Peter D. Kramer

Were in, are out: ALKANE, ALKENE

Interestingly, despite research subjects' getting much more attention from caregivers in the psychotherapy arm, SSRIs were more effective at treating and preventing depression.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Versus Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Treatment for Suicidal Behavior in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial | American Journal of Psychiatry Objective: The authors compared the efficacy of 6 months of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to 6 months of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors with clinical management (SSRI/M) in reducing suic...

Pretty-convincing small trial finding dialectical behavior therapy more effective than SSRIs in reducing suicidality in highly vulnerable patients with borderline personality disorder.
psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...

Opinion | Tune Into the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The Justices Will Be Squirming.

A clear test of whether the Supreme Court majority is originalist or merely political & subservient. If the Court rules against unbounded Presidential authority to impose tariffs, democracy still has a chance, despite SCOTUS's willingness to undermine it elsewhere

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/o...

Was in, is out: LATEEN

Twofer today:
Was in, is out: BELATE
Was in, is out: ABETTAL

[what else had made the cut was: LABIALIZING.]

Given what else made the cut today, BANALIZING (missing pangram) would have fit fine.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/b...

Was in, is out: NOONTIDE

Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to MACULATE giraffe.

TS Eliot, Sweeny among the Nightingales

[missing pangram]

While I'm at it: If MICROCRACK was low frequency, how about ANABIOTIC?

Putting Trump on the Couch A new novel from the psychiatrist famous for "Listening to Prozac" imagines a Trumplike president’s sessions with a shrink.

www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

Listening to Prozac: The Landmark Book About Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self The Landmark Book About Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self

While I'm at it: a link to the current—30th anniversary—edition of Listening to Prozac.

bookshop.org/p/books/list...

Do SSRIs Cause Violence? | National Review An answer from Peter Kramer.

Quick email to Ramesh Ponnuru on what we know about SSRIs and violence www.nationalreview.com/corner/do-ss...

Yesterday's formerly accepted word: TELETYPED.

@merriam-webster.com does not accept TELETYPE as a verb, but the OED finds many examples from 1904 to 2007.

& why isn't the OED here on BlueSky?

was in, is out: past tense of an accepted entry

Carthago delenda est - Wikipedia

I'm thinking of Cato the Elder's policy of ending every speech with the demand that Carthage must be destroyed: that kind of consistency.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthag...

I think that this sort of reminder should appear as a drumbeat—an element in all reporting on Trump's various transgressions. Every article should include that reminder: This act also serves to undercut democracy, concentrate power, and move us toward tyranny.

Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook

Authoritarian playbook: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

At last. Today ‪@nytimes.com‬ has an essay describing Trump's routine acts as coming from an authoritarian playbook. That's what's often missing from reporting & opinion both: Reminders that a behavior under discussion not only ruptures norms but also serves in a campaign to undercut democracy.

Glory days. Here's the cover, with an image taken from the office television. I was a college intern, but I had three pieces in the issue & got written up in the house organ, N/W. In the photo, I was more or less in uniform, wearing a seersucker suit with a thin bow tie.

A Peacock’s-Eye View of the Waldorf Remade Waldorf Astoria New York, one of the city’s grandest hotels, closed for renovations in 2017. After almost eight years and billions of dollars, it returns, reborn for the 21st century.

In 1969, when the Waldorf-Astoria had lost much of its glory, it rented rooms to Newsweek for staff who had to work late into the night. I was put up there when writing on the moonshot for the July 28 issue when "Newsweek beat Time" to the newsstand.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

oops. sorry.

Trump's Brazil Tariff Is Blatantly Illegal Shouldn't someone be suing?

Here's a link:
paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trumps-bra...

Not sure why the whole Web isn't saying this. Trump's Brazil tariff is illegal.
Presidents can impose tariffs only for limited economic reasons. Interfering with a prosecution abroad is not a permitted rationale.
The issue is both legislative & constitutional. Only Congress can levy taxes.

Funny, I just wished for a linguist to go to work on "biblical grounds" for divorce. A copy editor will do nicely.

bsky.app/profile/pete...

Anna Ornstein, Psychoanalyst Who Survived the Holocaust, Dies at 98

Sad to learn of the death of Anna Ornstein, a yet more influential figure in psychiatry than this obituary suggests—and a sterling person.
Oddly, I just quoted her in a talk I gave in Germany last week.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/h...

SSA BS.

Is this politicization a first? Just got an email from the Social Security Administration patting the President on the back for the budget-busting bill

Irony (one of many) is that the bill changes the taxation of benefits in a way that threatens to deplete the fund a year early.

CHILBLAIN

The missing pangrams were HABITABLY & HABILITY.

Deciding what to include must often be tough, but this choice creates a problem. Won't someone who sees HABITABLY rejected assume that HABITABILITY is out as well?

HABILITY is more marginal.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/h...