UPDATE (5 Aug 2010): Hat tip to David Garnier, whose comment got gobbled up by the ether monsters, but who pointed me to the admission of the woman in the case described, who says it actually isn’t pregnancy denial. Nope, she just doesn’t like doctors. (And that’s why she committed infanticide a bunch of times? Crikey!) ORIGINAL POST: Robert Koehler twittered this article: The question is as horrifying as it is important to ask: Why are a rising number of French women killing their newborn babies? Finding the answer has become a matter of urgency following the discovery on Wednesday …
Tag: pseudoscience
Culture Bound Mental Illnesses in Korea — Bananaloft
I was poking around in Bananaloft, a website devoted to Asian-Canadian goofing-off and fun, and found an article on several, er, conditions that seem to be culture-bound to Korean society, as they say. Well, I would actually say it’s two mental conditions, and one folk-belief. Fear of Fan Death, absurd though it is, seems mainly to be the result of media talking crap; we don’t consider the belief in a higher suicide rate around Christmastime — or fear of the same — a “mental illness” but it’s quite disconnected from reality — a similar folk myth in the Western sphere. …
Oriental Medicine Charlatanry
Someone in my Facebook friendslist (whatever it’s called there) posted a thing about acupuncture and how it actually works, at least as an analgesic. And, well, yeah. Done right, it can work as an analgesic. It can work as advertised. Unless of course the practitioner is a total quack asshole who advertises that acupuncture (or other oil-of-smoke medications) will cure cancer. Somewhere on the Korean internet is a web forum where doctors hang out and chat, something like Dave’s ESL Cafe, and one of the long-running topics of complaint is how often patients show up at the conventional doctor’s office, …
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
Having decided to defer my review of Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Days until I’ve read his other book in the same world/setting, River of Gods, I have decided to skip ahead and review the next book I read, a nonfiction piece by Steven Johnson. This book was a loaner from my friend Charles, who recommended it highly to me. If I remember right, he picked it up at The Strand, which is one of the most wonderful bookstores I’ve ever visited… so much so that I even got a T-shirt when I was there. Maybe that doesn’t interest readers, but I …
Oriental Medical Pseudoscience Medicine, Sympathetic Magic, and the Consumption of… What?
I mentioned recently that Lime and I are thinking about picking up a second cat to give Peanut/Buffy/Undecided a playmate. She’s been looking at the adopt-a-cat webpages online, and was explaining to me the procedure in Korea for adopting cats. Not an official procedure, mind, just a common one. It goes like this: you adopt the cat. You pay a flat fee of, say, the equivalent of $20, or $30, or even $50. (Sometimes more.) Then the person who gave you the cat will come a few months later and check out how the cat is doing, as well as …