Here is an interesting interview from Powell's book story web site, with a writer Eric Hansen about writting. Clark

 


Eric Hansen

Describe your latest project.
The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer is a collection of off-beat non-fiction stories gleaned from the last thirty years of travelling to the far ends of the earth. Part memoir, part travel lit, but mostly about random meetings with strangers and unexpected experiences that have helped to give my life shape...and meaning. The book has been described as an assortment of memories polished by time. I like the sound of that. The book is the result of digging into my past in an archeological sort of way. Sifting through rubble, and sediment to uncover my past and its meaning (one of the great luxuries of being a writer). In a way these nine stories are what I think of as some of the significant building blocks which have made me the person and the writer that I am today.





The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with Strangers
by Eric Hansen


Writers are better liars than other people: true or false?
I think this all depends on a writer's skill at self deception. On the wall of my office I have a favorite quote by John Steinbeck. It reads: "The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty." I agree with this, but there are times when "truth of fact" and "truth of feeling" come into conflict. Good writing often favors truth of feeling. This defines the line between the craft of journalism and the fine art of writing and story telling.

What is your favorite sentence from another writer?
"Life is too short for dress rehersals."
— Robyn Davidson in Tracks

How did the last good book end up in your hands?
Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee. Recommended by Leyla, the English Lit major/stripper/lap dancer/student of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas/devoted mother/new friend that I write about in Bird Man and the Lap Dancer.

What was the best breakfast of your life?
Well, the worst breakfast, or at least the most challenging one of my life, was a bowl of steaming bee larvae soup, served by a family of nomadic hunters and gatherers deep in the Borneo rainforest. At least the larvae was dead before I put them in my mouth. The taste was similar to scrambled eggs, but I had a problem with the presentation.

One of the best breakfasts was served at Les Deux Magots on Blvd. St Germain in Paris: Early Spring morning... slanting sunlight shining through a sprinkling of rain. Wet cobble stones reflecting the sun light. Fresh orange juice, cafe au lait... and two perfectly toasted and buttered oblong slices of pain Poilane topped with grilled and melted rounds of aged goat cheese. I can still taste it. A perfect way to start the day.

Why do you write?
Writing forces me to go deep within myself, to search for layers of meaning on a daily basis. To create beginnings, middles and ends from chaos. I am probably best known for my travel writing about journeys to far off places, but what I have finally come to realize is that one of the most interesting places on earth is my mind and where it takes me when I let it wander.

Well! You must have an opinion about this? What is it? Does the fool deserve to die by the hands of simpletons? Don't just re-act! Think about this from both sides and tell me what you then think. But please think first.
JAPAN SAYS KODA DECAPITATED
The Japanese government confirmed the headless body found in a Baghdad
field Saturday is that of 24-year-old Japanese tourist Shosei Koda, who
was kidnapped by a group linked to al-Qaeda.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/30/koda_hostage041030.html

. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY HELPS FUND EPA STUDY
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62569-2004Oct25?language=printer
The American Chemistry Council is giving the Environmental
Protection Agency $2 million for a study to explore the impact of
pesticides and household chemicals on young children. The trade
association, which represents nearly 150 chemical and plastics
manufacturers and has a $100 million budget, spent more than $2
million on lobbying in 2003. The EPA says the money will help the
agency conduct "groundbreaking work" on how chemicals are absorbed
by infants and children as old as 3. "Environmental Working Group
President Kenneth A. Cook questioned why an agency with a $572
million research budget needed to accept industry contributions to
conduct scientific research," the Washington Post writes. "This is
a government function; we should be investing government funds to
be absolutely sure it's independent," Cook told the Post.
SOURCE: Washington Post, October 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098763202
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098763202
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, October 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098504001
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098504001

10. BEEF: IT'S WHAT'S FOR THE ELECTION?
http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=0d055714-3b88-4293-8ad4-618c868aafff
"U.S. and Japanese negotiators struck a deal Saturday to allow
limited imports of U.S. beef into Japan," reports Canadian Press.
Japan imported $1.7 billion of U.S. beef in 2003, but closed its
markets last December, after a Washington state cow was found to
have mad cow disease. The chair of the Canada Beef Export
Federation called the announcement was "old news," saying, "The
Americans are trying to put a new spin on it for their election."
The head of U.S. beef producer Creekstone Farms, which
unsuccessfully petitioned the USDA to do its own mad cow disease
testing, said, "We would still like to test."
SOURCE: Canadian Press, October 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098504000
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098504000

Please take a look around afreepress.com and we will talk about it next week. Clark

Well recently we have had a few items about environmental pollution. The following is one of the worst such cases ever reported and it now seems to be the one that has affected the most people.
BHOPAL LOWBALL
Bhopal disaster victims seek to quadruple compensation

Victims of the devastating 1984 industrial gas leak in Bhopal, India, have appealed to the country's Supreme Court to quadruple the amount of compensation they will receive. They have long charged that the Indian government has been slow to distribute funds from a $470 million settlement paid by U.S.-based Union Carbide, owner of the plant, to the Indian government in 1989. On Tuesday, a favorable Supreme Court ruling ordered the government to release the money remaining from the settlement, some $330 million, and accepted a sharp rise in the estimated number of victims, from the 105,000 listed in 1989 to 572,000, accounting for new births and previously unreported cases. However, the victims are appealing to quadruple the amount, based on the higher number of cases, though it's unclear where the additional money would come from. At a press conference yesterday, victims pleaded their case and told their tragic stories, like that of 80-year-old Shanti Devi, who lost her husband and his two businesses and has been forced to spend her savings caring for her children and grandchildren. Devi is to receive $2,200 in compensation.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Mazhar Ullah, 29 Oct 2004


see also, in Grist: Rashida Bee of Bhopal, India, fights against the company that devastated her community -- by Michelle Nijhuis

Everything is not right not only here but everywhee:Canada slipping on environment: report
Last Updated Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:47:02 EDT

OTTAWA - Canada's reputation as an environmental leader is slipping because most federal departments aren't paying attention to the impact of their policies, says a report released on Tuesday.

A report released by environment commissioner Johanne Gelinas says that salmon stocks are dwindling, oil is polluting the coasts and air quality is deteriorating – and all the while the government is failing to lead.

"I am concerned at signs that Canada's environmental status and reputation may be slipping," Gelinas said.

Canada's ranking on environmental objectives slipped to 16th place in 2003, from 12th in 2002, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

A cabinet directive issued 14 years ago, requiring all departments to assess the environmental impact of their policies, is not being followed, the report said.

"The overall results of our audit this year suggest that most departments still have not made serious efforts to apply the directive," Gelinas said.

There are no repercussions for senior officials who ignore cabinet directives on the environment, she said.

Gelinas said the tax system could be one of the most effective tools to promote environmentally sound behaviour, but the Finance Department has yet to try to determine how the system impedes or favours sustainable development.

Other problems identified in the report include:
• Three Pacific salmon populations designated as endangered.
• No decline in ground-level ozone, a component of smog known to damage the lungs and heart.
• Incomplete regulations on genetically modified fish.
• Oil pollution from ships in the Atlantic.

On the positive side, the report finds that Canada is meeting its target to reduce ozone-depleting substances.

Written by CBC News Online staff

Hi I know that with Minimata etc. there are some very big problems with chemical pollution in Japan. What chemicals exactly are being monitored and how? Take a look at the following:
CHEERS: WHERE EVERYBOY KNOWS YOUR GAME
Study of chemical impacts on kids raises questions

A study of pesticide and chemical exposures in children being conducted by government researchers is raising some disturbing -- and by that we mean "outright creepy" -- questions. For one thing, $2 million in funding will come from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group with, one might imagine, a vested interest in the results. While the ACC and the U.S. EPA both claim that the source of funding will have no effect on the study, enviros are skeptical of the whole deal. Also troublesome is the fact that children who participate in the two-year study must live in homes likely to be heavily polluted with pesticides (Hispanic migratory farm workers, perhaps?) and their parents must agree to have the home periodically sprayed with pesticides, for which they receive the princely sum of up to $970. So, what are they calling this exercise wherein the chemical industry pays to have poor kids up to three years of age exposed to chemicals and studied? The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or CHEERS.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, 26 Oct 2004


straight to the source: Chemical and Engineering News, Bette Hileman, 18 Oct 2004

Althogh this is all about a T.V. -PR scam this type of operation has been going on ..well.. as long as I have been involved in news reporting. The prewritten story which the hung over reporter rewrites a little or a lot but still tells the PR story rather then looking or finding their own.
VIDEO NEWS RELEASES: THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!
http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/001015.asp
Thomas Lang and Zachary Roth have done some further sleuthing into
the Education Department's video news release (VNR) that featured
fake "reporter" Karen Ryan and promoted the No Child Left Behind
law. "It turns out that the No Child Left Behind VNR, presented as
news, ran more widely than we had thought - it's just that it
didn't always include Karen Ryan," they write. "A number of local
stations ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply
having their own reporter read the script. And in an indication of
just how confident the Department of Education was that news
outlets would fail to adequately scrutinize the content of the VNR,
we've also found that it included sound bites in support of the
tutoring program from two figures whose appearance in the video
might have raised eyebrows had anyone thought to check. ... The
stations that took the time to have their own reporters record the
script of the No Child Left Behind VNR had to have been fully aware
of what they were doing: knowingly deceiving their viewers about
the origins of the story - not to mention committing plagiarism -
by passing off as their own original reporting words actually
written by a PR company hired by the Bush administration."
SOURCE: Campaign Desk, October 13, 2004

. MISTAKES HAPPEN
http://www.regrettheerror.com/
A new weblog, "Regret the Error," is devoted solely to reporting on
newspaper errors

What is this all about?
.........hows like "Crossfire" or "Hardball" provide gladiator-style infotainment as journalists clownishly seek to amuse or rile viewers, not inform them.

OK here are two great things! The first is of course our tour of Asahi Newspaper this coming Monday. The other is a new and wonderful resource for Journalists and researcher offered free by the New York Times:
http://tech.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html
Check this out! Go through a bunch on the items and familliarize yourself with this resource.
See you Monday.

NO CANADIAN TROOPS TO IRAQ: MARTIN
Prime Minister Paul Martin reaffirmed Ottawa's stance that it will not
commit troops to Iraq, saying Canada should instead play a role where it
can "make a substantial difference."
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/14/martiniraq041014.html

The Canadian Embassy, together with the Embassy of Ireland, will be holding
a Higher Education Fair at the Canadian Embassy on Wednesday, November 3,
2004 from 10:00 to 17:00. The purpose is let students and teachers know
about studying in Canada.

Institutions participating from Canada:

1. The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, B.C.)
2. The University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario)
3. The University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta)
4. Acadia University (Wolfville, Nova Scotia)
5. The University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

6. The University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
7. Kwantlen University College (Surrey, B.C.)
8. Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C.)
9. Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario)
10. Langara College (Vancouver, B.C.)

11. Red Deer College (Red Deer, Alberta)
12. Nova Scotia Agricultural College (Truro, Nova Scotia)
13. Algoma University College (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
14. McGill University (Montreal, Quebec)
15. The University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)

16. Fleming College (Peterborough, Ontario)
17. Saint Mary s University (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
18. Brock University (St. Catherines, Ontario)
19. The University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario)


Canadian Embassy, Public Affairs Section
7-3-38 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8503
Fax: (03) 5412-6249
Access: Exit #4 Aoyama Itchome station on the Ginza,
Hanzomon or O-edo subway lines
Map:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ni-ka/site/images/tokyo_map-embassy.jpg

For fair enquiries and pre-registration:
Email: (English or Japanese) e-canada@zas.att.ne.jp
Website: (Japanese) www.canadanet.or.jp/study/univfair.shtml

--

This is an interesting article for many reasons. There is a strong reliance on "some people say" -were some people can say anything, but that does not make it true or even important unless some people listen and think it is. Again a discussion point for the class this week. Clark
This is from todays 'Japan Times' and well done.


Politicians block comic over 'fake' Nanjing Massacre tale

Shueisha Inc. said Wednesday it will halt publication of a "manga" comic featuring the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 in response to complaints by Japanese politicians who claim the slaughter never happened.

The comic series "Kuni ga Moeru" ("The Country is Burning"), authored by popular comic writer Hiroshi Motomiya, is a fictional tale about a bureaucrat in the turbulent times of the early Showa Era (1926-1989).

Publication of the series, which has been carried in Weekly Young Jump magazine since November 2002, will be temporarily suspended from the Oct. 28 edition. Weekly Young Jump is popular among Japanese men.

In the magazine's Sept. 16 and Sept. 22 editions, the comic described Japanese soldiers massacring civilians in Nanjing, China.

Thirty-seven members of local assemblies protested to the publisher on Oct. 5, saying the massacre was presented as if it really happened. They say the story deliberately distorted history by using a photo whose authenticity they claim cannot be confirmed.

According to the assembly members, there is strong evidence that the massacre never happened and that there is no proof that it did.

A Shueisha representative said: "Some people say the photo used for reference in the drawing cannot be authenticated. It was inappropriate to use such material."

"The parts related to the use of the photo as pointed out will be edited or deleted when the comic book is published," Shueisha said in reply to the complaint.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal concluded that more than 140,000 people were killed. Some Chinese historians put the death toll at 300,000 in Nanjing alone. Japanese accounts vary from several thousand to 200,000 dead.

The Japan Times: Oct. 14, 2004

Papyrus is a newsletter which is now coming from Japan which covers education and current affairs topics. Usually worth looking at. In this issue there are a lot of topics which touch on journalism and an informed press. We'll go over them in class today and next week as well. Clark
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.............................................................. now that big TV media are joining
the branches of government including the Supreme Court in being partisan
to the Republicans, the Democrats seem to have no opening to expose the
facts. My apologies that much of this may be tedious to non-Americans,
but the post-War international order is breaking down due to American
unilateralism, and the Goebbels playbook is proving again that it works.
Who but Orwell could have predicted that democracy in America would not
survive into the 21st Century? - Ed.]

* Periodical articles

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff
tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 27 October 2003
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Peace Prize Goes to Environmentalist in Kenya
"OSLO, Oct. 8 - Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who started an
environmental movement that has planted 30 million trees in Africa and
who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy in her
home country, was announced the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize"
Patrick Tyler, New York Times, 9 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/international/africa/09nobel.html

The Verdict Is In
"Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line
of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ...
nothing in the voluminous record provides Mr. Bush with the justification
he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs did not exist.
And as the war continues to bog down, the power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more muscular every day."
New York Times Editorial, 7 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07thu1.html

The Battle of the Pump
By Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 7 October 2004
"The energy policy of President Bush and Dick Cheney is supporting the
worst Arab oil regimes and the worst trends."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html

Bush's Crimes
"Impeach the president? Yes. A well-documented case ties him to Abu Ghraib."
Bob Norman, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Florida, 30 November 2004
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-09-30/news/norman.html

Insane reality spins the head
Jimmy Breslin, Newsday.com, 10 October 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/ny-nybres104001677oct10,0,2659563.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets
of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 11 October 2004
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml

President Bush Unfit to Command
Yoshi Tsurumi [Bush's former professor]
Japanese Institute of Global Communications, 7 October 2004
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/colloquium/20041007_tsurumi_president/index.html

TV channels to rubbish Kerry on eve of poll
Julian Borger, The Guardian, 12 October 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1325120,00.html

Japan mulls multicultural dawn
Sarah Buckley, BBC News Online, 5 October 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3708098.stm

5. BAGHDAD CONFIDENTIAL
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/10/08/e_fassihi.html
"Can a journalist be too truthful?" That's a question that some
media pundits are asking after Farnaz Fassihi, the Wall Street
Journal's Middle East correspondent, sent a private email to
friends with an unusually candid description of the deteriorating
U.S. control over Iraq and the dangers of doing her job there. A
copy of her email began circulating on the internet. "One could
argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation," she wrote. "For
those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing
could  salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of
terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as
a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a
bottle." Shortly after the email became public, Los Angeles Times
reporter Tim Rutten spoke with two Wall Street Journal reporters,
who told him that the paper has responded by forbidding Fassihi to
write about Iraq for the paper until after the election,
"presumably because unauthorized publication of her private
correspondence somehow called into question the fairness of her
journalism" -- even though other journalists in Iraq privately
share her assessment. Journalism professor Jay Rosen has reviewed
the subsequent pundit fuss and asks the obvious question: "Why
can't reporters on the ground occasionally speak to the 'public'
like this one occasionally spoke to her friends?"
SOURCE: PressThink, October 8, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097208003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097208003

Thought you might be interested in this and it's at the Foreign Correspondents' Club:

Ghosts and Ghouls are in the Air!

The 14th eigoTown/ELT News international party will be held on Saturday, October 30th in Tokyo. Over 300 people, a good mix of Japanese and foreign, male and female, is expected at the prestigious Foreign Correspondents' Club in Yurakucho.

Of course, the theme of the party is Halloween - come in fancy dress and you'll get ¥1,000 off the admission price!
• Date: Saturday, October 30th
• Time: 6.30pm - 9.00pm
• Admission: ¥4,000 (includes beer, wine, beverages, food and snacks)

Read more details here: http://www.eltnews.com/party/

As the bible belt says:Treat others as you would have yourself treated:


In other words: American suspects in world terror can also disappear and also be held responsible for atrocities against humanity. It's simply tit for tat. Who is responsible for disappearances in custody- well the commander in chief comes to mind.


New York — At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have “disappeared” in U.S. custody, and some may have been tortured, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday.

The prisoners are probably being held outside the United States without access to the Red Cross or any oversight of their treatment, the human rights group said. In some cases, the United States will not even acknowledge the prisoners are in custody.

The report said the prisoners include the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as well as Abu Zubaydah, who is believed to be a close aide to Osama bin Laden.

In refusing to disclose the prisoners' whereabouts or acknowledge the detentions, Human Rights Watch said, the U.S. government has violated international law, international treaties and the Geneva Convention. The group called on the government to bring all the prisoners “under the protection of the law.”

“I think the U.S. demeans itself when it adopts the philosophy that the ends justify the means in the fight against terror,” said Reed Brody, special counsel with Human Rights Watch.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency has not seen the report and declined to comment.

The report — titled “The United States' ‘Disappeared:' The CIA's Long-term ‘Ghost Detainees”' — said many of the prisoners have provided valuable intelligence to U.S. officials. But it also cited reports that some detainees have lied under pressure to please their interrogators.

Human Rights Watch has no firsthand knowledge of the treatment of these detainees. Much of the report stems from news accounts that have cited unidentified government sources acknowledging the torture or mistreatment of detainees.

The report provides a brief sketch of 11 detainees believed to be incommunicado in undisclosed locations. They hail from countries across the Arab world, including Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S. authorities have confirmed the detention of six of them, the report said.

CANADA CHURNS OUT NEW JOBS; UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS TO 7.1%
Canada's unemployment rate edged down to 7.1 per cent in September
- the lowest in more than three years - as the country
generated a better-than-expected 43,200 new jobs, Statistics Canada
reported Friday.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/jobless_041008.html

U.S. JOBS REPORT DISAPPOINTS
The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 per cent in September, as
96,000 jobs were added to payrolls, diappointing analysts who'd been
expecting 150,000 new jobs.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/USjobless_041008.html

SLOW PROGRESS IN IRAQ GUN AMNESTY
A five-day weapons-exchange program got off to a slow start in Baghdad's
Sadr City with Shia militiamen surrendering a handful of rusty old guns.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/11/alsadr_041011.html

The Americans are buying weapons from the rebels in Iraqi. They are paying $200 for an assualt rifle which sells for $45 to $75 in Iraqi. Do the math. They sell one to the Americans and are able to buy four or five new ones for them selves. Those boys in charge of the American operation sure are smart! Right?

Hi this might be a good place to start your research on the problems with nuclear power in Japan:Malfunction closes Tepco nuke reactor
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040930b3.htm
Story is due Tue. noon. See you next Thur. Clark

OK will see you all tomorrow. Here is another issue of Grist that I would like you to look at along with the previous posts that I have made over the summer vacation.Clark

From: grist@grist.org
Subject: DAILY GRIST, 28 Sep 2004
Date: September 29, 2004 4:44:23 AM JST
To: daily-grist@lists.grist.org

DAILY GRIST
28 Sep 2004
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE


HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAINFOREST? Send a question to a rainforest activist who's organizing indigenous folk.



1.
DEATH, BE NOT CLOUD
Asian Cloud menaces world's most populous continent

In the new book "Feeling the Heat," Jim Motavalli describes a phenomenon that's likely to give you nightmares. Seriously, just stop reading. Okay, we warned you: Hovering in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and other Asian waters, and covering some 10 million square miles, is the Asian Cloud. This dense conglomeration of pollution bits curtails the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface, playing havoc with photosynthesis and disrupting natural hydrological cycles. It absorbs heat, warming the atmosphere. It drops to the earth as acid rain. It is expected to adversely affect the lives of up to a billion people. And, oh yeah: Given the right wind patterns, it can travel around the globe in a week. Sweet dreams! Read about this climatology-via-Stephen-King phenomenon in an excerpt in Books Unbound -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

today in Grist: An excerpt from "Feeling the Heat: Dispatches From the Frontlines of Climate Change" -- by Jim Motavalli




2.
GO WEST, YOUNG POLLUTOCRAT!
Bush administration makes big push for oil and gas drilling in West

With unprecedented speed, the Bush administration has opened vast swaths of environmentally sensitive land in the West to oil and gas drilling -- this by-now-familiar story is told comprehensively in articles in The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. The situation is summed up by Dave Alberswerth, former Clinton adviser and now a lobbyist for The Wilderness Society: "They haven't changed any statutes. They haven't changed any regulations. But they've changed a whole lot of practices and policies without any real public scrutiny." Bureau of Land Management employees are now rewarded for speeding through approval of leases for energy companies, which in many cases are writing land-use plans themselves. Opposition is spreading from environmentalists to traditionally conservative ranchers, hunters, and anglers. Bush administration officials deny that they're damaging wild areas, but they happily concede that the balance for "multiple-use" areas has been moved toward resource extraction.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Joby Warrick and Juliet Eilperin, 25 Sep 2004


straight to the source: The Seattle Times, Craig Welch, 26 Sep 2004




3.
BAKED ALASKANS
Global warming is destroying Eskimo villages

While debates over the "precautionary principle" and economic tradeoffs take place down in the cozy lower 48, global warming is entirely less abstract to Inupiaq Eskimos on the coast of Alaska. They're not so much worried about losing jobs as losing, well, their villages. The annual mean air temperature in Alaska has risen 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 30 years, the warm season now starts earlier and finishes later, and Arctic Ocean ice has shrunk 5 to 10 percent, making ice fishing more difficult, among other problems. In spots, the coastline is disappearing -- some villages have lost up to 300 feet. Many villages are facing the ultimate decision: "Is it practical to stand and fight our Mother Ocean? Or do we surrender and move?" asks Edith Vorderstrasse, mayor of Barrow, Alaska. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study estimated that relocating one small village of 380 people, Kivalina, would cost $100 million to $400 million -- at the top end, more than $1 million a head. If that sounds forbidding, ponder for a moment the cost of relocating, say, San Francisco.

straight to the source: Time Magazine, Margot Roosevelt, 27 Sep 2004




4.
WHEN GEEKS ATTACK
Another group of scientists to campaign against Bush

Scientists and Engineers for Change, a 527 advocacy group unveiled yesterday, plans to send scientists on speaking gigs in swing states to argue that the Bush administration disregards and distorts science -- in many cases, science relating to serious environmental problems. "We must begin to address climate change now. To do so, we must have an administration that listens to the scientific community, not one that manipulates and minimizes scientific input," said Nobel Prize winner Douglas D. Osheroff. Osheroff is one of 10 Nobel winners who will join others in giving talks on what they see as the Bush administration's manipulation of science in areas from stem-cell research to energy. The normally nonpartisan scientific community has seen unprecedented mobilization against Bush this year, including a letter endorsing John Kerry signed by a group of 48 Nobel winners and a campaign spearheaded by the Union of Concerned Scientists that accuses Bush of politicizing science.

straight to the source: The New York Times, Kenneth Chang, 28 Sep 2004




5.
CREATURE COMFORTS
A new push for protecting sharks and lions

Despite the relative infrequency of its attacks on humans, the great white shark has achieved a fearsome reputation, thanks largely to the 1975 film "Jaws." Viewed with trepidation and fascination, it is now a prized catch for trophy hunters, who sell its jaws and teeth at great profit. Similarly prized by hunters is the African lion, a formidable cat whose fame has almost nothing to do with the 1996 film "The Ghost and the Darkness." Both predators' numbers are rapidly dwindling. Countries that prize the animals -- Australia and Madagascar for the sharks, Kenya for the lions -- are seeking to have them added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), signatories to which are meeting this week. Both additions face opposition from countries that favor instead stronger national protective measures (and that happen to benefit from trophy hunting).

straight to the source: Terra Daily, Agence France-Presse, 28 Sep 2004


straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Reuters, C. Bryson Hull, 28 Sep 2004


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Also in GRIST MAGAZINE:

Ay, There's the Stub -- On recycling pencil stubs -- in Ask Umbra

This is a good book review on what journalism is and maybe isn't. Run on September 18 in the UK paper the Spectator.


BOOKS
Master of most
Alexander Chancellor
MY TRADE
By Andrew Marr
Macmillan, £20, pp.391, ISBN:140500536X

Andrew Marr is a great adornment to his — our — trade. He is terribly clever and well-read, and I am sure he could have done something serious and useful with his life. But he decided early on that journalism was the thing for him.

Despite his first-class degree in English at Cambridge, it quickly dawned on him that he wasn’t really qualified for any profession. ‘I was a scientifically illiterate innocent with the entrepreneurial instincts of a 13th-century peasant and the iron determination of a butterfly,’ he writes. ‘Journalism seemed the only option.’

But surely his instinct must also have told him that journalism was a field in which he would excel. He was gregarious, inquisitive, perceptive, energetic, and deft with his pen. He was also a natural showman and communicator who seemed, when the moment came, to have been cut out for his role as a star of BBC television.

Even his looks have been an asset in this job. He dwells with relish on his physiognomic disadvantages:
The ears reach out like large red satellite dishes, the cheeks are covered with lines and rashes caused by decades of overwork and overindulgence; and if I dare to smile widely, it looks less like a friendly act than a record of bomb damage in the Blitz.
But one should take the self-deprecation that permeates this book with a pinch of salt. Marr must know that television viewers prefer interesting, animated faces to dull, handsome ones; and he has even become something of a popular sex symbol, in common with his supposed look-alike, Vladimir Putin.

Although he is only in his mid-forties, there isn’t much in journalism that Andrew Marr hasn’t done:
I have been a trainee hack, a general reporter, a sub-editor, a parliamentary reporter, a political journalist, a radio presenter, a broadsheet and a tabloid columnist, a hilariously inexperienced newspaper editor, an author of books, a maker of TV documentary and interview series, and am now, as the BBC’s political editor, a television reporter.
One of the few things he hasn’t done is to be a foreign correspondent, which may be one of the reasons why he admires foreign correspondents more than any other kind of journalist. But this may also be because he thinks of them as the purest kind of journalist, those least liable to corruption by the pressures — from proprietors, managers, editors, politicians, and PR operatives — to which their home-based colleagues are subjected.

In an age in which journalists are reputed to be held in lower esteem even than politicians and estate agents (though Mr Marr has dug up an opinion poll suggesting that this is not the case — that only tabloid journalists are viewed with such contempt), he articulates with great verve and clarity why he thinks that British journalism is wonderful, even at its most feckless. He is dismissive of the pomposity of ‘responsible’ American journalism.        

And he is strikingly generous about his colleagues — drunk or sober, talented or witless. He sees some point in nearly all of them. The only exceptions seem to be those associated with his brief, unhappy time as editor of the Independent, a job from which he was brutally sacked by fax. This was clearly a traumatic episode, the one big setback in his otherwise triumphant career; and although he stresses his own inadequacies as an editor, you don’t quite believe that he means it. (Nor should he: he was rather good.)

The man responsible for his defenestration, David Montgomery, the ‘lean, dry, sarcastic Ulster Protestant’, then head of the Mirror Group, which owned half the Independent at the time, is not flatteringly portrayed:
One of the excellent editors he sacked said of Montgomery that ‘what he did showed a breathtaking disregard for keeping his word and a merciless savagery unheard of even by Fleet Street’s bloodsoaked and hypocritical standards’, though some of us would put it a little more strongly than that.
He also refers to Janet Street-Porter, who after his time edited the Independent on Sunday, as ‘dreadful’, and to his ultimate successor as editor of the daily newspaper, Simon Kelner, as ‘not my cup of tea’. But practically every other journalist he mentions, and there are many, is depicted favourably. His greatest heroes are the late James Cameron, the foreign correspondent he never was, and Harold Evans, the successful editor he never was, either. He admires them for their courage, integrity, independence, skill and industry.

And here’s a dichotomy. While Marr waxes romantic about the raffish side of Fleet Street, and even portrays himself as part of it, it is ‘responsible’ journalism that he really admires — the conscientious and honest reporting of facts.

He is right to say that good reporting is the essence of journalism, but it is striking that in his survey of the modern journalistic scene he doesn’t mention stars such as Craig Brown and Auberon Waugh whose talents are and were of a different kind, but prodigious nonetheless.

This, however, is an excellent and enjoyable book. It is not only cheering for any journalist to read — one to boost his self-esteem when he is feeling down — but it is also, for anyone interested, an invaluable guide to the curious ways and practices of the journalistic trade by a shrewd and gifted writer who has been there, done it, and knows what he’s talking about.

Slant, Spin or just plain fiction??:
Newspapers accused of misusing word 'terrorist'
Last Updated Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:19:45 EDT

OTTAWA - Canada's largest newspaper chain, CanWest Global, is being criticized over its use of the word "terrorist" in stories about the Middle East.

The owner of the National Post and dozens of other papers across Canada is being accused of inappropriately inserting the word into newswire copy dealing with the Middle East, thereby changing the meaning of those stories.

One of the world's leading news agencies, Reuters, said CanWest newspapers has been altering words and phrases in its stories dealing with the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reuters told CBC News it would complain to CanWest about the issue.

The global managing editor for Reuters, David Schlesinger, called such changes unacceptable. He said CanWest had crossed a line from editing for style to editing the substance and slant of news from the Middle East.

"If they want to put their own judgment into it, they're free to do that, but then they shouldn't say that it's by a Reuters reporter," said Schlesinger.

As an example, Schlesinger cited a recent Reuters story, in which the original copy read: "...the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank."

In the National Post version of the story, printed Tuesday, it became: "...the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel."

Neither the National Post nor CanWest returned calls.

But the Ottawa Citizen, another CanWest paper, has admitted to making erroneous changes in a story about Iraq from another leading news agency.

Last week, the Citizen inserted the word "terrorist" seven times into an Associated Press story on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where Iraqi insurgents have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces.

In an interview, Ottawa Citizen editor Scott Anderson conceded fighters in Fallujah were not terrorists but said CanWest has a policy of renaming some groups as terrorists.

He added the paper had applied that term primarily to Arab groups, and that mistakes had been made occasionally.

However, Anderson said he did not believe the paper had a duty to inform its readers when it changed words.

"We're editing for style...," he said. "We're editing so that we have clear consistent language to describe what's going on in the world. And if we've made a mistake, we should correct that. And we will."

In response to a letter published Friday about the Fallujah article, the Citizen wrote: "The changes to the Associated Press story do not reflect Citizen policy, which is to use the term 'terrorist' to describe someone who deliberately targets civilians. As such, the changes to the Associated Press story were made in error."

Riad Saloojee, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, says the organization wants Canadian press watchdogs to investigate CanWest.

"We're going to be asking the Ontario Press Council to investigate exactly the extent of this policy across the country in other CanWest publications," said Saloojee.

This little item is from the New York Times. Why is it the very worst kind of News Reporting and Journalism in gerneral?;

On Sept. 17, 1862, Union forces hurled back a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. During the battle, 23,100 were killed, wounded or captured, making it the bloodiest day in United States military history.

Japanese often ask the question "Why don't the Chinese, or the Koreans like us?"
Perhaps here is one of the answers:


Vet refuses to take Unit 731 to his grave
Teen recruit for Japan's atrocity machine airs conscience as time gets short

By ERIC TALMADGE

YOKAICHIBA, Chiba Pref. (AP) Yoshio Shinozuka sits on the wooden steps of an old Buddhist temple just down the road from his home and the place where he will be buried

Yoshio Shinozuka speaks about the Imperial Japanese Army's infamous Unit 731 at a temple near his home in Yokaichiba, Chiba Prefecture.


Surrounded by pine trees and rice paddies, the temple is quiet save for the incessant buzzing of cicadas.

Frail and fast approaching his 83rd birthday, he points to a small cemetery guarded by a statue of the Goddess of Mercy that will be his final resting place. "I've already chosen the plot," he said.

Shinozuka has had a lot of time to reflect on his youth, and his memories of those days are crystal clear. But they are laced with poison.

A member of Unit 731 in northeast China in the 1930s and '40s, Shinozuka belonged to perhaps the most advanced biological weapons operation of its time. As a teenager, he participated in atrocities -- vivisections and other experiments on humans -- that for millions of Chinese epitomize Japan's Imperial rampage through Asia.

Conservative estimates place the number of the unit's victims in the thousands -- as many as 250,000, some historians believe.

For many years, Japan's government denied Unit 731 existed.

In a landmark ruling in 2002, a Japanese court finally acknowledged the unit's operations caused "immense" suffering and were "clearly inhumane." But like previous courts, it said the government had no legal obligation to atone to the victims.

As far as many Asians are concerned, Japan has never faced up to its past. The war remains an open wound deeply affecting its relations with its neighbors.

Shinozuka, however, has devoted himself to making amends.

He testified on behalf of his Chinese victims. He has written a book for schoolchildren. In 1998, he tried to speak at peace conferences in the United States and Canada -- but immigration inspectors turned him away as a war criminal.

He accepts that label.

"It took me a long time to get beyond the excuse that I was just following orders," he said. "I was doing what I was told. And I might very well have been killed had I disobeyed. But what we did was so terrible that I should have refused, even if that meant my own death.

"But I didn't do that. And I will never be forgiven."



Teen took recruiter's bait
In February 1939, as Japan's war machine was devouring China, a recruiter came to Shinozuka's rural high school, dressed in an army aviator's uniform and promising a bright future for those who signed up. There would be college scholarships and possible careers in medicine or aviation, lots of travel, the satisfaction of serving the Emperor.

"We were all impressed," Shinozuka recalled. "It seemed like quite an opportunity."

Shinozuka aced the examination. "I think everybody passed that test," he said. "It was very easy."

He was 15 years old.

Two months later, he was ordered to join Unit 731 of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army and was shipped off to its sprawling headquarters in the city of Pingfan, just outside Harbin in Japan-controlled northeast China.

"The idea was that we would be responsible for providing our soldiers with safe drinking water," he said.

As a civilian with the unit's youth corps, Shinozuka spent most of his time in a classroom learning about basic medicine, sanitation and the spread of germs.

In spring 1940, he was given a more hands-on mission.

"Our unit was raising fleas and infecting them with the plague," he said. "My job was to see that they had live rats to grow on."

It was a simple operation -- the rats and their fleas, along with grains of wheat, were kept in small cages in a dark room. When a rat died, the fleas would naturally move away from its corpse and were then corralled by carefully placed red lights through a bathtub into a glass cylinder attached to the drain.

"What happened to the fleas next wasn't our concern," he said.

But soon after Shinozuka got his new assignment, Chinese began dying of the plague.

According to documents filed by a group of Chinese victims with the Tokyo District Court in the 2002 compensation suit, Japanese military planes on the morning of Oct. 4, 1940, dropped wheat with plague-infected fleas over the city of Quxian.

Despite intense efforts by townspeople to burn the infected materials, at least two dozen deaths from bubonic plague were reported there by year's end. A railroader infected by the Quxian strain then spread the disease to Yiwu, where more than 300 died. Hundreds more plague deaths followed in nearby areas.

In November 1941, Unit 731 aircraft also dropped cotton, grains and other flea-infested materials on the town of Changde, causing two outbreaks -- the second beginning the following spring when infected rats became active after surviving the winter. Overall, as many as 7,643 died.

"I never asked why we did what we did," Shinozuka said. "Nobody did. We weren't given any time to think about what we were doing. And there was an unspoken rule to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. But there is no doubt in my mind that what the Chinese say is true."



Advanced atrocities
Shinozuka's studies continued.

Back in the classroom, he learned about the mass production of typhus, cholera, anthrax, dysentery. Then, in 1942, he was given another task -- prepping plague-infected people to be cut up alive.

Prisoners were infected so that the unit could study the progress and potency of their biological weapons. Samples removed from the prisoners were used to produce more bacteria.

"The first time, my legs were shaking so badly I could hardly stand up," Shinozuka said.

He knew the person on the operating table.

"I'd seen him a few times," he said. "He seemed like an intellectual. He wasn't even 30. But by the time he was brought in to the dissection room, he was so black with the plague that he looked like a different person. He was clearly on the verge of death."

In a tiled operating room, Shinozuka cleaned the victim with a scrub brush, front then back, then dried him off. Another man used a stethoscope to make sure the victim was still alive and then assisted a third man who quickly but methodically cut the victim open and removed his organs.

"We were told that it was crucial to extract the specimens before putrefaction had time to set in and contaminate our research," Shinozuka said. "The room didn't have a clock, but I guess the operations took about four hours. I will never forget the feeling of being there."

Shinozuka personally participated in three more vivisections.

"We called the victims 'logs,' " he said. "We didn't want to think of them as people. We didn't want to admit that we were taking lives. So we convinced ourselves that what we were doing was like cutting down a tree. When you see someone in that state, you just can't move. Your mind goes blank. The fear is overwhelming."

Shinozuka was now 20 years old.

The next year, he was formally drafted into the army.

When the war ended in August 1945, Shinozuka was a lance corporal with a medical unit near the Korean border.



'Re-educated' by China
Separated from his superiors in the chaos of defeat, he was caught up in the Chinese civil war and imprisoned for a year by Mao Zedong's communists. When he got out, many of his countrymen had been repatriated. Alone and forgotten, he had nowhere to go.

"But the People's Liberation Army took me in," he said. "They treated me well, and I enjoyed serving with them."

After six years, his past with Unit 731 was discovered. He was sent to a re-education camp, where he remained until 1956. Oddly enough, he said, he has fond memories of his detention there.

"The camp was built by the Japanese, and it was quite spacious and comfortable," he said. "We ate better than the guards. They showed us movies and played music for us. We were allowed to play sports. It was much better than life in Pingfan."

In the camp, Shinozuka began to reflect on his actions with Unit 731.

"I began to be a human again," he said. "Had they been harsh with me, I might have gone into my shell. But they treated me as a person, and I had to think of them as people. I began to think of the victims as people, too."

Shinozuka said that although he initially lied about his Unit 731 activities, saying he was researching new vaccines, he gradually began confessing the truth.

"I don't think they had much use for what I was telling them," he said. "But they sent me home with a pardon. I was never charged."

Every May, a couple dozen of Shinozuka's comrades from the re-education camp join him at the temple in Yokaichiba, about 100 km east of Tokyo. Near the Shinozuka family plot, they have built a simple stone monument to Japan's Chinese victims.

"We express our bottomless gratitude to the Chinese people, and our deepest apologies," the monument says.



Some rose to prominence
Of the 1,109 prisoners returned from the camp in 1956, few if any were Unit 731 members. Those unit leaders who made it back to Japan were spared prosecution in exchange for turning over information to the U.S. One rose to prominence in Japan's pharmaceutical industry. Others went to work for the health ministry.

Back in Japan, but with no home to return to, Shinozuka worked a local government job until retirement.

Though he often wanted to tell his story, "No one wanted to hear what I was saying," he said. "The Japanese prefer to think of themselves as victims in the war. Even the peace movement people told me that talking about Japan's role as an aggressor wasn't constructive.

"But I couldn't let this piece of history remain in the dark."

In 1997, the year he raised the monument, he testified on behalf of the 180 Chinese suing Japan for redress. The court denied their claim and they appealed on Sept. 2. Shinozuka hopes to be healthy enough to attend the hearings.

In recent years he has visited China often and has been back to Unit 731's former headquarters -- now a museum.

"The Chinese have been very generous with me," he said. "They tell me that I, too, am a victim."

The Japan Times: Sept. 17, 2004

Those who fight the truth and the real news:
. NUTRI-WASHING JUNK FOOD
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/08/EDGLE8JMHR1.DTL
"Years ago, the environmental movement coined the term
"greenwashing" to describe how corporations use public relations to
make themselves appear environmentally friendly. Now, nutrition
advocates need their own moniker for a similar trend among major
food companies - call it 'nutri-washing,'" writes Michele Simon, a
public health lawyer and director of the Center for Informed Food
Choices. "Some nutrition advocates have applauded such efforts as
an attempt by industry to make improvements, however minor. But to
praise companies for such 'reforms' too easily rewards them with
the positive public-relations spin they seek. Also, these voluntary
actions deliberately attempt to deflect any mandatory government
regulations - for, as we are starting to learn, voluntary acts can
easily be rescinded. ... Moreover, these PR efforts don't tell the
whole story. Behind the scenes, industry is lobbying hard to
undermine public-health advocacy, especially that aimed at
improving the nutrition environment of public schools."
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, September 8, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094616003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094616003

What is freedom of speech? How free are you to speak what you think and believe? Of course the first step is knowing what you think and believe. Do you know what you think? Or are you just following the lemmings? At any rate read this and think about it:
POSTED AT 5:30 AM EDT
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

By JOE FRIESEN
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail


Adbusters, the Vancouver-based alternative media organization, is suing Canada's major television networks for refusing to broadcast advertisements that criticize consumerism.

It has hired prominent civil-rights lawyer Clayton Ruby to act as counsel in this case, which it describes as the opening salvo in a war for greater media democracy.

"For the last 10 years I've been trying to buy air time and by and large I've been unable to do that," said Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters magazine.


"I think it's a violation of my right to freedom of speech."


The lawsuit, which was filed in Ontario Superior Court, names the CBC, CanWest Global, Bell Globemedia and CHUM Ltd. as respondents.


It also names the Government of Canada in its role as regulator of the airwaves.


Adbusters is seeking a declaration from the courts under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that the broadcasters have infringed on its right to freedom of expression.


It hopes the court will force the networks to accept its ads.


The 10 ads, or "social marketing spots," submitted to the networks were all approved by Telecaster Services, a branch of the Television Bureau of Canada that acts as a guardian of good taste.


They include a spot promoting Buy Nothing Day, one that criticizes violence on TV, and one that points out how much fat is contained in a McDonald's Big Mac.


A CBC spokeswoman said its lawyers are considering their legal options.


In an e-mail, a CTV spokesman said the network told Mr. Lasn in April that it was prepared to air three of his commercials, but that it reserved the right to refuse the others on the grounds that they were bad for business.


"The idea of a TV executive lording it over me and telling me what I can and cannot say, it violates my democratic principles," Mr. Lasn said.


Transcripts of Adbusters' conversations with TV executives are included in the legal filing. In one case, a CHUM representative is quoted as saying the ads "were so blatantly against television and that is our entire core business. . . . You know we can't be selling our airtime and then telling people to turn their TVs off."


Another executive at CTV said the idea of Buy Nothing Day would go over "like a lead balloon" with major retail advertisers.


Adbusters first launched a legal challenge to get its television spots on the air in 1995. The suit wound its way through the British Columbia courts after the CBC terminated an advertising contract because an anti-car ad caused automobile advertisers to complain. The case eventually fizzled out when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear it.


But this time, with Mr. Ruby as counsel, Mr. Lasn believes his group has a better case.


Mr. Ruby cites as precedent a Supreme Court ruling from 2002 in which the court protected the right to counter-advertising that criticizes a product or service.


In the judgment, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel wrote that "this type of communication may be of considerable importance even beyond the merely commercial sphere. It is a form of expression of opinion that has an important effect on the social and economic life of a society. It is a right not only of consumers, but of citizens."


Mr. Ruby said Adbusters merely wants to present the other side of the argument on airwaves that are inundated with messages promoting consumerism.


"This is a public space which the government regulates," Mr. Ruby said. "Given that [the government] have monopolized it, they have an obligation to guarantee freedom of expression."


Most major networks in the United States have rejected Adbusters spots. But CNN has aired several over the past five years, which were paid for by donations made through the Adbusters website.


Mr. Lasn said he plans a court challenge later this year if U.S. networks continue to refuse his business.


But first, Canada has a historic opportunity to become the first country that "opens its airwaves and gives citizens the right to communicate," he said.

Here is a great guide to how to comunicate with a columnist about their column:
Sept. 7, 2004
Notes on Reader Feedback

Sunday's column was my annual look back at the past year's reviews, focusing on some of the key developments that occurred in everything from digital music to Internet telephony to the Service Pack 2 upgrade to Windows XP. The purpose, as I noted in print, is to revisit some of the bigger issues facing technology consumers and see if any of my earlier thoughts are in need of revisiting. Check out the column here.

For the next week, I'll be doing something unnatural but thoroughly necessary: Taking my hands off the keyboard while enjoying a belated, badly needed vacation.

I expect to pay for this with a backlog of e-mail messages. Knowing how I work, I will read all of them and answer most of them in one way or another. It's just part of the job. I can't consider any review truly complete until I've heard from readers who have tried the same product; if their experiences depart radically from mine, I might have to take a second look to see what I missed.

I can't imagine doing this job without that kind of feedback -- the only really bad column is the one that gets no reader response at all.

However ... how can I put this politely? Not all of the mail I get is equally helpful. What I'd like to offer here is some advice, based on my own thoroughly unscientific and subjective experience, on how to communicate effectively with reporters -- or at least me.

First, the basics: Use a subject header that clearly communicates a) what you're writing about, and b) that you're not just another spammer. In other words, don't use a blank header, don't type in all caps or all lower case, and please don't use multiple exclamation points. I'd hate to trash your message by mistake, or have my mail program do that for me.
* If you're writing to say "great job:"


I won't complain! But don't be surprised if these e-mails get the briefest of replies: "thanks for the kind words" or "you're welcome." Time's short, and messages that don't invite an argument or request further information are the most likely to get a generic response. (That's right; I'll spend more time dealing with a hostile reply than a friendly one. Sick, eh?)

If you're writing a letter to the editor and are just cc'ing me on it, I'm probably not going to reply. Nothing personal -- just trying to conserve my time.
* If you're writing to say what an uninformed hack I am:


Hey, go right ahead. No reporter likes being told that he or she got it wrong, but if nobody told us that, the error would never get corrected. It'd live on in databases and the Web site to lead readers -- and other reporters -- astray for all time. Not good karma.

Obviously, if you can do this without gratuitously insulting my intelligence or ethics, I will be better able to deal with the substance of your message. Bonus points if you can point me to a source that proves what the story should have said -- a Web page or a story elsewhere.

On the other hand, messages that only consist of generic insults won't get any kind of a constructive response. And if a message looks like it's part of a letter-writing campaign, it's hard for me to give it much credibility. If somebody can't spent more than a minute to craft a concise note, I probably can't either.

Finally, you're welcome to vent to me about how our Web site looks or works, but I don't work there and I have no special influence on the people who do. All I can do is point you to washingtonpost.com's extensive help/reader feedback page.
* If you're writing to ask me a question:


Please realize that some queries are answer-proof. Asking me "what's a good computer for a student" is like asking our restaurant critic "what's a good restaurant in Fairfax County." Those are impossibly vague questions -- I can't begin to answer it without quizzing you at great length over what you're looking to do with that computer, what your preferences are like and so on.

The more specific your question, the better. If you're looking for advice on which of two different models of laptop to buy, I can probably provide some worthwhile guidance. If you cite the exact text of the error message you see, I've got a better shot at figuring out what might have gone wrong. If you tell me what you want to do with a particular gadget and how much you want to spend, I can offer more useful advice.

I try to answer mail as quickly as I can, but if you need a response immediately you're probably not going to get it from me. Sorry. Answering e-mail is something I do when time permits, not in place of reporting, writing and editing. For about the same reason, I'm less likely to answer a second or third e-mail from a reader on the same subject if—as always seems the case -- I have 30 other messages from other people to answer.

Anything I left out? Stop by next week for my next Web chat, or drop me an e-mail at the address below.

-- Rob Pegoraro (rob@twp.com)

Let's talk about spin in the first class back. What does spin mean. I'll try and get the video "Wag the Dog" to help demonstrate the concept and you should read the following:
All the President's Spin


By Ben Fritz and Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan, AlterNet. Posted September 7, 2004.



A new book studies the way that the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.






Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from 'All the President's Spin,' by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan.

Bush’s White House has broken new ground in its press relations strategy, exploiting the weaknesses and failings of the political media more systematically than any of its predecessors. The administration combines tight message discipline and image management – Reagan’s trademarks – with the artful use of half- or partial truths and elaborate news management – Clinton’s specialties – in a combination that is near-lethal for the press.

These techniques are effective precisely because they prey on four key weaknesses of contemporary journalism. First and foremost, reporters are constrained by the norm of objectivity, which frequently causes them to avoid evaluating the truth of politicians’ statements. In addition, because reporters are dependent upon the White House for news, the administration can shape the coverage it receives by restricting the flow of information to the press. The media are also vulnerable to political pressure and reprisal, which the Bush White House has aggressively dished out against critical journalists. Finally, the press’ unending pursuit of scandal and entertaining news often blinds it to serious issues of public policy.

By aggressively deploying its communications strategy against a media establishment wary of giving credence to charges of liberal bias and fearful of challenging a self-described “war president” after Sept. 11, Bush has successfully dissembled about public policy on a far more consistent basis than his predecessors. Do President Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the wealthy or the middle class? Was there clear evidence that Iraq was attempting to produce nuclear weapons or was connected to al Qaeda? What role have tax cuts played in the recent growth of federal budget deficits? There are answers to all of these questions, but the media are frequently reluctant to point out the misinformation in Bush’s statements about such controversial policy issues. By using every advantage it can muster against the media, the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.

The Weaknesses of “Objective” Journalism

The gold standard of American journalism has long been “objective” reporting. Journalists at news outlets are expected to present the public with an unbiased account of the facts rather than their own views on the issue at hand. This is a laudable goal, but the expectation that reporters will present both sides of the story too often translates into the mistaken belief that they should refuse to sort out competing factual claims. This is the media’s greatest weakness in dealing with political dishonesty.

While the press generally does a reasonable job of pointing out the most blatant instances of political deception, reporters attempting to remain objective often fail to evaluate claims that are misleading but not obviously wrong. This is especially true when it comes to politicians who are generally seen as honest. As a result, Bush has frequently gotten away with misleading claims and language. Perversely, this strategy of dissembling and denial leaves journalists in the position of appearing to be “taking sides” if they point out deception.

The pressure to remain objective frequently reduces reporters to little more than stenographers transcribing the latest spin from politicians. Rather than sort out competing factual claims, they typically give equal play to both sides – even if one is misleading. This “he said/she said” form of journalism allows politicians to enter deceptive statements into the public record and leaves citizens with little or no basis to evaluate the truth of the matter at hand.

Coverage of the debate over the war in Iraq provides a particularly telling example of this sort of thinking. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has come under fire for her generally credulous reporting about the Bush administration’s case for war, told Michael Massing of the New York Review of Books, “My job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.” (Miller later claimed in a letter to the editor that she had actually stated, “I could not be an independent intelligence agency.” Massing disputed that claim, stating he read Miller her quote for approval and the reporter signed off.)

In a May 12, 2004, interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, veteran journalist Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, expressed similar deference to the claims of government leaders. When asked by host Chris Matthews whether journalists had explored the issue of how Iraqis would respond to Americans running their country after the war, he responded, “The word ‘occupation,’ keep in mind, Chris, was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was ‘liberation.’ This was a war of liberation, not a war of occupation. So as a consequence, those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation.” When Matthews asked why reporters weren’t able to go beyond the Bush administration’s framing of the war as one of “liberation,” the answer was astonishing: “It just didn’t occur to us,” Lehrer said. “We weren’t smart enough to do it.”

In fact, Miller and Lehrer’s job (and the job of other reporters) is to go beyond government claims and uncover the truth. Their statements demonstrate an all-too-typical reluctance to sort out the facts for readers and a deference to authority that is troubling coming from any reporter, let alone two at prestigious national news outlets.

Reporters’ Dependence on the White House

The nature of the White House beat is that reporters depend on the officials they cover for access and information. If the administration decides to stonewall them, there is often little they can do. By controlling the flow of information available to the press, the White House can shape news coverage. Despite the media’s tendency to focus on negative stories, the absence of damaging information usually preempts critical coverage and creates a news vacuum that reporters must fill. If they are offered nothing other than the White House’s chosen message of the day, coverage tends to focus on that message.

To fill the news vacuum, the Bush administration offers reporters an unending supply of carefully scripted talking points, a standard public relations tactic that the White House has elevated to an art. When talking points are all officials will repeat, it gives reporters literally nothing else to quote.

For instance, during the July 2003 controversy over Bush’s claim that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley pounded the spin point that the statement in question was only “sixteen words” long, repeating it six times each during an interview on CNN and a press briefing, respectively. This focus on a scripted message often defeats reporters’ attempts to provide coverage of topics other than administration talking points.

Two internal memos from the Treasury Department’s public affairs staff to Secretary Paul O’Neill graphically illustrate the disciplined message that the administration tries to enforce.

First, to prepare O’Neill for a February 2001 press conference announcing the President’s fiscal year 2002 budget, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs Michele Davis wrote a memo telling O’Neill, “This event, more than anything you’ve participated in to date, requires that you be monotonously on-message.” Her advice was frank: “Roll-out events like this are the clearest examples of when staying on message is absolutely crucial. Any deviation during the unveiling of the budget will change the way coverage plays out from tomorrow forward. . . . Your remarks should be very focused and your answers during the Q and A should only repeat your remarks.” Davis’ comments demonstrate the strategic approach the Bush administration takes to its public statements.

The memo clearly had the desired effect on the often spontaneous O’Neill. During the press conference, the Secretary largely stuck to his message save for a testy exchange with reporters over the percentage of the tax cut going to the wealthiest Americans.

In a second memo to O’Neill, Davis gave him advice for a Jan. 6, 2002 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. This time, she encouraged him to aggressively insert the administration’s talking points into the interview. Davis advised O’Neill to disregard host Tim Russert almost entirely: “first answer, no matter the question: We must act to ensure our economy recovers and people get back to work.” She later stated that “You need to interject the President’s message, even if the question has nothing to do with that.”

As she predicted, Russert’s first question concerned the state of the economy, not Bush’s agenda. When the host asked, “How bad is this recession?” O’Neill gave a short answer before turning to his talking points as Davis suggested, saying, “We need to get people back to work in this economy.” The memo also listed “key lines” and “word choices,” such as “economic security” (a phrase O’Neill used five times), and advised him to say that “the terrorist attacks and the recession caused the deficit,” which he did. In this way, the administration turned the interview from a spontaneous exchange into something closer to a prepared speech.

The Bush White House’s philosophy that the media serve no particular democratic function guides its relationship with journalists. Because it sees them as a hostile force in search of the next headline, the administration has no reservations about employing an arsenal of public relations and news management tools to try to shape coverage. These include half-truths and strategically ambiguous language that are difficult for “objective” reporters to expose, relentless message discipline, restrictions on press interaction with Bush, direct pressure on journalists, and dishonesty about policy issues that the media find boring. By wielding these tactics against reporters reluctant to criticize the President after Sept. 11, Bush was able to neuter the press corps for most of his first three years in office.


Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan are founder-editors of Spinsanity.com, a nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to unspinning misleading claims from politicians, pundits and the press.

Telling the truth can be dangerouse: African Literature Association Reacts With Horror
http://www.africanlit.org/writingsandfreedom.html
'all people who support freedom of the press, women's rights, writer's rights to free expression need to be alarmed'

Journalists are responsible for freedom:Plan to Tame Journalists Just Stirs Them Up in Brazil
By LARRY ROHTER
Under the plan, a national journalists' council would be
empowered to "orient, discipline and monitor" journalists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/international/americas/06brazil.html?th

If everyday ordinary people cannot get the real story their freedoms are jeprodized. See you in a few weeks. Clark

Specialized Journalism:Doctors Without Behavioral Borders





THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.

Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.

The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.

However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)

Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?



he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)

As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.

Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.

Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.

If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.  

Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.

Specialized Journalism:Doctors Without Behavioral Borders





THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.

Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.

The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.

However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)

Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?



he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)

As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.

Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.

Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.

If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.  

Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.