Law and Magic Blog

Carpet Store Angel

Back in July 2008 MSNBC.com covered this angel image that appeared at night in the window of a carpet store in Porterville, California. Some people believed it was a sign from above. Others said it was merely the reflection of the lights from the gas station across the street. The gas station owner was annoyed because sightseers wanting to see the angel were blocking customers at his place of business. He tried turning off his lights to show visitors that the image was the result of reflections and glare from his nighttime lighting, but got so many threats he turned the lights back on. The store owners noted that since the angel's appearance vandalism in the area started to decease (and I guess, so did the threats to their neighbor when his lights came back on). Here's more.

I couldn't find any updated stories on the angel. Did it disappear?

Ray Arrested For Manslaughter In Sweat Lodge Deaths

Arizona authorities have charged James Author Ray, the self-help author, with manslaughter, after three people died at an event he was conducting at a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona. Mr. Ray surrendered to law enforcement at his attorney's office. Here's more from ABC News.

I can't say that I'm surprised that Mr. Ray is charged in these deaths, and I can't say that if civil suits follow I would be surprised, either.

Magazine Covers, Publicity, and Jinxes

Michelle Harner of Concurring Opinions writes about jinxes: that supposed Sports Illustrated cover jinx and a possible Time Magazine "Person of the Year" cover jinx.

Sports fans are probably familiar with Sports Illustrated’s cover jinx. As SI itself explains, “Millions of superstitious readers — and many athletes — believe that an appearance on Sports Illustrated’s cover is the kiss of death.” (The SI jinx timeline really is remarkable, see here.)

So, is the same type of jinx emerging with Time’s “Person of the Year” cover? Richard Nixon receives the honor (for a second time) in 1972, and the Watergate scandal breaks in 1973. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all receive the honor in the year they are elected President of the United States, and their approval ratings drop dramatically in the following, first year of their presidential terms. “You” receive the honor in 2006, and we all know what happens to the bank accounts of many of those honorees in 2007 and 2008. And now just a month after being named Time’s Person of the Year for 2009, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s confirmation is in question. (See here and here.)

So, is Mr. Bernanke in trouble because of his appearance on the cover? Or do his problems simply come around the same time as the appearance? Did he appear on the cover because he's of interest and do his problems also relate to the fact that he's of interest (under scrutiny)? I think the latter is more likely. People who make Time's cover are in the public eye (except for "You"). What happens to them, or what they do, good or bad, tends to make the headlines. I don't think we need to employ magic, jinxes, or luck to explain that.

Another Strange Image In An Inanimate Object

MSNBC.com reports that a woman says she has spotted a picture of Jesus in the bottom of her iron. I just don't see the resemblance, myself. The image looks more like William Shakesepare. Or maybe Sir Isaac Newton. Willie Geist plumps for the Mona Lisa.

The Failure of Psychic Detection

From Benjamin Radford on LiveScience, "Jaycee Dugard Abduction Case Highlights Failure of Psychics."

Will Health Care Insurance Plans Include Complementary/Alternative Medicine Coverage?

So, have you thought about whether any of the health care bills would require that insurance plans cover alternative or complementary medical treatments? No? Check out this story from Newsweek magazine, which suggests that the CAM lobby has already made its arguments to the Hill.

Requiring insurers to cover therapies with unknown outcomes runs counter to the White House's push for medicine with a proven track record. The basic idea behind evidence-based medicine is that doctors ought to use treatments that have the best possible evidence that they work. What counts as the best possible evidence? Randomized clinical trials.... Clinical trials work fine for drugs, where trials can quantify and compare outcomes. But for alternative treatments, things like prayer or even yoga, the evidence gets much less clear; randomized trials are more difficult to conduct. "For drugs you have placebos and double-blinded studies," says Timmermans. "But you cannot have a placebo for testing behavioral interventions." So alternative treatments are essentially on an uneven playing field when it comes to evidence-based medicine. Timmermans admits that "it's not an equal-opportunity methodology."

...

Requiring insurers to cover prayer treatment may be a bit too extreme for health-care reform. More interesting to explore though, are other forms of nontraditional medicine, floated in reform bills, that have a stronger claim to an evidence base. Take, for example, complementary and alternative medicine, a field often criticized for unproven therapies. Some 38 percent of Americans use some form of it. Moreover, the field has increasingly embraced traditional research methods. Just a decade ago, the government established a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The center studies "alternative healing practices"—anything from the use of echinacea to treat colds, to acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome—"in the context of rigorous science." They use that gold standard Timmermans mentioned: randomized, clinical trials.

Here's a link to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Now, I admit to practicing yoga, off and on, and I think (I think) it helps me feel less stress and it helps me calm down after a long day of magical legalizing. I know it helps my flexibility, but then so would, I suspect, going back to my ballet exercises. I do feel better when I downward dog and make like a tree, even though I don't Om. It annoys the felines. But I don't try to bill my health insurance company for my trips to the yoga studio. I'm not certain there's cause and effect there. Hey, I tried feverfew for my migraines, too, but I didn't see any amelioration there. Zippo. One of my primary care physicians explained that outcome--there's no quality control in the feverfew you buy OTC. Better to rely on the meds the neurologist prescribes, and mirabile dictu, my migraines have decreased significantly over the past few years. Hooray for modern medicine and Big Pharma (waving imaginary flag).

Magical Internet Thinking

From PC Magazine, "10 Most Heinous Hoaxes on the net." Some of them appeal to magical thinking, like the "we captured BigFoot and we've got him in a freezer" hoax. The one about legislatively setting the value of pi to 3? Here's the text of that Indiana bill. Some of the other hoaxes listed are no laughing matter, such as the one that led to the suicide of young Megan Meier. Federal prosecutors charged Lori Drew, one of the people behind that hoax, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse act. A jury found her guilty of three misdemeanor counts, but a judge threw out the verdict this year.

BigAppleCOR Good Without God Ads Will Adorn New York Subways

Reports CNN, groups calling themselves the Big Apple Coalition of Reason have commissioned ads to appear in the New York subway system beginning October 26 with the label: "A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?"

According to the Metro Transit authority, it will accept ads that don't contain nudity or offensiveness. Other than that, its walls are open.

According to the BigAppleCOR (get it?) website, the organization that make up the coalition are

[C]ommitted to a more compassionate world; we are working for a more reasonable citizenry and a higher level of discourse; we are striving to increase the quality of life for all; and we find fellowship an integral part of the human condition. Theists and nontheists alike are the same people: we go to work everyday; we have families and friends; we are involved in our communities, state, and country; and we care deeply about life.
 
Big Apple COR aims to inform New Yorkers that there is a community of people who share a rational basis for their worldviews, who attend intellectual public lectures, enjoy philosophy discussions, and socialize. We invite you to visit our various websites, to contact any of those in which you are interested, and to feel free to attend the public gatherings of any of our organizations.

One supporter of the BigAppleCor is magician Jamy Ian Swiss.

An Interview With Jon Ronson (the Men Staring at Goats Guy)

eSkeptic has an interview with Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, here. The film opens wide this November.

The Charm of Making Money

In this week's eSkeptic, Karen Stollznow writes about psychic advisors and the economy. People continue to seek out such advice, especially in rough times. She gives examples of individuals who rely on advice from psychics for business deals and real estate (people wanting to sell their homes sometimes  bury statues of St. Joseph in their yards). She also notes the example of the recently charged Jerome Kerviel, who seems to have relied on psychic advice and ended up in a quite a financial mess. But hope endures.

I've posted about these topics a couple of times already (see here and here). But they continue to enchant.