ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS.

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Philip

ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS. I posted here that Bill James believes that Clarence Darrow was guilty of bribing a juror and added that Earl Rogers, Darrow’s defense lawyer at Darrow’s trial for bribing the juror, also believed he was guilty. I had an independent reason for saying that. Kids, I spent 10 to 15 happy evenings having dinner with Adela Rogers St. Johns, who was the daughter of Earl Rogers. I have just checked her wikipedia entry; since she was born in 1894, my impression that she was in her mid 80′s when I knew her was correct. (You can wee her playing herself in Warren Beatty’s movie Reds.) She told me lots of stories about old Hollywood and about her father’s trials. I met her in the coffee shop of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. She was living in one of the separate cabins on the grounds of the hotel which were highly sought after. We came to have dinner in the coffee shop most evenings while I was there. In one of our dinners, she told me that she had overheard Darrow telling her father that he was guilty of bribing the juror.

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WAS CLARENCE DARROW A JURY TAMPERER?

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Philip

WAS CLARENCE DARROW A JURY TAMPERER? John Farrell had an article in the Smithsonian (December 2011) which asked that question. Farrell has written a book which concludes that he did. Darrow was defending two unionists who were charged with setting off a bomb at the Los Angeles Times building in 1911. Twenty printers and newsmen were killed by the blast. Darrow’s chief investigator was arrested passing $4000 to a prospective juror; the investigator turned state’s evidence against Darrow. Darrow was charged with two separate counts of bribery which were tried separately. He was represented in both trials by Earl Rogers, a legendary defense attorney. Darrow was acquitted in one trial and the other resulted in a hung jury. Farrell has discovered a 1927 letter from Darrow to his son, Paul, instructing him to pay $4,500 to Fred Golding, a juror in Darrow’s first trial for bribing the juror in the bombing case. Farrell notes that $4500 would be equivalent to $55,000 today and asks: “Did Darrow bribe a juror while on trial for bribing jurors?” The Smithsonian article has a photo of Darrow’s letter to his son.

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FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Philip

FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS? I have posted several times about the dangers of concussions in football (see this post asking whether the NFL is serious about reducing concussions). Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a post on the New York magazine web site asking whether the New York Giants “strategically concussed” Kyle Williams in the conference championship game for the right to play in the Super Bowl. He has quotes from Giant players which support his suggestion, including this one:: “…we knew he had four concussions, so that was our biggest thing, was to take him outta the game.” In the event, Williams made two critical fumbles which cost his team the game. Notice that the hits on Williams may well have been lawful under the rules. Note also that the comments of the players (and in the comments on the post) show that the culture of the game is that these hits are good plays. Wallace-Wells concludes that: “a history of concussions doesn’t only make you a red flag on your team doctor’s list. It also makes you, in opposing film rooms, a target.”

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“WE SEE SPACE.”

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Philip

“WE SEE SPACE.” Here is a description of an earlier exhibition of David Hockney’s studies of the landscape in East Yorkshire. I like Hockney’s statement that: “The optical projective of nature is a view of the world from one point. It is not a human view. The camera sees surfaces, we see space.”

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DRAFTMANSHIP WITH THE iPAD.

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Philip

DRAFTMANSHIP WITH THE iPAD. Of the 52 art works in Hockney’s latest exhibit, 51 are prints which Hockney did originally with an iPAD. He likes the iPAD because he can work quickly, and he thinks speed is important to a draftsman. He can match shades of color quickly. The drawback is that Hockney thinks that resistance from the paper is important, and the resistance is lost with the iPAD.

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DAVID HOCKNEY WATCHES SPRING.

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Philip

DAVID HOCKNEY WATCHES SPRING. Jackie Wullschlager had an interview with David Hockney in the Financial Times (January 14-15). He has a new exhibit at the Tate Gallery entitled: “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, in 2011″. Before he began painting, he spent three springs preparing, observing the coming of spring near his home. He would take a chair and sit outside for half an hour at a time. He gives an example of the kind of thing he would think about on a given day: how does the cloud behind the tree look like reflected in the water? Hockney then painted 52 paintings in the spring of last year.

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A DECISION SCIENTIST USES A DECISION TREE.

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Philip

A DECISION SCIENTIST USES A DECISION TREE. Memory from forty years ago says that Howard Raiffa, one of the giants of decision science, once said in class that he had asked Kenneth Arrow, a future Nobel Prize winner, whether he had used a decision tree when he had accepted a position at a different university. Arrow had not. Raiffa said that before taking a different position, he had in fact used a decision tree. And then he had slept on the decision to see whether it felt right. The last step is important.

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DECISION TREES FOR PATIENTS.

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Philip

DECISION TREES FOR PATIENTS. Laura Landro’s review describes how Doctors Groopman and Hartzband “examine a formula for rational decision-making often used in economics: Measure the probability of an outcome and place a numerical value on the outcome itself.” The probable value of each medical result can then be compared. The tool described is known as a “decision tree.” It is called a decision tree because there may be a series of outcomes to be evaluated with each choice, and a graph of the analysis looks like the branches of a tree. Here is an example of the use of a decision tree with a drawing of a decision tree. Yoram Bauman, the Standup Economist I posted about here, begins his exposition of microeconomics in THE CARTOON INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS with decision trees.

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DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE.

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Philip

DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE. Jerome Groopman (an oncologist) and Pamela Hartzband (an endocrinologist) have written YOUR MEDICAL MIND, which analyzes the role of patient choices in medical decisions. (I have relied on this review by Daniel J. Levitin and this review by Laura Landro.) The premise of the book is that for many medical decisions, there is no black and white answer so that often patients will have to make decisions based on probabilities. The doctor and the patient should work together in doing this. The authors (husband and wife) propose two useful dichotomies: first, patients tend to be maximalists or minimalists. Dr. Groopman was a maximalist until a bad experience with back surgery made him more risk averse. Dr. Hartzband identifies herself as a minimalist, using medicines only when absolutely necessary. Second, a patient can be biased either for or against new technology. Is a patient willing to try a new medical treatment before it has been “proved”? Is a patient willing to let nature take its course perhaps with the aid of “alternative medicine”. The two dichotomies result in four classifications. Mary Jane and I tend to be maximalists who are open to new technology.

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RANKING 115 SIMILAR PAINTINGS.

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Philip

RANKING 115 SIMILAR PAINTINGS. Damien Hirst is exhibiting 115 of his “Spot Paintings” in Gagosian galleries in New York City. Worldwide, he is exhibiting 331 of the paintings; there are over 1500 of them. The rules for the spot paintings are that they consist of enamel dots on a white background arranged in a grid at intervals equal to the diameter of the dots. No color can be repeated. Apparently, the grids can be of different sizes. Here is a photo. You can find others by Googling “Hirst spot paintings”. The record price for one of them is 3.48 million dollars. Roberta Smith reviewed the New York Spot Paintings here for the New York Times and took on what I would have thought was an impossible task: comparing and ranking them. She finds stark differences among them concluding that: “they range from good to atrocious.” Some are “visually exhilarating”; others are “redundant and oppressive”. This article at ARTINFO has a slideshow of some of the paintings and other rankings, such as the gallery with most spots and the gallery with the least spots.

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