The Case of the Angel of Death

Duncan Campbell, Fresh evidence challenges 'Angel of Death' nurse Colin Norris's conviction, Guardian (May 20, 2013):

"Fresh medical and scientific evidence is being published this week that campaigners hope will lead to the release of Colin Norris, the former nurse and so-called 'Angel of Death' serving life for the murder or attempted murder of five elderly women.

"The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has confirmed it is undertaking an active re-examination of the case.

"Norris, 37, originally from Glasgow, was convicted at Newcastle crown court in 2008 following a 19-week trial. It was alleged that he disliked elderly patients and had deliberately injected the women with insulin. The case had echoes of the late Dr Harold Shipman, who was convicted of murdering 15 of his patients but believed to have killed many more.

"However, a new study challenges much of the evidence on which Norris was convicted. Campaigners are hopeful that fresh evidence will lead to an appeal in which it can be shown that the women could have died of natural causes."

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Whitey Bulger

The Whitey Bulger trial starts this coming Thursday, June 10. This should be an interesting trial - in many different ways.


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Letting Go (of Books etc.)

Stanley Fish, Moving On, NYTimes (May 27, 2013):

Snippets:

"I have sold my books. Not all of them, but most of them. I held on to the books I might need while putting the finishing touches on a manuscript that is now with my publisher. I also kept the books I will likely need when I begin my next project in the fall. But the books that sustained my professional life for 50 years ... are gone.

 ...

"The ostensible reason for this de-acquisition is a move from a fair-sized house to a much smaller apartment. It is true, as Anthony Powell said in a title, that books do furnish a room, but in this case, too many books, too little room. But the deeper reason is that it was time. What I saw on the shelves was work to which I would never return....

"... I had always thought that I could return to my annotated copies of familiar texts and pick up where I left off. That fantasy, I now see, was part and parcel of the core fantasy that I would just go on forever, defending old positions, formulating new ones, attending annual conferences, contributing to essay collections, speaking at various universities, teaching the same old courses, confidently answering the same old questions.

"I’m not going to go on forever. ...

"... Behind these musings is a word I can barely utter — 'retirement.' ..."

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I recently retired from full-time teaching - but not from writing. So I threw away some of my books, but not most of them. In any event, quite a few of my books are for purely personal pleasure and are still unread. So I can't throw those away, can I?

• Addendum: Some of my "academic" interests survive my retirement; some of the questions I ask myself genuinely interest (and preoccupy) me.

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The Crack Baby Story: Another Example of the Abuse of Statistics

The recent misleading report of an explosion of sexual assaults in the U.S. military  - endlessly cited by politicians, including the President - is not unique. The media (and politicians) have a long history of abusing statistics. See, e.g., Michael Winerip, Revisiting the ‘Crack Babies’ Epidemic That Was Not NYTimes (May 20, 2013).

 
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