reflections – Page 8 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Dirty Deepfakes

I saw an article about the unreliable ability of humans to detect digital deepfakes in audio and video productions (Mai KT, Bray S, Davies T, Griffin LD. Warning: Humans cannot reliably detect speech deepfakes. PLoS One. 2023 Aug 2;18(8):e0285333. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285333. PMID: 37531336; PMCID: PMC10395974.).

I was a little surprised. I thought I was pretty good at detecting the weird cadence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) speech patterns, which I think I can distinguish pretty well. Maybe not.

And there are some experts who are concerned about AI’s ability to mimic written and spoken grammar—but it continues to make stuff up (called “hallucinations”). In fact, some research shows that AI can display great language skills but can’t form a true model of the world.

And the publisher of the book (“Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry”) that I and my co-editor, Dr. Robert G. Robinson, MD wrote 14 years ago is still sending me requests to sign a contract addendum that would allow the text to be used by AI organizations. I think I’m the only who gets the messages because they’re always sent to me and Bob—as though Bob lives with me or something.

Sometimes my publisher’s messages sound like they’re written by AI. Maybe I’m just paranoid.

Anyway, this reminds me of a blog post I wrote in 2011, “Going from Plan to Dirt,” which I re-posted last year under the title “Another Blast from the Past.” Currently, this post is slightly different although it still applies. I don’t think AI can distinguish plan from dirt and sometimes makes up dirt, simply put.

And if humans can’t distinguish the productions by AI from those of humans, where does that leave us?

Little Autumn Promenade

Yesterday, we took a stroll on the Terry Trueblood trail. It was a little breezy and warm for late October.

The fall colors were gorgeous and there was a lot going on. We saw a woman with her toddler flying a butterfly kite. It sailed on the wind beautifully. We saw the quilted hearts hanging from the trees. They’re very cheering. In the wind they looked like they were waving at you.

The woolly bear banded caterpillars were out. I don’t think you can really tell how hard the winter is going to be by looking at the color bands. But it’s fun to talk about.

And then we thought we saw ladybugs. But they could have been Asian lady beetles. It’s hard to tell them apart. The latter often don’t have spots at all. We noticed that they seem to sort of push up their hinders until they’re almost upside down and they may shove each other around.

There’s a pretty vigorous debate on the web about whether the Asian lady beetles are the bad guys and the ladybugs are the good guys. We know they can crawl all over you.

The oddball thing was that we found a baby booty hanging on one of the sign posts. It had an image of a ladybug on it. Or was it an Asian lady beetle?

When you’re in the autumn of your life, it might be time to stop asking too many questions.

Thoughts on the Big Mo Pod Show 034: Laughing in the Face of Death

I heard the Big Mo Blues Show just (Halloween theme) this last Friday night and was not surprised to see that one of the songs discussed on the Big Mo Pod Show on Saturday was Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Devil’s Son-in-Law.”

When I first heard it, it got me chuckling because I didn’t understand hardly a single word until the last line. It was babbling. I can remember googling the term “Peetie Wheatstraw and unintelligible,” which revealed I’m not the only one who thinks he’s unintelligible. It’s a mondegreen mine field. It’s a good thing the lyrics are available.

I want to hastily point out that he’s not always unintelligible—but William Bunch aka Peetie Wheatstraw is speaking in tongues on that song. For comparison I listened to another song, “Sweet Home Blues” and I could understand just about every word in the lyrics.

That led me down the rabbit hole about the artist in a web search that seemed to have no end. I should probably say Brer Rabbit hole since most of my searches pointed in the direction of a character called Peter Wheatstraw, Petey Wheatstraw, as well as Peetie Wheatstraw who had variations in their identities, most often in the context of African American folklore.

I’m not going to attempt a summary of my web search on Peetie Wheatstraw; there’s too many twists and turns. You can start with the Wikipedia article. But from there, you can get trapped in Brer Rabbit’s little tunnels, which can run in different directions.

William Bunch was a blues artist in the 1930s who adopted the moniker “Peetie Wheatstraw.” While Big Mo says it’s sort of another name for Satan, I found confusing references by writers who claim that the Peter Wheatstraw character comes from Black folklore. There are those who believe that novelist Ralph Ellison wrote about a character in his book “Invisible Man” named Peter Wheatstraw and said it was the only character in the novel that was based on a live person—William Bunch.

Is that true? And did Ellison ever meet Peetie Wheatstraw (William Bunch)? I can’t tell from the web articles.

I was prompted to get my copy of “Invisible Man” out after reading a scholarly online essay mentioning the Peter Wheatstraw character, “Re-visioning Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man for a Class of Urban Immigrant Youth” by Camille Goodison, CUNY New York City College of Technology. I couldn’t remember Wheatstraw at first, but there he was in Chapter 9.

Goodison reveals there is a lot more texture to the Wheatstraw character then just as a moniker adopted by William Bunch. Wheatstraw is probably more complex than the devil. He has many sides to him and could be helpful—but mostly in an indirect way. His guidance is full of riddles and there doesn’t seem to be a solid way to cut through the metaphorical morass. As Emily Dickinson advised, Wheatstraw may tell the truth—but tells it slant.

I still don’t know why he mumbles the song.

Thoughts on The Big Mo Podcast 033: “A Balance of Old and New”

This is just a short piece on the Big Mo Podcast last Friday night and his comments about one of the songs he played that night. It made the list of 5 songs he and Producer Noah discussed a couple days later.

Big Mo’s had great comments about all the songs, but I took special notice of those about one of them. It was James Carr’s big hit in 1966, “Dark End of the Street.”

The most important thing about it is that I remember listening to it when I was just a kid. I was too young to understand the meaning of it. But his voice grabbed me. That’s really the only thing I can say about it. His performance still has the power to raise the hair on the back of my neck, even though I can’t identify with the lyrics or connect the theme to any life experience I’ve had. I suspect many people feel the same way.

The other reason I connect with the song other than Carr’s voice is his life story. He was said to have suffered from a psychiatric illness, the nature of which seems like it was never clearly identified. I’ve read a few web articles and terms like “bipolar disorder,” “depression,” and other similar references come up. His psychiatric diagnosis is the least important thing.

Carr’s life story is hard to read, despite what little there is of it to read about. It’s painful. The version on the Black Past website encapsulates what you find in several other articles: Tulino, D. (2018, February 21). James E. Carr (1942-2001). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/carr-james-e-1942-2001/.

But to get the real point about James Carr, all you have to do is listen to that one song, “Dark End of the Street.”

AI Does Your Laundry

Recently we had somebody from the appliance store check our brand-new washing machine. The tech said “the noises are normal”—and then told us that many of the functions of the washer are run by Artificial Intelligence (AI). That was a new one on us.

Don’t get me wrong. The washer works. What sticks in the craw a little is that many of the settings we took for granted as being under our control are basically run by AI nowadays. I guess that means you can override some of the AI assist settings (which may be adjusted based on grime level, type of fabrics and the relative humidity in Botswana)—at least the ones not mandated by the EPA.

Incidentally, I tried to find some free images to use as featured images for this post. The problem is, many free pictures on the web are generated by AI these days, which is why I used the non-AI part of the Microsoft Paint app to make a crude drawing of an AI controlled washing machine.

I realize I’ll have to give up and accept the inevitable takeover of much of human society by AI. On the other hand, the prospect reminds me of the scene in an X-Files episode, “Ghost in the Machine.” A guy gets exterminated by something called the Central Operating System (COS).

Use extra detergent and add more water at your own risk.

Reading My Old Book in a New Light

Sena bought me a wonderful new lamp to read by and it improves on the ceiling fan light I wrote about the other day (And Then a Light Bulb Went Off).”

The new lamp even has a nifty remote control with which you can choose the ambient feel. There are several selections, one of which is called “breastfeed mode,” a new one on me. There’s a light for that?

The lamp arrived at about the same time I got a notice from my publisher for my one and only book, “Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry,” that people are still buying—after 14 years! My co-editor was my former psychiatry department chair, Dr. Robert G. Robinson. As far as I know, Bob has dropped off the face of the earth. I hope he’s well.

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry is probably about the same as I left it when I retired 4 years ago. I walked all over the hospital trying to help my colleagues in medicine provide the best possible care for their patients. I put in several miles and stair steps a day. I saw myself as a fireman of sorts, putting out fires all over the hospital. I got a gift of a toy fire engine from a psychiatrist blogger in New York a long time ago.

Now I walk several miles on the Clear Creek Trail, like I did yesterday and the day before that. I have shin splints today, which tells me something—probably overdid it.

So, I’m taking a break from walking and reading an old book in a new light.

Because I Wanted a Hurts Donut…

I got an urge for a Hurts Donut so I walked on the Clear Creek Trail to Coralville get to the little hole in the wall shop. You can easily walk to several places in Coralville on the trail. Actually, I wanted to also check out the Coralville Public Library and see S.T. Morrison Park. I’ve never been to that park so it was a novelty all by itself.

It took about 45 minutes to walk to that part of town. It’s great exercise and beats the traffic. You have to walk under some railroad tracks and there’s a sign warning you not to stand in the culvert below while the train is passing over the top. I can see why.

There are funny signs in the rustic Hurts Donut shop. You can see the corny “Wanna hurts donut?” jokes on the walls. There’s another sign saying “School is important but donuts are importanter,” which reminds me of my coffee mug which says sort of the same thing about cribbage: “Education is important but cribbage is importanter.”

The Old-Fashioned donuts there are so good, but so bad for you. I had two.

The Coralville Public Library has a beautiful skylight. I haven’t been in a public library for ages and so it was fascinating to see that libraries haven’t changed much.

In fact, after I found one of Dave Barry’s books, “Dave Barry Book of Bad Songs,” (published in 1997; I had a copy but it got lost in a move) I asked one of the librarians about the old rule I learned as a kid. You might remember it too if you’re old enough. When you pick a book off the shelf and go to a reading room to look it over—can you just put it back on the shelf where you found it or do you have to give it the librarian who will reshelve it?

If you guessed that you have to give it to a librarian, you’re right and you’ve probably dated yourself. The librarian joked that some things never change. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Among the things that never change are the difficult to understand lyrics in some songs. Dave Barry wrote a whole chapter about it in the Book of Bad Songs, “Songs People Get Wrong.” He mentions one of them, which I always got wrong but never told anyone about it because it was embarrassing. It’s a lyric in the song “Blinded by the Light” that Barry said was done by Bruce Springsteen, but which I didn’t hear until Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered it.

So, here’s my deal with that lyric. I always heard “wrapped up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce.” Barry notes that many people made the same mistake. Funny thing, Barry never mentions what that common mistake is called and it’s a mondegreen (a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from mishearing the lyrics of a song). Music is important but mondegreens are importanter.

I finally saw Morrison Park and it’s a very restful place. You can contemplate the sculpture which is placed in the center of a pond. Ducks paddle around it. It’s called “Silver Lilly” and it was made by Professor Hu Hung-shu. Art is important.

People Remember Hurricane Edna

The hurricane season this year continues to be deadly, and they are not named after women anymore. That stopped in 1979; how and why it stopped is quite a story in itself. The latest one is named Milton, which is a benign sounding name, but the storm is anything but that.

I was reminded of the custom of naming hurricanes after women last night when I reread E.B. White’s essay, “The Eye of Edna.” The essay is subtitled with place and date: Allen Cove, September 15, 1954. It was published in a collection “Essays of E.B. White in 1977 by HarperCollins. It was published originally in the New Yorker, according to an online quote from his essay.

I’m too young to remember Edna. When I did a web search of the term “The Eye of Edna,” I got many hits for both the essay and the hurricane. Reading White’s essay is a treat because he makes fun of how radio news reporters and the people in Maine who were listening to the radio reacted to the weather reports about Edna. Radio reporters often seemed disappointed about the lack of heavy rain and high winds.

I found the abstract of an article published a 1958 issue of the Journal of Meteorological Sciences which the driest summary of Hurricane Edna I could possibly imagine:

“Kessler, E., 1958: EYE REGION OF HURRICANE EDNA, 1954. J. Atmos. Sci., 15, 264–270, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1958)015<0264:EROHE>2.0.CO;2.

Abstract

The eye region of Hurricane Edna (1954) is studied with the principal aid of radar and dropsonde data. Vertical sections show that over the eye there was a thick layer derived from the wall cloud which bounded the eye on the northeast. Precipitation fell from this upper layer into drier air beneath. A reasonable mechanism is thereby suggested by which large moisture values can become associated with air in the eye without producing the wet bulb potential temperatures or high winds characteristic of the rain-filled masses outside the eye.

Radar data giving the height of the “bright band” or melting level show that the warm core structure of Edna was most pronounced within the radius if maximum surface winds. The result is qualitatively confirmed by soundings and by comparison of surface winds and the speeds of radar weather elements in various portions of the storm. The radar photographs also show that heavy precipitation near the eye of Edna was bounded sharply in the western semicircle along an east-west line through the center of the storm. This boundary must be associated with a rather large change of vertical air speeds and therefore has special dynamic significance.”

If you read it the citation too quickly, you might misread the journal’s abbreviated name as my own. It’s actually J. Atmos—not J. Amos.

There is a much more vividly emotional account of Hurricane Edna in the Vineyard Gazette’s 2014 online story, along with a video.

The bottom line is hurricanes are deadly storms, no matter what people name them. Everybody, including E.B. White, would agree on that.

And Then a Light Bulb Went Off

I was sitting in my office last night trying to read a book and noticed that the overhead light on the ceiling fan wasn’t providing enough light. The next morning I flipped the switch and could see through the glass globe cover that one of the bulbs was out. It flickered on about a half hour later and then went out again.

When I got the ladder out and tried to remove the cover, it wouldn’t budge. There weren’t any screws on it, so I looked at a few YouTubes to learn how to remove it. Lot’s of people were using tools and, of course, duct tape. Some methods looked dangerous.

For me, the most helpful hint came from a Wikihow lesson. The first example suggested using those rubber dishwashing gloves. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away because I use them to twist off stubborn lids on food jars. It worked on the fan light cover.

Sometimes the simple, old-fashioned tricks for solving problems are the best. In fact, it reminded me of what I’d been reading by the dim light. It was an essay by E.B. White from his book, Essays of E.B. White. The title was “The Winter of the Great Snows,” published by HarperCollins in 1977. Copyright restrictions prevent me from quoting directly, but his point was that tackling challenges with common sense and safety in mind is a good idea.

There are many light bulb moments in life that I’ve missed. I appreciate any help I can get.

Thoughts on the Big Mo Pod Show “Funkin’ Down the Highway”

This is a post about the Big Mo Pod Show we heard last night on the KCCK FM radio dial 106.9. Incidentally, the KCCK fund drive was enormously successful this year, earning $100,000 in donations, according to Big Mo (aka John Heim) himself.

One item is the cover by Buddy Miles of the song “Tobacco Road.” This rendition was different from performances by other artists. Big Mo liked it and so did I. I did a little web search on it because I couldn’t catch all the lyrics. It was originally done by John D. Loudermilk in 1960. Miles’ version is essentially the same.

What interested me even more about “Tobacco Road” are the associations I have about it with specific literary works. I’ll admit I’ve never read nor seen the film adaptations of Erskine Caldwell’s books, “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.” But one of my favorite short stories by James Thurber is “Bateman Comes Home,” which was published in a collection entitled “The Thurber Carnival,” in a hardcover edition in 1945. You’ve got to read it to get a sense of how comical the parody is of the regional dialect used in Caldwell’s novels. In fact, Thurber himself gives the game away about his intent in writing “Bateman Comes Home” by adding a wry comment as a subtitle:

Written after reading several recent novels about the deep south and confusing them a little—as the novelists themselves do—with “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.”

He also adds another comment at the end of the short story: “If you keep on long enough it turns into a novel.”

The other thing I noticed about the podcast last night is that one of the songs which was not included in the list, “Joliet Bound,” was performed by an artist I haven’t heard of, the Reverend Shawn Amos, who is no relation to me, of course. But my background as a psychiatrist made me take special notice of details about his family, one of which is that his mother, Shirl-ee Ellis, a singer herself, had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Sadly, she eventually died by suicide. Shawn Amos is also the youngest son of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie founder, Wally Amos (again, no relation), although I’ve gotten a lot of friendly ribbing about that.

The song “Joliet Bound” is about a guy who expresses that he’s wrongly accused of killing a man over a woman and is on his way to Joliet prison in Joliet, Illinois. The Joliet Prison is a tourist destination nowadays and has other distinctions attached to it. It was featured in the 1980 film, the Blues Brothers. There were some famous inmates there, among them John Wayne Gacy, who was once evaluated and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by psychiatrists at The University of Iowa in 1968 as described in Dr. Donald Black’s book, “Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy).”

Congratulations KCCK Radio!