A compilation of songs about coping with loss.

A short compilation of songs on the theme of coping with loss - mainly from this list.
My hope is that this might, in some slight way, salve the pain of those who grieve.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (Original Studio Version)


Wanting Memories by Sweet Honey in the Rock


Elvis Costello & The Fairfield Four - That Day Is Done


Shosha & Maura Capps - Family Reserve - Lyle Lovett cover


Lyle Lovett - Baltimore


"Goin' Up Yonder" Walter Hawkins & The Love Center Choir


Vinx "A Little Bit More"


Don McLean - Waters of Babylon


Lou Reed / Dreamin'


Joy Will Find a Way - Bruce Cockburn


Saint Behind The Glass - Los Lobos


The Isley Brothers - Fire And Rain


Fire And Rain - James Taylor with lyrics


We'll meet again - Johnny Cash

Achilles Tendinosis

This entry really isn't in keeping with the use of this blog purely as a simple scratchpad. But I couldn't find another active appropriate site to post this, and I wanted to put it out on the internet in case it might help anyone else with achilles problems.

I had tendinosis, partial achilles tear, ended up with a severe Haglund's deformity (all in my right achilles). Used eccentric exercises, which helped a bit, but eventually the situation required surgical repair. Open surgery with debridement and achilles reattachment.

Though the surgery was necessary, and despite consistent physical therapy, over a year and a half later I was still in a lot of pain and the situation was headed in the wrong direction (i.e. gradually worsening pain and stiffness). I was increasingly accepting that this would be a lifelong infirmity.

I read the medical literature. Various studies had shown that eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), a dietary supplement from fish oil, could stimulate production of collagen and fibronectin, including in ligaments (e.g. Omega-3 fatty acids enhance ligament fibroblast collagen formation in association with changes in interleukin-6 production Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 2000 Jan;223(1):88-95). EPA is also an anti-inflammatory. I began taking 2 grams of EPA a day (specifically, I took four capsules a day of a product containing 530 mg of EPA and 238 mg of other omega-3s per capsule). Within a month the pain and stiffness was reduced by 80% and by two months it was entirely gone (and during that time, I was doing nothing else differently). It's now a year and a half later, and I'm still entirely free of pain and stiffness. I don't know if this would work for anyone else (everyone is different, and in an individual case like mine, one can't definitively rule out coincidence as opposed to causality on the part of the supplement), but I thought I'd pass along my experience. Perhaps this might be a useful adjunct in cases other than my own.

Also, EPA slows clotting, so probably shouldn't be used just in advance of surgery.

Addendum:
Another relevant (and tendon-specific) study - The effect of essential fatty acids and antioxidants combined with physiotherapy treatment in recreational athletes with chronic tendon disorders: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (Physical Therapy in Sport 2004 Nov;5(4):194–199). In the active treatment (non-placebo) arm of the study, participants with chronic tendon disorders recieved daily EPA (apparently 3 grams per day), plus DHA and GLA, and an antioxidant complex tablet. Both study arms recieved physiotherapy. After 32 days, pain levels dropped to essentially zero in the active treatment arm, but only decreased 31% in the placebo arm.

Some Commentaries of Note

Here are a few commentaries that I came across that seemed worth noting:

Colorado shooting suspect appears in court dazed, silent
Many mass murderers are driven by anger over a rejection, bullying or perceived mistreatment, said Harry Croft, a San Antonio psychiatrist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder. Hatching and executing a plan may give them a sense of power and control. "When all is said and done, and he sits in jail and looks at the rest of his life being over, the power is gone," Croft said.

James Holmes Not Faking Emotions In Court Say Top Experts
“James looked as if he was trying to wake up from a nightmare,” Dr. Carole Lieberman tells us. “But every time he opened his eyes, he realized the nightmare was real. This confusion is typical of people who have immersed themselves in fantasy media violence and are having trouble getting back in touch with reality.”....We also spoke with Dr. Gardere who says that although James seems to be exaggerating, it’s because he is “emotionally exhausted.”

What does the James Holmes video tell us?
It would be very helpful to see the full video (and I would hope ABC would release more than just this tiny clip). Based on what we have here, though, Holmes “research” involving “illusions that allow you to change the past” and his interest in differentiating internal versus external experience suggests he’s (already?) entertaining the process of retreating into the mind in a fantastical way for the purpose of revising what has come before. From just what we know already (including Holmes’ state of mind as reported by the gun club owner in Colorado in this NYT article), we’re in symptomatic territory already.

The common motive of a mass shooting attacker: immortality
Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who is chairman of The Forensic Panel, a practice in New York City, has worked on mass-shooting cases for many years and shared some general thoughts about these kinds of incidents:

“Mass shooting cases have the common motive of an attacker seeking immortality. Each of the attackers have different degrees of paranoia and resentment of the broader community. Some are so paranoid that they’re psychotic. Others are paranoid in a generally resentful way but have no significant psychiatric illness. But you have to hate everyone in order to kill anyone. The threshold that the mass shooter crosses is one in which he decides that his righteous indignation and entitlement to destroy is more important than the life of any random person that he might kill.”

“This is why mass shooting are invariably, invariably carried out by people who have had high self esteem. They are people who had high expectations of themselves. It’s not at all surprising to hear about these crimes in people who either valued their own intelligence or their own career prospects at one time.”

“They’re people who are unfailingly unable to form satisfying sexual attachments and their masculinity essentially gets replaced with their fascination for destruction.”

“The overwhelming majority of folks who do this are male because of how, in our culture, masculine identity is so closely tied to the capacity to destroy.”

Making Sense of the Senseless
Professor Jack Levin at Northeastern University, studied numerous cases of mayhem that had occurred over a thirty-year period. He noticed common characteristics and motivational themes in all of them: 1. They all had experienced ongoing disappointment in life; 2. They all isolated themselves from the comforting support system of family and friends; 3. They all perceived themselves as victims of unfairness and undeserved mistreatment; 4. They justified the murder of those people “responsible” for their lot in life. To them, payback is everything – even that directed at society, in general. 5. Those that did not kill themselves or set themselves up for “death by cop,” willingly surrendered themselves because they had accomplished their mission of punishing society and exercising the power to inflict misery on others.

Recognition Through Violence

Opinion: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer
Audiences are never surprised by the journal of Mr. Harris. It’s hate-hate-hate all the way through. He was a coldblooded psychopath, in the clinical use of that term. He had no empathy, no regard for human suffering or even human life.

Mr. Klebold’s journal is the revelation. Ten pages are consumed with drawings of giant fluffy hearts. Some fill entire pages, others dance about in happy clusters, with “I LOVE YOU” stenciled across. He was ferociously angry. He had one primary target for his anger. Not jocks, but himself. What a loathsome creature he found himself. No friends, no love, not a soul who cared about him or what became of his miserable life. None of that is objectively true. But that’s what he saw.

It’s a common high school malady, taken to extremes. Psychologists have a simple term for this state: depression. That surprises a lot of people. Depressives look sad, but that is the view from the outside. Of course they’re sad; they’ve probably gone their entire day getting berated relentlessly, by the single person in the world whose opinion they hold most dear — themselves.

Psychologists describe depression as anger turned inward. When that anger is somehow turned around, and projected outward, watch out.

Dylan Klebold was an extreme and rare case. A vast majority of depressives are a danger only to themselves. But it is equally true that of the tiny fraction of people who commit mass murder, most are not psychopaths like Eric Harris or deeply mentally ill like Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech. Far more often, they are suicidal and deeply depressed.

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com Aurora massacre: To speak or not to speak?

psychology/motives

1. For understanding Holmes’ actions/psychology, I think this dissertation on Columbine is useful.
e.g. an excerpt:
”Ultimately Eric and Dylan create and share a mutually destructive worldview, a malignant psychic process that leaves them outside of consensus reality, but desperate to connect to someone somehow. By connecting with each other, the shooters feed each others delusions, creating an ideal supportive environment for the development of the idea that these two are chosen, divine, and predestined to wreak havoc on those around them.….
In reality, mass murder is a road that usually ends in isolation, incarceration and eventually execution. However in Eric and Dylan’s fantasy, mass murder leads to true love, happiness, and international fame.”

2. A random bit: Earlier, Holmes had been “heavily involved in his local Presbyterian church” and he might have visited a local church weeks before his shooting spree.

3. A few relevant bits about the general characteristics/motives of mass murderers. They’re often acting out of resentment. Some comments by Jack Levin, a criminologist with expertise in mass murderers, might fit in this case: “In almost every case the motive is revenge….Usually the killer has suffered from some catastrophic loss; it could be a girlfriend, a loss of a place in the university—assuming he’s a student or faculty. Either way, in his eyes, it’s catastrophic. It’s the trigger, the catalyst, what pushes him over the edge....Usually the final straw sets in motion the planning stages. Sometimes the catastrophic losses occur months before the shooting. It’s a precipitant that triggers the planning stage.” (But I’ll note that some of Levin’s other generalizations don’t seem to fit here). I’ll also note that the list of “Characteristics of Mass Murderers” on this slide (of this presentation) seems to fit Holmes extremely well. Another critical feature is that mass murder killings frequently/typically have a copycat element; mass murderers are frequently obsessed with (one or more) prior mass murder cases.

4. This video on key characteristics of mass murderers is worth watching. The San Diego psychiatrist being interviewed points out that Holmes, who grew up in San Diego, would likely have been affected by the 2001 Granite Hill and Santana High School mass shootings (Holmes would have been 13 at the time) – i.e. that those San Diego mass shootings would have left an impression.
Moreover, Columbine High School is only about 12 miles from where Holmes was living in Aurora. Moreover, the Columbine shooting, which occurred on April 20, 1999, was heavily in the news this year around the anniversary of the event. There were stories that a miniseries was being made about the Columbine shootings - articles such as “The Columbine Effect: Why Hollywood Is Keeping The Story Alive”. Columbine High School was put on lockout due to a bomb threat four days before the shooting anniversary. Etc. I doubt that the stories about the Columbine anniversary escaped Holmes’ attention, and this was occurring coincident with his academic meltdown and only weeks before he began purchasing guns and ammo. And, like Klebold and Harris, Holmes attempted to use explosives in addition to guns (rigging his apartment).

5. So I’m pretty convinced that Columbine and the San Diego shootings were influences. A few additional thoughts – but they’re much more speculative. I came across this posting by “Jimbo” from Colorado at a “High School Memes”“Make Your Own Meme” site for Columbine High School – a South Park-based graphic stating “If you didn’t want to get shot in the face you shouldn’t have bullied a psychopath”. However, “Jimbo” is a common moniker and it could even be an allusion to the South Park character Jimbo Kern – so my instinct is that it’s probably NOT by a post by James Holmes.
However – somewhat more interesting. There’s a strong association between the Joker and “Columbine”. Supposedly, Paul Dini was originally going to call Harley (the Joker’s girlfriend) “Columbine”. And there’s a great deal of Batman fan fiction in which Columbine is the Joker’s paramour (e.g. here). There’s even a MySpace page for “Miss Columbine” (excerpt: ”Columbine Jones is Harley Quinn's split personality but when Joker pushed her off of a 6 story high building something in Harley snapped. When she woke up in the hospital (not Akham for once.) she knew something had changed because in the room Harley didn't wake up. Columbine did….”). All of this apparently originates from reference to Italian comic theater – Harley Quinn is a play on Harlequin,whose lover is Columbine.

Newspapers - 1985 Madison WI Capitol occupation - anti-apartheid divestment campaign

Two week occupation of the WI Capitol building, seeking state divestment from South African related stocks and bonds. A few newspaper articles are shown here.
164271739
164272079
161289192
May 9, 1985 - occupation ends - Milwaukee Journal article here.

Copies of comments from Corrente

Corrente has been down for a week and I wanted to link these three Corrente comments, so I'm reposting copies here.
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Corrente comment #1 posted by bungalowkitchens. Retrieved from Google cache.

I am in Oakland

By bungalowkitchens on Sat, 11/05/2011 - 12:49am

although I was not there in person (too many RL demands- and that's making me cranky because I would really like to be down there). I'm getting drowned in emails from the neighborhood listserv (I live a couple miles east of downtown), which could pretty much be summed up in this sentiment from one of them: "Anarchists can go to hell!" So at least among people in my neighborhood, the take is that these people are hurting the cause. I suspect the people vandalizing stuff are the same people who turned the Oscar Grant demonstrations into riots, and regardless of whether they are young testosterone-addled idiots, agent provocateurs, or cops in disguise- or all of the above (since it's not hard to get a testosterone-addled idiot to trash something, and the police save money on undercover cops that way. And yes, I watched the video, and a few of them were women. Women can be idiots too.)-they are definitely a fringe element and I think most people are disgusted with their tactics. I was pleased to see a couple of them being wrestled to the ground by other protestors, and protesters trying to keep them away from the buildings, and yelling things like "You're better than this!". But this sort of thing is going to be an ongoing problem for all of the Occupations.

I was so thrilled to see so many people marching peacefully and shutting down the port (see my earlier comment about ants). Oakland so rarely gets any positive press, and even though we have a lot of bravado about it, being dissed all the time gets old. Not to mention we know how much money it's costing us every time there's another "police riot" or whatever you want to call it. One of the downtown businesses damaged by the idiots was Oaklandish- a gallery that sells Oakland-centric merchandise. I believe they are a collective. After the general strike on Wednesday, many Oaklanders are making a very specific effort to patronize the local downtown businesses that have been impacted by the occupation. It's the least we can do.

Unfortunately, I see the tone of both the local and national media starting to turn against us, and all because of the violent actions of some.

Conformists die, but heretics live on forever.
Elbert Hubbard
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Corrente comment #2, posted by myself on 11/07/2011, retrieved from Google cache.

Violent flanks reduce participation/support

The term "radical" in the graph above actually means "violent", as in using violent tactics (i.e. the term should not be misinterpreted as meaning politically radical).

This is a graph from an analysis looking at participation in popular movements where only nonviolent tactics were used versus predominantly nonviolent campaigns that contained a flank using violence. The number of people that ended up participating in purely nonviolent campaigns is far higher. Analyses also suggest that there's a trend toward reduced success in campaigns that develop a violent flank (though the difference is not statistically significant, probably because the relatively low number of campaigns included in the analysis provided insufficient statistical power). Campaigns that remain entirely nonviolent in the face of violence from authorites (as opposed to those that develop a violent flank in response to violence from authorities) also appear to generate more democratic outcomes.

My primary point here is that empirically, deployment of black bloc tactics will reduce mass participation in and support for Occupy. And that's essentially consistent with a comment here at Corrente from Oaklander bungalowkitchens on Saturday [see above]: "I'm getting drowned in emails from the neighborhood listserv (I live a couple miles east of downtown), which could pretty much be summed up in this sentiment from one of them: 'Anarchists can go to hell!' So at least among people in my neighborhood, the take is that these people are hurting the cause....they are definitely a fringe element and I think most people are disgusted with their tactics."

[I'd prefer not to get mired here in tired semantic debates about the correct meaning of the term "violence". My point is merely that perception of certain BB tactics as violent (in contrast to nonviolent tactics or even Tute Blanche type tactics) would reduce public participation - and high levels of participation are essential for success of tactics such as port closures and strikes.]
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Corrente comment #3, posted by myself on11/14/11. Couldn't find a cached copy, so comment has been reconstructed here:


Since Nov 3, I'd seen various OO folks arguing that Black Bloc tactics had not cost OO support. That they were strong, and still had the full backing of the community.

E.g.
GonzOakland tweet from a few days ago:
#occupyoakland GA Speaker: "We are really strong, we can do whatever we want." ... Wrong.

From DailyKos comments

Mindtrain:
And I would add further, union support for OO Has been endangered by how the black bloc issue has been dealt with. I really don't think you are in reality about how much popular support OO has lost over the past few days alone.

mic check oakland:
What do you base your assertion on?

Mindtrain:
It's not a fringe issue if we're losing support
And we are. It is also not just in my mind nor those at the camp who are concered or were concerned nor any number of people within the occupation. This is not a MSM concoction. This is something from within the Occupation itself. To paint it as other is wishful thinking, dishonesty, or deliberate deception.

As for "my criteria," I wasn't aware that I had any such thing, other than actually dealing with the issue (which OO has not done).

It's fine if you want to be in denial about the problem, but don't blame me when you ask if there is support for a large scale coordinated action spearheaded by OO (in part) and I gave you an honest answer.m

mic check oakland:
I guess the feeling around the camp was that black bloc was an issue, but not as much of an issue as police violently beating members of Occupy. Also, I haven't got any sense that we were hemorrhaging support since the people of Oakland appear to support our perspective and we continue to have the most diverse group in the nation. OO doesn't have professional spokepeople so if you are getting your information from cable/national news, chances are that you're just hearing the point of view of the city government and local chamber of congress. I believe that part of what catilinus was referring to.

Factually, it's hard to know what our actual support is from residents of Oakland without polling data. And without that we're all just left to speculate until the camp is removed again by the police. If it is and we draw popular support, we will persist in retaking the camp. If nobody shows up and the camp is crushed than we probably won't have the numbers for another port strike.

I suppose we'll all have to wait and see. Thanks for your input.

Retyef:
I can only tell you my perspective
I attended the meeting after Scott Olsen got put in hospital by the cops, where a general strike was called, and marched half way to Berkeley and back.

I went to the (much smaller) gathering that discussed the peace proposal and voted overwhelmingly against it

I don't intend to go back if my participation simply acts as cover for those who commit violence.


Well, how did this all work out for those supporting inclusion of Black Bloc tactics?

October 25 - Typical crowd estimates for protests after the first camp raid - 3000-5000 people
Full backing for OO from multiple unions
OO GA that called the general strike - 1607 votes caste
At least 1,000 protesters held a candlelight vigil for Scott Olsen at Frank Ogawa Plaza.
For the General Strike march to the port on Nov 2, there are various crowd estimates - 40,000 is a common (and reasonable) one, though potentially up to 100,000.

The eviction on the morning of October 25 was a surprise raid. The raid this morning was telegraphed far in advance. An e-mail was sent out to parents with children in a neighborhood school stating that the raid would happen Monday morning. A winter homeless shelter was opened today, a day early, to accomodate people displaced by the raid. By mid-Sunday the papers were announcing that a raid was expected Monday morning. And definitive confirmation of this (that the raid would happen about 4 AM)was provided by OPD by 10:00 PM.

OO started putting out repeated calls for reinforcements throughout the day (website, tweets, e-mail, etc.), for people to show up to resist the raid (e.g. tweet: ALL OUT TONIGHT TO DEFEND #occupyoakland. #ows #occupysf #occupycal. Raid is all but certain early hours of the AM. baycitizen.org/occupy-movemen…). Started an #iamoccupyoakland hashtag campaign to really support, etc. During the weekend there were also frantic attempts to obtain meaningful union support to prevent the raid.

insidebayarea
MT @susie_c: #occupyoakland Two ppl read long solidarity letter from Mexico. I kind of expected a bigger crowd tonight; maybe coming later

susie_c Susie Cagle
Ppl seem to have been counting on union picket line, which hasn't arrived. And still more alarmist official #OccupyOakland text msgs.

insidebayarea
RT @eloft: 4 or 5 #union members here after call out email to create picket around #oo camp in case of police raid. #ows

garonsen Gavin Aronsen
The camp's still really dead. Boots Riley is talking strategy with a small group of people on the plaza's SW side.

occupyoakland Occupy Oakland
Numbers low at occ oak and cops have just left the coloseum.

occupyoakland Occupy Oakland
Numbers low at occ oak and cops have just left the coloseum. Need support NOW.

insidebayarea
RT @EastBayExpress: ~200 people (and a big-ass drum) amassed at 14th and Broadway, waiting for the cops. "Whose streets? Our streets!" #oo
[The occupiers gathered at 14 and Broadway]

Oakland Tribune blog estimating 500 at 14th and Broadway here

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland 150ish in the intersection at 14 and Broadway, drumming up a storm.

shoeshine Shoshana Walter
union organizers estimate about 300 ppl at 14th/bdway. #occupyoakland

insidebayarea insidebayarea
RT @ProducerBB: #occupyoakland about to go down. A lot more police than protesters this go around.

JoshuaHol Joshua Holland
Group huddled in prayer at interfaith tent. Maybe 3 dozen in intersection of bway and 14th #OO

One can also get some idea of the crowd sizes from various pics (1,2,3,4 - most of these are at 14 and Broadway, where protesters gathered; also, photo 49 in the series here is an aerial photo of 14 and Broadway). 
Also, here's video from Susie Cagle and video from OakFoSho. Since OakFoSho is walking around the area, I think it gives the best sense.

On Nov 2, success with the general strike (and port closure), and a sense that the movement was still building in Oakland (potentially even greater things to come shortly). Only 11 days later, OO evicted and able to only recruit a relatively smallish number of defenders.
From above - mic check oakland: "I suppose we'll all have to wait and see." [i.e. We'll need to wait for the next raid to determine whether support has been lost due to use of Black Bloc].
So the raid's now happened. Empirically, as an effective protest strategy, how's Black Bloc and unrestricted diversity of tactics working out?

Worth reading: "This is what the people of Oakland think of Black Block"

Poster promoting OWS

This is a poster I created to promote OWS.
I'm not an artist and design principles are not my strength - but I think it sort of works.
I've been putting it up around my hometown (Madison), and someone asked me to make it available online. So here it is.
This poster is meant to be printed on legal-size paper (I've used Kinko's for this). Download as a pdf and use all or part of it as you wish.
Fat Cats

MSM coverage of OWS Nov 17 Day of Action

The following is a long comment I was going to post at Corrente - but Corrente is down for now. And the comment appears to fit here (in response to this Cannonfire post). It was originally in response to a comment by Fran (at Corrente), who seemed distressed that the MSM coverage of the OWS "day of action" was trying hard to make OWS look violent and crazy.

[BTW I was watching Tim Poole livestream the Wall Street protest on the morning of Nov 17. While I was watching, I saw a group of kids coming through and the protesters parting (to form an open path) and calling out to make way for the kids to get through. The line of cops let them through but then appeared to cut off and block passage of one of the adults who appeared to be escorting them.]

----------------------------------

Fran is right. I find this interesting - and I find myself wondering exactly what's going on. Of course the 1% will go nuts. Of course there's the Producers->Editor->Reporter directives and pressure. Various filters (ala Manufacturing Consent). Etc. But it seems that EVERYONE in the MSM has begun singing from the same songbook. About a week ago Yves noted the shift in the NY Times coverage with OWS going from "heroes to goats". Only a few weeks ago, on the ABC News website, the main photo showed a (normal, slightly heroic looking) women protester captioned "I am an American".
Yes, at the very beginning OWS was subject to much MSM ridicule, and there has been plenty of negative coverage throughout, but for a time, quite a bit of the coverage was somewhat positive.

So there's been a radical negative shift in coverage, and it feels nigh universal.

For the print version of the NY Times, the only coverage of yesterdays protests (based on a brief skim) appears to consist of a photo on front page (showing an apparently violent scene, with no indication of the scope of the protest), and a minimalist story on page A22 (relatively short article with some text on A22 and remainder on A23).

For CBS Evening News
"Organizers promised tens of thousands of demonstrators disrupting business as usual here in New York. Frankly, we've seen a fraction of that number, closer to 1000....Now the main event is tonight, a rally scheduled for the Brooklyn Bridge, which of course would disrupt rush hour again. Organizers are talking about tens of thousands of protesters. However, so far Scott, the number of protesters in the hundreds."

New York Daily News took a similar tack.
When I looked the primary OWS story online today was "I WIN! Bloomberg declares victory vs.protesters. The thousands of protesters flooding lower Manhattan seemed to have worn out their welcome." Story starts with "They didn't occupy Wall Street for long, shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, or win many new fans....Their vow to get many more out in the streets fizzled, Mayor Bloomberg declared. 'Occupy Wall Street had predicted on their website that tens of thousands would be participating in today's protests, but there have been far fewer - and so far they have caused what can accurately be described as minimal disruptions to our city,' he crowed....'Today they proved that they're able to piss off the 99% by stopping them from getting home,' said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens). 'In my opinion, this is their last gasp. With silly stunts like this, they've angered people they're supposed to represent.'"
Now of course this is the New York Daily News, so unsurprizing....but this type of narrative is everywhere.

So the narrative in sites like CBS and NY Daily News is - it all fizzled - not much happened - they just annoyed people - move along.

With ABC News:
The main headline most of yesterday was "Occupy Wall Streets 'Day of Disruption': WN Live Updates"

Now, the quote directly implies that OWS called for "A day of disruption". OWS called for a "Day of Mass Action" or "A day of action". Nowhere have I been able to find OWS or OWS participants calling for "A day of disruption" (e.g. look at occupywallst.org). There's also the headline yesterday on ABC that referred to "Occupy Wall Street's 'Day of Destruction'".
[I wrote to ABC early yesterday, but of course this was not corrected.]
The 'Day of Disruption" language appears to have started with ABC, then propagated everywhere (shaping everyone's perception of what OWS was seeking to do yesterday).

ABC and FOX also propagated the false meme that OWS wanted to shut down the subways.

There's an Occupy Wall Street "must reads" tab at the top of the main ABC News page - this leads to:"Wall St. Commuter: 'We’re All 99%. This Is Ridiculous.'" Article starts with "As part of Occupy Wall Street’s plans for its largest protest ever, occupiers may garner more disdain from the 99 percent than the 1 percent by attempting to clog New York’s subway system."  There's also the link to the video:"NYC Commuters Find Protest 'Shameful'"

The point of going to the subways was outreach (as I noted in a comment above), not an attempt to block the subways. From occupywallst.org:
LUNCH: Occupy The Subways - 3:00 p.m. We will start by Occupying Our Blocks! Then throughout the five boroughs, we will gather at 16 central subway hubs and take our own stories to the trains, using the "People's Mic".

The ABC Nightly News coverage for Nov 17 (this would have been simultaneous with the CBS News report linked above). Excerpts:
"Tonght - boiling point"...."Our reporter askes those protesters - what do you really want"
"As we come on the air tonight, the Occupy Wall Street movement is reaching a flash point"..."This is what it looks like from the sky tonight. Masses of people taking to the streets here in NY City"...."Arrests, chaos, and clashes with police"..."bracing for chaos as the portesters swarm the Brooklyn Bridge"..."ABCs Dan Harris on the front line, asking demonstrators today'Just what do you want from all of this'".."good evening to you from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, where protesters managed to shut down both lanes of trafic on this historic span"...."This massive protest march tonight"... "Now after two months of marches and chants there remains a simple question. What's the concrete goal of this movement..."

ABC Then shows the whackiest signs and most clueless protesters.
For example, one protester: "the concrete goal is to claim the concrete. This is our park..."
The signs shown include signs such as "eradicate males", etc.

[So unlike NY Daily News and CBS, ABC's narritive is - huge turnout - massive number of protesters - man, they're whacky - I can't understand what they're protesting about - they're weird - a freakshow of crazy clueless people swarming the bridge]

On ABC News online today, the primary Occupy related headline is:
"Occupy Overtime. Who really wins in protests?" Clicking the link leads to the story "Occupy Protests Across the Country Take Toll on City Budgets" [Talking about how the protests are costing cities money, with no consideration of the wasteful, overwhelming policing overkill.]

-------------------------
It seems that almost all the media is singing from the same hymnbook.
It's literally like watching the propaganda parodies in the movie Robocop.

I've been around a while, and I'm used to this kind of thing....except....
the simultaneity of the shift across all the media... and the magnitude of the shift....and the journalistic errors (yes, the MSM is really sloppy, but the degree of false/erronious material here is striking).
So I'm wondering....exactly what is happening here?
One thing that strikes me - a couple weeks ago, Democrats were looking at using OWS to run for election. That Democratic endorsement might have given OWS legitimacy in the MSM, producing some favorable coverage. Now that Democrats have largely dumped it, the Democratic-affiliated segment of the press no longer has a reason to treat it at all properly/accurately.
Also, in general people (and especially the elite) will favor perceived "winners". Since most cities appear to have been successful in evicting the Occupation encampments, this may foster the perception in the MSM that Occupy is "weak" - and out come the knives.

Thoughts on what we're seeing here?

[Update: Potentially another part of the answer - corporate lobbying machine going into overdrive.]

Barackryphal - commentary regarding Techdude

[This comment is responding to this post and thread.]
Thought it might be good to provide a bit more info.

When Neal Krawetz discovered Adam Fink's claimed credentials matched those of Techdude, and posted this online (August 4, 2008), Fink contacted him claiming libel and that this was a case of identity theft – that he wasn't Techdude.  Neal gave him benefit of the doubt and posted an update to this effect on August 6.

Shortly thereafter (August 9) Koyaan posted updates to a post, noting comments by TexasDarlin in which TexasDarlin effectively appeared to be claiming that Techdude indeed was Adam Fink.

It seems that immediately thereafter both "Techdude" and Adam Fink went silent – Fink stopped responding to phone calls and e-mails about this matter (i.e. I know of two bloggers who were attempting to communicate with him about this – in one of these cases, he stopped in mid-correspondence at this point, though just prior to this he had been loquacious in denying the identity and had been corresponding in a "friendly" tone). Thereafter, TexasDarlin and Polarik both distanced from the Techdude material (with TexasDarlin pulling the Techdude posts).

Meanwhile, I’d been digging around for weeks, and (by late July) had come up with other material. This included an import company using a webmaster who I thought was probably Adam Fink and who used the e-mail address Techdude@yahoo.com. There were also a series of postings from 2006-2007 under the handle techdude at Computer Forensics World: Forums.

The material in these posts (e.g. "Digital Forensics Examiner" in mid-Missouri location, etc.) provided sufficient information to identify the poster as Adam Fink. There was also a false lead – someone posting under the handle Techdude at Stormfront (this ultimately turned out to be a different person). There were also a few others using this handle online, but they all could be readily excluded based on information in their posts and obvious linguistic differences.

I contacted the owners of the import company and was told that Techdude@yahoo.com was indeed Adam Fink. I was also corresponding with someone else who asked me to keep certain information confidential. I was also conducting linguistic analysis (I have a stats background and some experience with machine learning, but prior to this had not worked on authorship attribution).

I'd also been corresponding with blogger Joseph Cannon. On August 31, he posted the information directly tying the handle "Techdude" to Adam Fink (via the Yahoo e-mail account).

This posting occurred a bit earlier than I would have liked (though it's understandable, since interest in Techdude had begun to wane – and it’s preferable for a blogger to strike while the iron is hot). I'd wanted to complete the linguistic analysis I was performing, and I was still hoping to resolve things with the person who had provided me with confidential information (i.e. so that everything could be made public).

I subsequently completed the linguistic analysis, and posted a brief comment on the outcome - see penultimate comment in this thread.

The upshot was that the analysis confirmed that Adam Fink was the author of the TexasDarlin Techdude postings (and also clearly showed that the person at Stormfront was someone else).

To provide a bit more detail – there were three relevant bodies of textual information: 1. the Techdude postings regarding the COLB, 2. material I’d obtained from various sources that had definitively been written by Adam Fink, and 3. postings under the techdude handle at the computer forensics forum, where information in the postings appeared to identify the author as Adam Fink.

[Brief tangent: There's a lot of information within the computer forum posts that indicate the poster to be Adam Fink. For example, the poster identifies himself to be a "Digital Forensic Investigator" who runs a private computer forensics business in the mid-Missouri area. Adam Fink’s company advertised as "The only privately run Computer Forensic Science Laboratory in the Mid-Missouri area". In addition there are many matching details. E.g.

From a posting by techdude at the computer forum:  "I am all too familiar with the bug you picked up. To make a long story short you can not remove it except by wiping out and reformatting the drive....A few months ago I was hired to clean an entire office infected with this malware – after a week of searching the entire NTFS structure, logs, cookies, and trial and error....You will most likely see a new application called something like Spyware Sheriff (I forget the exact name) which pretends to be an anti-malware application."

From a posting by Adam Fink in an online chat:

"Comment From Biggs: The worst virus I've ever come across is the one that looks like it's spyware ...it pretends to be a 'virus scanner' but it will screw up your life

Adam Fink, CrLI CCE: Biggs - I know that one well. I spent 2 weeks trying to fix a client's entire office network with that one. Sadly there is no fix..just a reformat/reinstall. They should find the guy who wrote that one and have them force fed hot sauce."]

I analyzed the three bodies of text mentioned above, along with many other sources of online text, as noted in the Cannonfire comment I linked. After a lot of experimentation (using material of known authorship), I concluded that the most reliable method for correctly concluding authorship (in my hands) was to use a very large set of random alternative authors, to extract appropriate linguistic features (e.g. these can be function words, parts of speech, so called "unstable words" that have many synonyms, etc.), then to use statistical or machine learning methods (on the feature set) to do the ascription. So there's information on textual features from documents known to be produced by each of the authors, and there's information for these same features for the document or corpus of unknown authorship. Basically, which known author is the document (of unknown authorship) closest to.  If a particular person is suspected to be the author, and the document ends up being ascribed to the suspected author rather than any of a large set (e.g. 100) of random alternative authors, then there’s pretty strong evidence that the suspected author is indeed the actual author.

Insofar as possible, it’s preferable to keep the genre similar (to exclude genre effects). I ended up finding that the statistical authorship attribution tool JGAAP was a quite useful. There are different statistical or machine learning approaches for doing the ascription, but I found that in this case they basically all gave the same result. As an aside, I’ll mention that after posting the Cannonfire comment, and having done a lot of experimentation on other cases,  I’ve concluded that Support Vector Machine (available within JGAAP) seems to have the highest accuracy – and in this case (i.e. Techdude), the results of SVM match those using other methods (e.g. cross-entropy, etc.).

Basically, the Techdude COLB material, the computer forensics techdude comments, and the Adam Fink documents were found to have the same author (i.e. Adam Fink).

As another aside, I'll mention that the same approach also further confirmed the identity of Polarik and Polland (though his style tends to drift more over time and genre than Fink's does), and it also verified that Obama was clearly the author of Dreams (and Ayers was not). Indeed, with Dreams it even excludes Ayers as the author of the specific short segments that Cashill claimed were most likely to have been authored by Ayers. It also identified "Spengler" as David P. Goldman (prior to his inadvertent self-outting).

Aside from the formal analysis (which I put the most faith in), there are a lot of unique matching word strings tying together the three bodies of material by Fink. For example:

COLB Techdude: It does not generally take a fully equipped computer forensics lab to

Computer forensics forum Techdude (Adam Fink): nor a fully equipped computer forensics lab so

A few other examples:

COLB Techdude: call the good folks over at Vital Records

Adam Fink: We are looking forward to see what the good folks over at DC3

COLB Techdude: I enjoy forensic challenges such as the Department of Defense's DC3 Forensic Challenge which this year (and last) just so happen to

Adam Fink: The results of the 2007 Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center (DC3) Digital Forensics Challenge are in.

COLB Techdude: Just more food for thought.

Computer forensics forum Techdude (Adam Fink): Just some food for thought.

There are many many more such matched phrases.

Also, the corpora share the same "jokey" language in places (e.g. from the postings at the computer forum: "At least with your minor in possession charge you know how the court system works – just kidding.";"All I can say is YIKES!";etc.), both COLB Techdude and Computer Forensics Techdude (Adam Fink) ridicule PhD's, etc.

Also, at the computer forensics forum, Techdude (Adam Fink) comments: "finding embedded graphics that were steganographicly hidden" (i.e. this refers to finding a hidden message within an image - the word "steganographic" specifically means "concealed writing"). This was in essence what he was claiming to do with the COLB and Maya’s "hidden" name.

I'll also mention that there are questions of exaggeration and competence that arise with Fink (separate from the COLB case). Adam Fink's claim to have worked on 7000 forensic cases appears unrealistic and inflated.

Also, in the afore noted KRCG sponsored "Chat with forensic computer expert Adam Fink"

In response to someone saying "The worst virus I've ever come across is the one that looks like it's spyware ...it pretends to be a 'virus scanner' but it will screw up your life"

Fink replies "I know that one well. I spent 2 weeks trying to fix a client's entire office network with that one. Sadly there is no fix..just a reformat/reinstall. They should find the guy who wrote that one and have them force fed hot sauce."

"I know that one well"??? There isn't "one" such type of malware – there are hundreds of different malware programs that masquerade as anti-malware "virus scanners". The "Sadly there is no fix..just a reformat/reinstall." (which is what he apparently actually did when hired to deal with malware problems at an office – he reformatted all their computers) also indicates ignorance.  I’ve removed fake "virus scanner" malware (multiple different forms) from many computers – a reformat is essentially never required if you know what you’re doing.

This past year, a client who hired him to deal with cyberstalking was murdered, apparently by her ex-husband. Fink told the local newspaper that he had communicated information about the cyberstalking to the DA's office, which set off a bit of a brouhaha when the DA's office noted that he had never actually communicated such information to them (and they also noted that if he actually had such information to report at the time, he should have contacted the police rather than the DA's office).

A Scratchpad

This is not an actual blog. It’s simply a scratchpad – a repository for my comments on other blogs. I’ve occasionally found myself frustrated by technical problems in adding a comment to a blog post – some sequence of characters in the comment, or the length of the comment, or the presence of too many hyperlinks, or some other feature interferes with publication.  The cause of the problem is often unclear and not readily resolved. This “blog” is a kludge – an inelegant workaround.  I can place the actual content of the comment here, and merely submit a hyperlink at the blog to which I am commenting.

Since this is simply a repository for my comments on other blogs, I’ve disabled commenting at this site. Comments responding to anything posted here should be published on the primary blog to which my comment was originally directed.