has a worse government, so I don't know who will win.
Arizona's been resting on its bad-government laurels. Wisconsin is the up-and-comer.
21: So they got to settle on a tone
"no, that's not our tone..... here, imitate this."
that doesn't obviate the need for having a tone policy.
"Tone" here means brand. It's about branding. Calling these issues a matter of 'tone' is a politeness.
Tone is one aspect of brand, sure. But branding is a complex thing, and its not even entirely evil. Good branding builds trust in an audience toward and institution. And having branding standards helps to not fuck that up.
That doesn't mean the documents describing the tone have to be so insipid.
Working for a university means I always have smarmy persons close at hand.
Maybe, but I think it would be difficult to do such a thing and not be insipid. Some things are inherently insipid!
We keep making jokes and talking about grammar bullshit while the branding people take over the fucking world, but at least they'll kick down some social entrepreneur business students to provide smoothie bicycles.
while the branding people take over the fucking world
Word.
||
And with this the University of Minnesota psychiatric research scandal escalates beyond "tragedy" and right into "impossible to satirize".
"Ok so we were lying, but we never intended our lies to mislead anyone."
|>
On branding, how can "Smoove" as a product name but suggest this?
So, how about McGuane's suggestion of a shot clock? Tone policing I can get behind.
||
How awesome is this?: Barack Obama interviews David Simon
|>
Many people, even some people who are affiliated with them, think of universities as centers of intellectual life. However, in fact, they are riddled with idiocy.
I expect so much better from you, neb! Are you seriously suggesting that a university can't be a center of intellectual life and also riddled with idiocy. Wouldn't one expect that any center of intellectual life would have its share of idiocy? And aren't some intellectuals idiots? Stupid bad ideas have to come from somewhere!
40: I expect better from you too, peep.
37: to me it just suggests Smoove B.
34: At least the Board of Regents shut down psychiatry research for a while.
Both she and Cullen say that they were aware of the controversy surrounding the Markingson case, but had never expected it to affect their own work.
"I mean, I knew the department was in the middle of a major scandal due to was coercing people into participating in studies at the cost of their lives and had an incredibly long history of doing it but I didn't think there would ever be any repercussions!"
It's very hard to remember that the actions of others in your department might hurt or help you because 99% of the time, they don't.
45: This scandal has been brewing for a while and has been in the papers a lot.
Sure, sure - but this isn't just Schulz* and Olson (as nasty as both of them are) that I'm talking about. I mean, the Markingson case had like a dozen different hideously corrupt things going on in it, including the social workers involved and the IRB that reviewed the case and which they'd also be using. But there's also Garfinkel; Halikas; Abuzzahab(all separate cases); and Olson's other research scandal. And those are just the ones we know about, which means something given the university's impressive history of aggressively covering up things.
*Department chair! That seems relevant too!
Oh also Charles Schulz was also critically involved in the Study 41 controversy as well.
I mean, that's what, six different massive examples of malfeasance involving five different people in the department (more if you count the head of the IRB that certified the trial with Markingson in it, who was also a faculty member in that department)? That's got to be a pretty massive warning sign.
Aaaaaannd Study 15. You'll have to scroll down a ways for that one though.
Seriously this department is at the "fire everyone and start over" level as far as I can tell. And "everyone" should include a lot of the administrators involved.
39 was pwned by parsimon. Which has got to count as a triple-pwn.
Firing people who were near where the person who did something wrong was standing ten years ago is maybe not the most effective method of control.
51: Yes, but executing them might be against the law.
When you get that sort of track record I think it's fair to say that the bad apples have in fact spoiled the barrel and it's time to start over.
This is all in the face of two separate reports just shredding the university for massive structural/institutional issues relating to human research, and especially that department. So, yeah, I think it's fair to go with "start over" rather than "replace the one we can prove did something wrong but not the ones who worked with them/helped them cover it up/went along with it" is pretty justifiable here. Firing one of the people involved didn't work with Garfinkel, Halikas, Abuzzahab, or Kinney so I'm not sure why you'd think that dropping Schulz would fix things suddenly.
Looking at Schulz's CV, I was able to see that I have a Schulz number of two or greater.
53: If the feds were to shut the university down for a while, the way they did with Duke in the 90s, that might accomplish something. But the university shutting down a department is basically the people who failed to run things trying to blame the next level down.
This, for example, actually preceded the release of those reviews but says pretty much the same thing that they did. And it's not just 'one bad actor' stuff. (The phrase "culture of fear" that she uses was, verbatim, in the university review.)
And the medical school actually was under pretty strict restrictions (NIH "exceptional status") for about half the '90s, and the FDA has apparently launched a new investigation of its own (although I don't think that much has come out about that), so there really is a possibility of the Feds stepping in. I doubt they'd shut the university down, but there's probably going to be more coming out in the next few years.
I didn't mean they'd shut the whole university down, but federal research.
It took me a few minutes to find, and then was in one of the links I've already posted, but this is the confirmation that as of November the FDA has been investigating Olson, but haven't released a report yet.
Though it's sure true that something is obviously deeply wrong over there on a larger structural level than the mere individaul, Moby's right -- much of the oversight of research (at least these aspects of research) in a university doesn't involve one's department-mates at all.
Also here's another one, though this one is less blatantly horrifying. (Of course, deciding whether or not something went wrong has a lot to do with how credible you take the University to be at this point, so...)
Jensen diagnosed Michael Swanson with bipolar affective disorder, and said treatment with the drug Abilify might help prevent future mood swings. Jensen even wrote, "There's a real concern about his use of force."
...
According to the Swansons, Jensen said he couldn't prescribe medication for Michael Swanson because he didn't know anything about him. What he did do was recommend the teen be enrolled in a research clinic at the University of Minnesota.
MHPH apparently has a strong prior dislike of the U Minn. Psychiatry department? Accusing researchers who express surprise -- but not dismay, as far as I can tell -- that a scandal with which they have had no involvement is affecting them of "whining" seems like it might signal some dislike over and above concerns about structural issues with human subjects research.
||
I just... WTF is this shit:
The theory which replaces the Big Bang will treat the universe as an information processor. The universe is made of information and uses that information to define itself. Quantum mechanics and relativity pertain to the interactions of information, and the theory which finally unifies them will be information-based.
The Big Bang doesn't describe an information-processing universe. Information processors don't blow up after one calculation. You don't toss your smart phone after just one text. The real universe - a non-Big Bang universe - recycles itself in a series of little bangs, lighting up old, burned-out galaxies which function as memory as needed.
Richard G. "Rick" Rosner is an American television writer and media figure known for his high intelligence test scores and his unusual career. There are reports that he has achieved some of the highest scores ever recorded on IQ tests designed to measure exceptional intelligence. He has become known for taking part in activities not usually associated with geniuses. Rosner claims that he has worked as a stripper, roller-skating waiter, bouncer, and nude model.
Yes Sifu, and there's certainly no reason to think it would have anything whatsoever to do with the stuff I posted about in all those links, and the aggressive response from the various people involved in managing that department or overseeing it. It's probably some irrational personal thing.
64 -- That's awesome. Previously known for World's Funniest Animal Outtakes -- Part I (written by)
I don't have any knowledge at all of the University of Minnesota's department of psychiatry. I'm just trying to point out how research is supervised in the places I've been. Somebody whose main experience with a university is as a teacher or student is much more likely to be in a setting where the department plays the most active role in their supervision. However, this looks like the university blaming the department for not doing what the university was supposed to do.
64: Clearly Richard G. "Rick" Rosner should be put in charge of the Psychiatry department at the University of Minnesota. A guy that smart would get things sorted out in no time.
I'm not going to defend the clinical skills of the doc in the link at 62, but I will point out suing a psychiatrist for acts of violence subsequent seeing (and treating or not treating) a patient, absurdly over estimates the ability of psychiatric treatment to prevent violence.
He is very smart, so you may have a good idea there.
Also I bet he'd have to face way fewer critical questions from the press if he showed up nude to the press conference. That's probably true of Kalter too, though.
69 - That's not really the disturbing part there, as you may have noted from the fact that it wasn't related to the part I quoted. Doing a patient evaluation and writing that they pose a serious risk to themselves or others and would probably benefit from whatever drug and then lying to the patient's medical decision makers about it later and saying they should consider enrolling him in a research study, on the other hand, is problematic. And it's especially problematic in the context of a University which has a long and nasty history of recruiting people for studies in hideously unethical ways.*
*(As in, for example, the above links which included someone not telling patients they were in a study; or claiming a patient under an involuntary commitment order was capable of informed consent to a study (and making it a condition of their staying out of confinement in the hospital); or having massively unqualified personnel doing the competency assessments; one which had created a specific (locked, inpatient) unit in the hospital for putting psychotic patients where they could be evaluated for enrollment in research studies, or just plain not caring about whether they met eligibility requirements at all, etc.)
65: I didn't say... the bulk of those things. But I still find the vehemence of your reaction to (actually sort of impressively) anodyne quotes from researchers with no apparent connection to any scandals (except, I guess, for physical/institutional proximity) and with an enormous amount to lose from what seems like a half-assed, face-saving move on the part of the University... plausibly uncharitable? For all I know they're actually evil and the oxytocin will be surrreptitiously swapped out for that fear drug from Batman but it certainly doesn't come across in the Nature article.
69: Dan was really falling apart, and there's a slew of people who said it--mother, OT, etc.
There's a retired psychiatrist who blogs as 1boringoldmsn who's had a lot to say about it, pretty much agreeing with MPHP. It was grossly negligent to let him stay in the study.
or claiming a patient under an involuntary commitment order was capable of informed consent to a study
There was no blanket rule against that when I was working in psychiatry. We never gave a med in our studies or anything, but we used to recruit patients under involvement commitment orders all the time. Once it was an inclusion criteria.
73: The story at 62 didn't say that he was enrolled and kept in the study. I didn't know it got that far.
73 - I think he was talking about Jensen?
74...when the person's treating physician was also the person running the study? And the person who testified that he had improved enough to make that decision, only days after he had been ruled incompetent to make decisions about his own treatment? I'm pretty sure that, no, that was a sketchy as hell practice.
only days after he had been ruled incompetent to make decisions about his own treatment
For a minor, certainly not. But research on adults was commonly conducted that way.
When I started, things used to be really lax, especially for studies without a medication. My first study (not at a university), the head of the IRB was the PI.
Ok I know it's against standard practices and all that but seriously just read all/most of those articles I linked to.
I did read them all. They strike me as bad, but not in any way exceptional. For very good reason, ethical standards have gotten much tighter, but the change is very much more recently than one would like.
And the amount of extra-legal coercion applied in the mental health field was (and probably still is) very high. Coverage for mental health has gotten a great deal better and I suspect Minnesota was better at paying for things than the states in which I've worked, but very often getting somebody into a study was done when getting somebody into treatment was otherwise impossible.
That's certainly not what the AAHRPP report found (to what I think was the genuine shock of everyone involved*, on both sides of the issue). You can read the whole thing here, but it's pretty long. Highlights cover a lot of the important stuff, though, and this followup is also important**.
And honestly I don't know what you're talking about in 80.2(last). That's a pretty minimal bit of what's going on, and it wasn't happening in anything like a 'this is your best option for coverage' way.
*It was generally assumed that the university was pushing as aggressively as possible for a whitewashing of the whole thing after being forced by the faculty to have a review in the first place, manipulating the issues that could be reviewed and (seriously) having the organization that accredits their research program doing it. The review by the state which came out a bit later (on related issues) suggests that they were still doing their best to put a good spin on things.
**In which, no seriously, she points out that in the case of 'Robert' (the most recent one) part of the trouble seems to have been a result of the fact that "experimental medicines were not documented on the MAR (med administration record) or inpatient chart" which, I think, can safely be said to go beyond "the world isn't really perfect".
But, mainly I don't see what department has to do with it. In my experience, that's not what influences norms or sets rules. The university and the feds set the rules. Norms and pathways are more influenced by collaborators, research groups, and co-authors. And those people are from departments around the university and the world.
TmDan had previously responded to risperidone. He joined the study to stay out of the state hospital. The study was evaluating how long people stayed on Seroquel where staying on a particular dose of Seroquel-- not whether the patient got better--was the measure of success. Dan was de compensating badly. he either wasn't responding to Seroquel or he wasn't taking his meds. They never did a blood test.
He expressed homicidal ideation when they enrolled him. Suicidal ideation, but not homicidal ideation, was an exclusion. Criterion. The homucidal ideation was enough to get him committed under ths "danger to self or others standard" which does not parse out whether the object of the homucidal ideation is oneself or someone else.
One of the weird things about this story is that when I was at the U, those of us in the social sciences were under the impression that our own IRB was quite demanding (compared to peer institutions), and that the bio/medical/whatever URB was even more rigorous. The IRB presentations on working with vulnerable populations that I attended were sufficiently intimidating to lead me to modify my research design to avoid those populations overall. I wonder if my sense of the IRB was accurate.
On a personal note, I'm glad that the nurse practitioner on campus who prescribed my meds had nothing to do (AFAIK) with the psych dept.
82: local admin tried to say all the reports said everything was hunky dory. it was the Board of a Regents that decided to shut things down.
Well, I hope they can sort through things and fix procedures before the shutdown gets long enough to cause significant damage to good research.
One of the suspended projects was looking into the medical uses of the k-hole. That's got to be important.