If you torture a dog with random electric shocks, will the dog become sad?

Such was the question millions of Americans were once frantically asking, until Penn professor and psychologist Martin Seligman decided to find out once and for all. (The answer: Yes.) However, Seligman’s results, after they were first published 40 years ago, had a perhaps unintended effect. As it happened some time later, CIA torture aficionados became very interested in Seligman’s work and wanted to examine the implications of this revelation for human torture. Seligman’s dog studies, it turns out, were instrumental in developing techniques used at Guantanamo Bay. So say the muckraking journalists, at least. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports:

[Writer Jane} Mayer's book [The Dark Side] alleges that Seligman’s research heavily influenced the psychologists that developped [sic] CIA interrogation techniques at the Guantanamo Bay military prison. But in a pre-publication review of the book’s content, Harper’s Magazine writer Scott Horton writes that Seligman “assisted” in the development of their interrogation techniques. This statement has since circulated on several psychology-related blogs and is a claim that Seligman unequivocally denies.

At last, the truth comes out: everything is the Ivy League’s fault. Read the rest of this entry »

Hal, Jacob and I have written about Brown twice in the four weeks we’ve been editors, and since the one I did was bullshit, it’s really like 1.3. It’s nothing against Brown per se; more that our curriculum-less brethren run a quiet academy free from the whorish distractions of, say, Columbia. Surely this appealed to Reade Seligmann.

But if schools aren’t going to make news, we do offer a subchannel of coverage for which they might qualify once they’ve proven that news never will happen. Consider it IvyGate’s Medicaid, or like when NFL teams are so bad that they throw their last regular season game to get the first draft pick.

We’re writing about Brown today because a skunk is dominating its campus. Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not the Democratic presidential candidates, but a skunk. No sarcasm, it’s article of the week. More after the jump.

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Reade Seligmann, of Duke lacrosse fame, is now Brown ’09.

Reade Seligmann ’09 is sitting in a Starbucks a block away from Times Square, talking about some of the students he knows at Brown, when a woman with black hair, heavy, dark-blue eye shadow and an “I Love NY” shirt approaches the table.

“Would you care for a psychic reading?” she asks.

Seligmann looks up at her, unfazed, and quickly smiles.

“No thanks,” he says. Then he adds: “I think I know where I’m going.”

After the jump: another excerpt from the Brown Daily Herald‘s 2,800 word paean to Seligmann.

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As we may have mentioned, this weekend we journeyed to No’th Cackalack as guests of the illustrious, happily moneyed Duke University. Between Skoal, sweet tea, and other firsts (hotel staff calling us “mister”), we took in the first Duke lacrosse game since The Business.

We tried mightily to prepare for our trip to Duke, but plans were thrown into chaos early: the Drawl-English language cassettes we ordered were lost in the mail, nowhere in Brooklyn would serve us sorghum, and then, the day of the trip, airport security confiscated our brand-new Axe Body Spray. How would we blend in with the natives now?!? We arrived in Durham in a fever, feelin’ swell on 105 minutes of sleep, and set off for Duke’s Koskinen stadium anyway. Historic game, versus hated Dartmouth, beautiful crisp afternoon: we don’t need a map, sir, the sweet strains of ACC tailgating in the air will point the way.

Except. The pre-game tailgate in the stadium’s lower parking lot — the upper one was closed to accomodate the national media, which didn’t really show up — was nearly dead. A few SUVs with beer in the trunk; a coupla lifer Dartmouth fans with great-great-grandchildren swaddled in green. But nothing like the rollicking beerfest we’d imagined. Later, we found out a school VP had emailed the entire campus with a request to wear official Duke apparel proudly, leave signs at home, and generally put the ix-nay on the ape-ray okes-jay. (“We have much to gain as a community with our best effort and even more to lose with our worst”) Amazingly, the students played along: not a single violent Dartmouth chant, no burning Mike Nifong in effigy, no nothing to make for the ultimate IvyGate post. It was clear, though, fans had done some research on the enemy for heckling purposes; one Dartmouth player with by the unfortunate name of Tim McVeigh got special attention. But for the most part, Duke lacrosse fans were ridiculously well behaved, especially for a sport where the goal is to crosscheck your opponents’ faces in.

The few references to last year’s non-season were remarkably mannered: girls wearing Reade Seligmann No. 8 jerseys. A lone parking lot banner supporting the players.  Ubiquitous “innocent” blue rubber bracelets.  T-shirt report: there was, like, one guy with a “Disbar Nifong” [Ed.: we really wanted to buy one, but couldn't find a seller -- little help, Duke readers?]