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)
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
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.
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.
Monday, September 06, 2004
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
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
Sunday, September 05, 2004
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Hope your all having a good summer. Heres the lates selected items from Muckracker:
2.
DON'T ASK, DON'T SHELL
Nigeria Hits Shell With $1.5 Billion Pollution Claim
The Nigerian parliament has hit Shell with a $1.5 billion claim after the Ijaw tribe of the Niger Delta demanded compensation for health and economic hardship caused by the company's polluting operations. The oil giant admits to 262 oil spill incidents in Nigeria in 2002, and that same year it identified 548 sites in the country that needed "remedial" action to prevent contamination. And Shell's reputation as a polluter and violator of human rights in the country goes back even further, with the nadir having come in 1995, when the company failed to intervene as Nigeria's military dictatorship executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had led locals in the fight against Shell's destructive drilling practices. It's unclear whether the parliament's resolution carries the force of law. Shell is, as one might imagine, rather desperate to rehabilitate its public image in Nigeria.
straight to the source: The Guardian, Terry Macalister, 26 Aug 2004
3.
DISMISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
New U.S. Government Report Acknowledges Human-Caused Climate Change
President Bush famously dismissed a 2002 U.S. government report that acknowledged the human causes of climate change as something "put out by the bureaucracy." Well, it looks like the bureaucracy's at it again: A new administration report to Congress indicates that human production of heat-trapping greenhouse gases is likely behind the rapid climate change of the past three decades. According to James R. Mahoney, director of government climate research, the report reflects "the best possible scientific information" on climate change. The White House, which has regularly followed the lead of industry groups in emphasizing the uncertainty of climate science, may have difficulty dismissing this report, as it is signed by the secretaries of energy and commerce and Bush's top science adviser, but you never know.
straight to the source: The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 26 Aug 2004
straight to the report: Our Changing Planet
4.
SUNFLOWER POWER
Scientists Create Hydrogen Fuel from Sunflower Oil
British scientists have discovered a way to power cars with sunflower oil. While biodiesel cars that directly burn cooking oil are fairly common, researcher Valerie Dupont and her colleagues have something else in mind, as they reported this week at an American Chemical Society conference. They've figured out a way to use catalysts to extract pure hydrogen from a combination of air, water vapor, and sunflower oil. Hydrogen is frequently hailed as the clean fuel of the future, but most current methods of creating hydrogen burn the very fossil fuels responsible for pollution and greenhouse gases. Dupont's process could eventually use any vegetable oil and be miniaturized to the point that the converter could transform oil to hydrogen on the fly, in the car itself. Another researcher at the same conference claimed she was working on a process that could convert pure water directly to hydrogen using a catalyst and solar energy. For now, both veggie oil and water catalysts are prohibitively expensive, but still, maybe this whole hydrogen thing will work out after all.
straight to the source: BBC News, Richard Black, 26 Aug 2004
straight to the source: The Guardian, Tim Radford, 26 Aug 2004
2.
DON'T ASK, DON'T SHELL
Nigeria Hits Shell With $1.5 Billion Pollution Claim
The Nigerian parliament has hit Shell with a $1.5 billion claim after the Ijaw tribe of the Niger Delta demanded compensation for health and economic hardship caused by the company's polluting operations. The oil giant admits to 262 oil spill incidents in Nigeria in 2002, and that same year it identified 548 sites in the country that needed "remedial" action to prevent contamination. And Shell's reputation as a polluter and violator of human rights in the country goes back even further, with the nadir having come in 1995, when the company failed to intervene as Nigeria's military dictatorship executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had led locals in the fight against Shell's destructive drilling practices. It's unclear whether the parliament's resolution carries the force of law. Shell is, as one might imagine, rather desperate to rehabilitate its public image in Nigeria.
straight to the source: The Guardian, Terry Macalister, 26 Aug 2004
3.
DISMISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
New U.S. Government Report Acknowledges Human-Caused Climate Change
President Bush famously dismissed a 2002 U.S. government report that acknowledged the human causes of climate change as something "put out by the bureaucracy." Well, it looks like the bureaucracy's at it again: A new administration report to Congress indicates that human production of heat-trapping greenhouse gases is likely behind the rapid climate change of the past three decades. According to James R. Mahoney, director of government climate research, the report reflects "the best possible scientific information" on climate change. The White House, which has regularly followed the lead of industry groups in emphasizing the uncertainty of climate science, may have difficulty dismissing this report, as it is signed by the secretaries of energy and commerce and Bush's top science adviser, but you never know.
straight to the source: The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 26 Aug 2004
straight to the report: Our Changing Planet
4.
SUNFLOWER POWER
Scientists Create Hydrogen Fuel from Sunflower Oil
British scientists have discovered a way to power cars with sunflower oil. While biodiesel cars that directly burn cooking oil are fairly common, researcher Valerie Dupont and her colleagues have something else in mind, as they reported this week at an American Chemical Society conference. They've figured out a way to use catalysts to extract pure hydrogen from a combination of air, water vapor, and sunflower oil. Hydrogen is frequently hailed as the clean fuel of the future, but most current methods of creating hydrogen burn the very fossil fuels responsible for pollution and greenhouse gases. Dupont's process could eventually use any vegetable oil and be miniaturized to the point that the converter could transform oil to hydrogen on the fly, in the car itself. Another researcher at the same conference claimed she was working on a process that could convert pure water directly to hydrogen using a catalyst and solar energy. For now, both veggie oil and water catalysts are prohibitively expensive, but still, maybe this whole hydrogen thing will work out after all.
straight to the source: BBC News, Richard Black, 26 Aug 2004
straight to the source: The Guardian, Tim Radford, 26 Aug 2004
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Here's some more from the alternate press:
1. DISINFOPEDIA VERSUS SWIFT BOAT VETS AND OTHER FRONT GROUPS
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=swift+boat&btnG=Google+Search
Last year we launched the Disinfopedia, a "wiki" website designed
to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to help us investigate and
expose front groups and propaganda campaigns. The Disinfopedia is
an experiment in participatory investigative journalism, and the
experiment seems to be succeeding. One recent example is the
Disinfopedia listing for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Not only is
the Disinfopeda entry on the group extensive, up to date and well
documented, it's being widely read by thousands daily and it
appears at or near the top in Google. There will always be
propaganda and deception, but Disinfopedia is proving a powerful
tool for getting to the truth. We invite you to help us to
research, edit and write the Disinfopedia; click here to learn how
to get started.
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093406400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093406400
2. SECRET JUSTICE
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1183557.htm
After nearly three years of confinement at Guantanamo Bay,
Australian national David Hicks goes on trial for alleged terrorism
before a U.S. military court. "There'll be no pictures allowed of
David Hicks, no audio from the courtroom, no pictures of the
defence, prosecution or presiding officer entering the building,
and military camera operators will choose what images are broadcast
via closed circuit television to most journalists covering the
hearing," reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
According to reporter Leigh Sales, some of the restrictions on
press coverage "are bizarre and have no parallel. For example,
journalists in the courtroom can't use phone lines to file stories
during breaks in the proceedings. If you get up to go to the
toilet, you are then barred from the courtroom for the rest of the
day. ... Another restriction here, is that no sound or pictures
whatsoever will be taken of the military commissions, even though
they're one of the most important legal aspects of the Bush
administration's war on terrorism, and the first proceedings of
this kind since the Second World War."
SOURCE: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093320001
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093320001
3. SLICK - THE NOVEL
http://www.slicknovel.com/
Check out the new book SLICK by first-time novelist Daniel Price.
SLICK's anti-hero protagonist, Scott Singer, works "in the field of
perception management, although the less colorful term is 'media
manipulation.' We're the CIA of PR, the sublime little gremlins who
live just outside your senses, selling you products and concepts
without you even knowing. ... I've conspired with the gun people,
schemed with the liquor people, toiled for tobacco, and moiled for
Monsanto. I've pushed polluters and promoted porn. I've shilled for
Shell and lied for Tide. I've helped a major pharmaceutical company
sell a drug that does nothing by promoting a disease that doesn't
exist. And that's just the old stuff on my resume." Daniel Price is
both a brilliant novelist and a sharp media critic who also
publishes AbusedByTheNews.com, a website "dedicated to analyzing
the tricks, kinks and quirks of America's corporate news media."
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093320000
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093320000
4. SECONDHAND SMOKE SCREEN
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=220175&site=3
A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
finds that Philip Morris attempted to influence media coverage of
secondhand smoke. Citing internal industry documents, the study's
author, Dr. Richard Hunt, says the company and its PR firm,
Burson-Marsteller, made "a controversy out of secondhand smoke when
there wasn't any." Hurt also said Philip Morris gave "hundreds of
thousands of dollars" to training programs at the Herndon, VA-based
National Journalism Center. "Hurt said the funds went to support
speakers who would discount research on the dangers of secondhand
smoke," PR Week writes. "They also backed an internship program to
place reporters who supported the tobacco industry's position, Hurt
said."
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req'd), August 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093233601
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093233601
5. BUSH CAMPAIGN GRABS FOR IRAQI GOLD
http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1288686,00.html
George W. Bush's re-election campaign has been accused of
appropriating the Olympics for political means. A recent
Bush/Cheney advertisement that links Iraq's and Afghanistan's
participation in the Olympic games with the White House's "war on
terror" is drawing criticism. "To the embarrassment of their media
handlers in Athens, members of the Iraqi football team have reacted
furiously to the news that their efforts are being used to aid Mr
Bush's efforts to win a second term in the White House," The
Guardian reports. The team's coach, Adnan Hamd, told Sports
Illustrated magazine, "My problem is not with the American people.
They are with what America has done; destroyed everything. The
American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom
when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?" The
Guardian is also reporting that Bush may be "planning to visit
Athens later this week to watch some sporting events, including a
potential gold-medal winning bid by the Iraqi football team."
SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), August 23, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093233600
6. FULL COURT PRESS RELEASE
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19616/
"Over the past few weeks of Presidential WrestleMania MMIV, the
Bush campaign has fired off more than a dozen press releases about
John Kerry's policies on energy, nuclear-waste storage, forest and
water protections, and other environmental issues - a hodgepodge of
smears, exaggerations, and obfuscations intended to besmirch
Kerry's pro-environment reputation," Grist Magazine's Amanda
Griscom writes. Polls indicate that swing-state voters are
concerned about things like pollution and wilderness conservation,
prompting the Bush campaign to "neutralize" the environment as an
election issue. "They know they can't persuade voters that Bush is
good on the environment, so they're trying to create enough
confusion about Kerry's record that people decide it can't be the
issue that decides their vote," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club
executive director. "Most of the Bush team's environment-related
releases rely on one of two tired claims - that Kerry is a
flip-flopper, or that creating jobs and protecting the environment
are incompatible goals," Griscom writes.
SOURCE: Alternet, August 20, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1092974403
1. DISINFOPEDIA VERSUS SWIFT BOAT VETS AND OTHER FRONT GROUPS
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=swift+boat&btnG=Google+Search
Last year we launched the Disinfopedia, a "wiki" website designed
to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to help us investigate and
expose front groups and propaganda campaigns. The Disinfopedia is
an experiment in participatory investigative journalism, and the
experiment seems to be succeeding. One recent example is the
Disinfopedia listing for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Not only is
the Disinfopeda entry on the group extensive, up to date and well
documented, it's being widely read by thousands daily and it
appears at or near the top in Google. There will always be
propaganda and deception, but Disinfopedia is proving a powerful
tool for getting to the truth. We invite you to help us to
research, edit and write the Disinfopedia; click here to learn how
to get started.
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093406400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093406400
2. SECRET JUSTICE
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1183557.htm
After nearly three years of confinement at Guantanamo Bay,
Australian national David Hicks goes on trial for alleged terrorism
before a U.S. military court. "There'll be no pictures allowed of
David Hicks, no audio from the courtroom, no pictures of the
defence, prosecution or presiding officer entering the building,
and military camera operators will choose what images are broadcast
via closed circuit television to most journalists covering the
hearing," reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
According to reporter Leigh Sales, some of the restrictions on
press coverage "are bizarre and have no parallel. For example,
journalists in the courtroom can't use phone lines to file stories
during breaks in the proceedings. If you get up to go to the
toilet, you are then barred from the courtroom for the rest of the
day. ... Another restriction here, is that no sound or pictures
whatsoever will be taken of the military commissions, even though
they're one of the most important legal aspects of the Bush
administration's war on terrorism, and the first proceedings of
this kind since the Second World War."
SOURCE: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093320001
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093320001
3. SLICK - THE NOVEL
http://www.slicknovel.com/
Check out the new book SLICK by first-time novelist Daniel Price.
SLICK's anti-hero protagonist, Scott Singer, works "in the field of
perception management, although the less colorful term is 'media
manipulation.' We're the CIA of PR, the sublime little gremlins who
live just outside your senses, selling you products and concepts
without you even knowing. ... I've conspired with the gun people,
schemed with the liquor people, toiled for tobacco, and moiled for
Monsanto. I've pushed polluters and promoted porn. I've shilled for
Shell and lied for Tide. I've helped a major pharmaceutical company
sell a drug that does nothing by promoting a disease that doesn't
exist. And that's just the old stuff on my resume." Daniel Price is
both a brilliant novelist and a sharp media critic who also
publishes AbusedByTheNews.com, a website "dedicated to analyzing
the tricks, kinks and quirks of America's corporate news media."
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093320000
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093320000
4. SECONDHAND SMOKE SCREEN
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=220175&site=3
A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
finds that Philip Morris attempted to influence media coverage of
secondhand smoke. Citing internal industry documents, the study's
author, Dr. Richard Hunt, says the company and its PR firm,
Burson-Marsteller, made "a controversy out of secondhand smoke when
there wasn't any." Hurt also said Philip Morris gave "hundreds of
thousands of dollars" to training programs at the Herndon, VA-based
National Journalism Center. "Hurt said the funds went to support
speakers who would discount research on the dangers of secondhand
smoke," PR Week writes. "They also backed an internship program to
place reporters who supported the tobacco industry's position, Hurt
said."
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req'd), August 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1093233601
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093233601
5. BUSH CAMPAIGN GRABS FOR IRAQI GOLD
http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1288686,00.html
George W. Bush's re-election campaign has been accused of
appropriating the Olympics for political means. A recent
Bush/Cheney advertisement that links Iraq's and Afghanistan's
participation in the Olympic games with the White House's "war on
terror" is drawing criticism. "To the embarrassment of their media
handlers in Athens, members of the Iraqi football team have reacted
furiously to the news that their efforts are being used to aid Mr
Bush's efforts to win a second term in the White House," The
Guardian reports. The team's coach, Adnan Hamd, told Sports
Illustrated magazine, "My problem is not with the American people.
They are with what America has done; destroyed everything. The
American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom
when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?" The
Guardian is also reporting that Bush may be "planning to visit
Athens later this week to watch some sporting events, including a
potential gold-medal winning bid by the Iraqi football team."
SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), August 23, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1093233600
6. FULL COURT PRESS RELEASE
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19616/
"Over the past few weeks of Presidential WrestleMania MMIV, the
Bush campaign has fired off more than a dozen press releases about
John Kerry's policies on energy, nuclear-waste storage, forest and
water protections, and other environmental issues - a hodgepodge of
smears, exaggerations, and obfuscations intended to besmirch
Kerry's pro-environment reputation," Grist Magazine's Amanda
Griscom writes. Polls indicate that swing-state voters are
concerned about things like pollution and wilderness conservation,
prompting the Bush campaign to "neutralize" the environment as an
election issue. "They know they can't persuade voters that Bush is
good on the environment, so they're trying to create enough
confusion about Kerry's record that people decide it can't be the
issue that decides their vote," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club
executive director. "Most of the Bush team's environment-related
releases rely on one of two tired claims - that Kerry is a
flip-flopper, or that creating jobs and protecting the environment
are incompatible goals," Griscom writes.
SOURCE: Alternet, August 20, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1092974403
Monday, July 19, 2004
Big Brother Comes to Canada
By Paul Weinberg, Inter Press Service. Posted July 16, 2004.
U.S. security priorities are driving policy decisions in Ottawa.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that police officers across the United States are carrying handheld wireless computers on which they can access private details from large commercial databases about anyone they encounter on their beat.
Emboldened by a new post-Cold War role in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism,' security and intelligence agencies are exploring new electronic technologies that will enhance the collection and dissemination of the private records of citizens across international borders.
"It's all about data gathering and integration of databases, information sharing and risk assessment by computer-generated profiling,' says Roch Tasse, coordinator of the Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), a coalition made up of NGOs, churches, unions, environmental and civil rights advocates and groups representing immigrant and refugee communities in Canada.
But the questionable accuracy of the information stored in files collected on citizens, the lack of clear protocols governing their use by police and security officials and the reliance on racial profiling to detain citizens with Third World backgrounds at airports concerns civil libertarians like Tasse.
The role that information-sharing between the RCMP and its U.S. counterparts played in the detention of Canadian citizen Maher Arar is now being probed by a government appointed inquiry in Ottawa.
Arar was seized by U.S. authorities in a New York airport in 2002 on suspicion of being a terrorist and subsequently deported to Syria, his country of birth, where he says he was tortured for nearly a year.
Lloyd Axworthy, former Liberal foreign affairs minister, says he wonders if Arar's treatment can be connected to the cross-border agreements Canada and the United States entered into starting in December 2001 (just months after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon), which he says give police and immigration agencies all kind of leeway on cooperation, including information-sharing.
"My position has always been that we are in fact in danger of actually limiting established rights in Canada, without knowing whether we are or not,' Axworthy told IPS.
Arar, a 34-year-old telecommunications engineer, claims Syrian authorities used torture to force him to make a false confession. Details allegedly from that interrogation that were leaked to the Canadian media by anonymous intelligence sources helped spark the public outcry that pushed Ottawa to call the inquiry.
But Canadian government lawyers are balking at full disclosure of the RCMP's communications with their U.S. counterparts while Arar was detained because, they say, revealing details might jeopardize existing international agreements involving the two countries.
A York University professor is suggesting that Ottawa seriously examine the relationship between Canadian and U.S. police and intelligence authorities, particularly when officials north of the border are kept "out of the loop 90 per cent of the time' on security matters involving the United States.
Daniel Drache, author of Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America, wants the Canadian government to conduct an "audit' of the impact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – the powerful agency set up to protect the United States following 9/11 – has had on Canada, including on immigration matters and on the rights guaranteed in the constitution.
In the absence of a "made in Canada security policy' under the current Liberal government, U.S. security priorities are driving policy decisions in Ottawa, argues Drache. Canadian authorities "are taking an ad hoc approach. They have no framework and they haven't made any assessment of Homeland Security,' he adds.
Tasse suggests the Canadian government will be forced to adopt a version of the database system being developed by Bermuda-based Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) in a multi-billion contract for DHS. The system will be designed to collect and track foreign nationals entering the United States, using digital photographs, fingerprints and other biometric information.
Accenture is a controversial name in Ontario, where the previous Conservative government contracted the firm to design a computerized system to administer its social welfare programmes. It has since proven to be so inflexible that it will cost the current administration a reported $7.6 million (U.S.) to fix.
Nevertheless, Tasse expects that the Accenture project and more advanced databases in the European Union will set the stage for development of compatible information systems that will be used by police and intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. "Basically, all of the developed countries will use the same technology; so all of the systems will be compatible everywhere.'
Toronto-based information technology consultant Jesse Hirsh says that citizens in democratic nations do have a say, through their elected representatives, on the accuracy of the information stored on them in databanks.
But shared global databases out of reach of the average citizen, argues Hirsh, "transcend whatever democratic institutions we have for checks and balances. We have lost control of that data representation of ourselves. We can no longer influence its accuracy; we can no longer determine its level of privacy, in terms of who else gets to see our data representation.'
Paul Weinberg is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
By Paul Weinberg, Inter Press Service. Posted July 16, 2004.
U.S. security priorities are driving policy decisions in Ottawa.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that police officers across the United States are carrying handheld wireless computers on which they can access private details from large commercial databases about anyone they encounter on their beat.
Emboldened by a new post-Cold War role in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism,' security and intelligence agencies are exploring new electronic technologies that will enhance the collection and dissemination of the private records of citizens across international borders.
"It's all about data gathering and integration of databases, information sharing and risk assessment by computer-generated profiling,' says Roch Tasse, coordinator of the Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), a coalition made up of NGOs, churches, unions, environmental and civil rights advocates and groups representing immigrant and refugee communities in Canada.
But the questionable accuracy of the information stored in files collected on citizens, the lack of clear protocols governing their use by police and security officials and the reliance on racial profiling to detain citizens with Third World backgrounds at airports concerns civil libertarians like Tasse.
The role that information-sharing between the RCMP and its U.S. counterparts played in the detention of Canadian citizen Maher Arar is now being probed by a government appointed inquiry in Ottawa.
Arar was seized by U.S. authorities in a New York airport in 2002 on suspicion of being a terrorist and subsequently deported to Syria, his country of birth, where he says he was tortured for nearly a year.
Lloyd Axworthy, former Liberal foreign affairs minister, says he wonders if Arar's treatment can be connected to the cross-border agreements Canada and the United States entered into starting in December 2001 (just months after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon), which he says give police and immigration agencies all kind of leeway on cooperation, including information-sharing.
"My position has always been that we are in fact in danger of actually limiting established rights in Canada, without knowing whether we are or not,' Axworthy told IPS.
Arar, a 34-year-old telecommunications engineer, claims Syrian authorities used torture to force him to make a false confession. Details allegedly from that interrogation that were leaked to the Canadian media by anonymous intelligence sources helped spark the public outcry that pushed Ottawa to call the inquiry.
But Canadian government lawyers are balking at full disclosure of the RCMP's communications with their U.S. counterparts while Arar was detained because, they say, revealing details might jeopardize existing international agreements involving the two countries.
A York University professor is suggesting that Ottawa seriously examine the relationship between Canadian and U.S. police and intelligence authorities, particularly when officials north of the border are kept "out of the loop 90 per cent of the time' on security matters involving the United States.
Daniel Drache, author of Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America, wants the Canadian government to conduct an "audit' of the impact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – the powerful agency set up to protect the United States following 9/11 – has had on Canada, including on immigration matters and on the rights guaranteed in the constitution.
In the absence of a "made in Canada security policy' under the current Liberal government, U.S. security priorities are driving policy decisions in Ottawa, argues Drache. Canadian authorities "are taking an ad hoc approach. They have no framework and they haven't made any assessment of Homeland Security,' he adds.
Tasse suggests the Canadian government will be forced to adopt a version of the database system being developed by Bermuda-based Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) in a multi-billion contract for DHS. The system will be designed to collect and track foreign nationals entering the United States, using digital photographs, fingerprints and other biometric information.
Accenture is a controversial name in Ontario, where the previous Conservative government contracted the firm to design a computerized system to administer its social welfare programmes. It has since proven to be so inflexible that it will cost the current administration a reported $7.6 million (U.S.) to fix.
Nevertheless, Tasse expects that the Accenture project and more advanced databases in the European Union will set the stage for development of compatible information systems that will be used by police and intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. "Basically, all of the developed countries will use the same technology; so all of the systems will be compatible everywhere.'
Toronto-based information technology consultant Jesse Hirsh says that citizens in democratic nations do have a say, through their elected representatives, on the accuracy of the information stored on them in databanks.
But shared global databases out of reach of the average citizen, argues Hirsh, "transcend whatever democratic institutions we have for checks and balances. We have lost control of that data representation of ourselves. We can no longer influence its accuracy; we can no longer determine its level of privacy, in terms of who else gets to see our data representation.'
Paul Weinberg is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
One of the best sources for well thought out essays on current news is the following: You should look through and check out some of the stories.
From: update@butterfliesandwheels.com
Date: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:03:01 PM Asia/Tokyo
To: carsurf@dragon.email.ne.jp
Subject: Butterflies and Wheels weekly update
Hello
This email provides details of the content that has been added to ButterfliesandWheels.com over the last week.
NEW ARTICLES
Machiavellian Monkeys
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=64
Lesson Plans
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=65
NOTES AND COMMENT
There are new notes and comments to view:
--The Moore Files
--Judy, Judy, Judy
--There Are Limits, After All
--Blunkett on Today
--How About Religious Mild Dislike?
--Borrowing From Chomsky
--A Quick Twirl
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/notes.php
LATEST NEWS
The Hubble's Last Years?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues04/jul04/hubble.html
NASA has canceled missions to service telescope.
High Art v Low is a False Dichotomy
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/arts/articles/0704artinamerica04.html
'In America, even the intellectuals are anti-intellectual.'
Tupac Shakur not Some Sort of Byron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4960930-110760,00.html
John McWhorter says rap teaches 'recreational outrage.'
The 'No Ectoplasm Clause'
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/rationallyspeaking_more.php?id=820_0_7_0_M
Massimo Pigliucci on the neurobiology of regret.
Arab News Media and the 'Blood of Martyrs'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24987-2004Jul3
'al Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is "cool" in the eyes of young people.'
Moore Could be Better and Still Be Moore
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-3-1988.jsp#
'He could show us that war kills and Bush is appalling, and yet be more scrupulous.'
Sucking Up to Judith Butler
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/07/06/butler/print.html
Superstar, classic, defining work, platinum album, seminal work, provocative, immense success, etc.
Open Democracy on Multiculturalism
http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=1&articleId=1991
Does multiculturalism lead to cultural relativism? What about the universal standards of human rights?
The Nuances of That Word
http://fray.slate.msn.com/id/2103467/
You? Yourself? Or off? Hitchens suggests off is best.
In Biology Everyone Stands in Mayr's Shadow
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/05/MNGFV7GBAS1.DTL&type=printable
'Mayr's life defies the myth that elderly scientists are incapable of changing their minds.'
Interview with Ernst Mayr
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0004D8E1-178C-10EB-978C83414B7F012C
'Biology is an autonomous science and should not be mixed up with physics.'
On Alexis de Tocqueville
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2107722
The physics of democracy.
Is There a Shortage of Scientists in the US?
http://chronicle.com/cgi2-bin/printable.cgi?article=http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i44/44a01001.htm
The inaccuracy of past pronouncements creates a woof-woof problem.
BHL Has Views That Annoy
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-levy6jul06,1,5078897,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world
'The Palestinian "victimocracy" has a tendency to hide wars that are infinitely longer and more murderous.'
A Theosophical Heir to the Throne
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?P_Article=12672
'Much of this assault on contemporary rationalism flows from the prince's rather eclectic spiritualism.'
What Price 'Life of Brian'?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3871867.stm
David Blunkett wants to outlaw 'inciting religious hatred'.
Blunkett Renews Bid to Outlaw Religious Hatred
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/07/nrace07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/07/ixhome.html
Inappropriate to punish those who merely offend people's religious sensibilities?
That's a Relief
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA5D8.htm
We can criticise religion, as long as we do it sensibly.
Blunkett's Well-meaning Waffle
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/08/dl0801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/07/08/ixopinion.html
Beyond the remit and power of home secretaries to compel people to be kind.
Hormonal Birth Control as 'Silent' Abortionist
http://www.prevention.com/cda/feature2002/0,2479,s1-7342-P,00.html
Pharmacists and doctors are denying patients access to birth control pills.
Hear Blunkett on Today
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_blunkett_20040707.ram
No worry, we can say what we like about religion, as long as it's sensible.
Campaigns Against Vaccinations Can Do Harm
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/penn01_.html
How can doctors be persuaded to comport themselves as scientists?
Surely Ethical Tobacco is an Oxymoron?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1256877,00.html
Well but they grow it with ever such nice organic fertilizer.
Study of Environmental Causes of Autism
http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1256741,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704
Colin Blakemore says MRC's 2001 review of autism research highlighted gaps in knowledge.
Meghnad Desai on Religious Hatred Laws
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=539082&host=3&dir=70
Secular democracy should get away from privileging religion, not give it special status.
Polly Toynbee Named 'Islamophobe of Year'
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6AAA43FD-D8BE-4188-BE72-B2D5D64799BA.htm
Perhaps it's time to start naming 'Secularophobe of the Year'.
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=921
Chris Mooney reports on their press conference.
Surgeon Rebukes Prince over Alternative Therapy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=SORGB0XM0PYR5QFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/07/09/nsurg09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/07/09/ixportal.html
Authority via study and research v. authority via accident of birth.
Surprise! Americans Don't Read Much
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/07/2004070901n.htm
From On Native Grounds to Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi Will Not Face Charges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1258170,00.html
Insufficient evidence, cautious speech, interest in the truth.
Doubts About Religious Hatred Law
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1256001,00.html
'...where people feel free to be able to express sensible views and have sensible arguments.'
How to End 'Honour' Killings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1254995,00.html
Create communities where people believe there is no honour in honour killing.
Swami Agnivesh Opposes Hindutva
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373602732&p=1012571727132
'If the BJP comes back, it will come back with a vengeance. I fear it will.'
Some Arguments Against a Religious-Hatred Law
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/religiousHatred.php
From Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society.
A Cultural Change
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5625949
Bush administration still packing science advisory panels with ideologues.
Washington Post on MMR and Wakefield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41450-2004Jul10?language=printer
Media panics create a debate where there isn't one.
See Gwyneth Paltrow's Cupping Bruises!
http://www.blacktriangle.org/blog/2004/07/allsorted_quack.html
Hey, it's an ancient Chinese practice, so it must be healthy, right?
With Respect, YH, You've Got it Wrong
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7457/118
Michael Baum tells Charles Windsor what's wrong with anecdotal 'evidence'.
Nick Cohen on Blunkett's Cunning Plan
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1258540,00.html
'a religion is a system of ideas like any other.'
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From: update@butterfliesandwheels.com
Date: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:03:01 PM Asia/Tokyo
To: carsurf@dragon.email.ne.jp
Subject: Butterflies and Wheels weekly update
Hello
This email provides details of the content that has been added to ButterfliesandWheels.com over the last week.
NEW ARTICLES
Machiavellian Monkeys
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=64
Lesson Plans
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=65
NOTES AND COMMENT
There are new notes and comments to view:
--The Moore Files
--Judy, Judy, Judy
--There Are Limits, After All
--Blunkett on Today
--How About Religious Mild Dislike?
--Borrowing From Chomsky
--A Quick Twirl
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/notes.php
LATEST NEWS
The Hubble's Last Years?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues04/jul04/hubble.html
NASA has canceled missions to service telescope.
High Art v Low is a False Dichotomy
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/arts/articles/0704artinamerica04.html
'In America, even the intellectuals are anti-intellectual.'
Tupac Shakur not Some Sort of Byron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4960930-110760,00.html
John McWhorter says rap teaches 'recreational outrage.'
The 'No Ectoplasm Clause'
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/rationallyspeaking_more.php?id=820_0_7_0_M
Massimo Pigliucci on the neurobiology of regret.
Arab News Media and the 'Blood of Martyrs'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24987-2004Jul3
'al Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is "cool" in the eyes of young people.'
Moore Could be Better and Still Be Moore
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-3-1988.jsp#
'He could show us that war kills and Bush is appalling, and yet be more scrupulous.'
Sucking Up to Judith Butler
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/07/06/butler/print.html
Superstar, classic, defining work, platinum album, seminal work, provocative, immense success, etc.
Open Democracy on Multiculturalism
http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=1&articleId=1991
Does multiculturalism lead to cultural relativism? What about the universal standards of human rights?
The Nuances of That Word
http://fray.slate.msn.com/id/2103467/
You? Yourself? Or off? Hitchens suggests off is best.
In Biology Everyone Stands in Mayr's Shadow
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/05/MNGFV7GBAS1.DTL&type=printable
'Mayr's life defies the myth that elderly scientists are incapable of changing their minds.'
Interview with Ernst Mayr
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0004D8E1-178C-10EB-978C83414B7F012C
'Biology is an autonomous science and should not be mixed up with physics.'
On Alexis de Tocqueville
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2107722
The physics of democracy.
Is There a Shortage of Scientists in the US?
http://chronicle.com/cgi2-bin/printable.cgi?article=http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i44/44a01001.htm
The inaccuracy of past pronouncements creates a woof-woof problem.
BHL Has Views That Annoy
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-levy6jul06,1,5078897,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world
'The Palestinian "victimocracy" has a tendency to hide wars that are infinitely longer and more murderous.'
A Theosophical Heir to the Throne
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?P_Article=12672
'Much of this assault on contemporary rationalism flows from the prince's rather eclectic spiritualism.'
What Price 'Life of Brian'?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3871867.stm
David Blunkett wants to outlaw 'inciting religious hatred'.
Blunkett Renews Bid to Outlaw Religious Hatred
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/07/nrace07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/07/ixhome.html
Inappropriate to punish those who merely offend people's religious sensibilities?
That's a Relief
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA5D8.htm
We can criticise religion, as long as we do it sensibly.
Blunkett's Well-meaning Waffle
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/08/dl0801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/07/08/ixopinion.html
Beyond the remit and power of home secretaries to compel people to be kind.
Hormonal Birth Control as 'Silent' Abortionist
http://www.prevention.com/cda/feature2002/0,2479,s1-7342-P,00.html
Pharmacists and doctors are denying patients access to birth control pills.
Hear Blunkett on Today
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_blunkett_20040707.ram
No worry, we can say what we like about religion, as long as it's sensible.
Campaigns Against Vaccinations Can Do Harm
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/penn01_.html
How can doctors be persuaded to comport themselves as scientists?
Surely Ethical Tobacco is an Oxymoron?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1256877,00.html
Well but they grow it with ever such nice organic fertilizer.
Study of Environmental Causes of Autism
http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1256741,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704
Colin Blakemore says MRC's 2001 review of autism research highlighted gaps in knowledge.
Meghnad Desai on Religious Hatred Laws
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=539082&host=3&dir=70
Secular democracy should get away from privileging religion, not give it special status.
Polly Toynbee Named 'Islamophobe of Year'
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6AAA43FD-D8BE-4188-BE72-B2D5D64799BA.htm
Perhaps it's time to start naming 'Secularophobe of the Year'.
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=921
Chris Mooney reports on their press conference.
Surgeon Rebukes Prince over Alternative Therapy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=SORGB0XM0PYR5QFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/07/09/nsurg09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/07/09/ixportal.html
Authority via study and research v. authority via accident of birth.
Surprise! Americans Don't Read Much
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/07/2004070901n.htm
From On Native Grounds to Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi Will Not Face Charges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1258170,00.html
Insufficient evidence, cautious speech, interest in the truth.
Doubts About Religious Hatred Law
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1256001,00.html
'...where people feel free to be able to express sensible views and have sensible arguments.'
How to End 'Honour' Killings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1254995,00.html
Create communities where people believe there is no honour in honour killing.
Swami Agnivesh Opposes Hindutva
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373602732&p=1012571727132
'If the BJP comes back, it will come back with a vengeance. I fear it will.'
Some Arguments Against a Religious-Hatred Law
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/religiousHatred.php
From Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society.
A Cultural Change
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5625949
Bush administration still packing science advisory panels with ideologues.
Washington Post on MMR and Wakefield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41450-2004Jul10?language=printer
Media panics create a debate where there isn't one.
See Gwyneth Paltrow's Cupping Bruises!
http://www.blacktriangle.org/blog/2004/07/allsorted_quack.html
Hey, it's an ancient Chinese practice, so it must be healthy, right?
With Respect, YH, You've Got it Wrong
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7457/118
Michael Baum tells Charles Windsor what's wrong with anecdotal 'evidence'.
Nick Cohen on Blunkett's Cunning Plan
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1258540,00.html
'a religion is a system of ideas like any other.'
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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
THE BLOG IS THE MESSAGE
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/jay_rosen_pr_needs_t.php
"Public relations should first understand that to the extent that
its art is a form of 'spin' - whether it's reasonable spin,
accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin - it is selling a
service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is
paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and
a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun," media critic and
Press Think blogger Jay Rosen tells Micro Presuasion blogger Steve
Rubel, who also takes part in Global PR Blog Week 1.0, an online
forum on PR and blogs. With the rise of participatory journalism,
which has been facilitated by the Internet and weblogs, Rosen says
journalistic bloggers create a "second wave" effect that has an
impact on the traditional press. "A little orchestra of
interpreters instantly comes along and does something to
journalism, plays back its significance, but first editing out all
the noise. It's like a reply. Smart journalists are tuning into
that because its an intelligent use of their work - and a departure
point, a place where criticism flashes," Rosen says.
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089673543
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089673543
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/jay_rosen_pr_needs_t.php
"Public relations should first understand that to the extent that
its art is a form of 'spin' - whether it's reasonable spin,
accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin - it is selling a
service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is
paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and
a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun," media critic and
Press Think blogger Jay Rosen tells Micro Presuasion blogger Steve
Rubel, who also takes part in Global PR Blog Week 1.0, an online
forum on PR and blogs. With the rise of participatory journalism,
which has been facilitated by the Internet and weblogs, Rosen says
journalistic bloggers create a "second wave" effect that has an
impact on the traditional press. "A little orchestra of
interpreters instantly comes along and does something to
journalism, plays back its significance, but first editing out all
the noise. It's like a reply. Smart journalists are tuning into
that because its an intelligent use of their work - and a departure
point, a place where criticism flashes," Rosen says.
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089673543
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089673543
Monday, July 12, 2004
Social Lives of a Cell Phone
Say you’re young and single, and you’re out on the town one Saturday night. With a hot new service called Dodgeball, you take out your mobile phone and tap in the name of the restaurant where you are hanging out. You get a list of friends, and friends of friends, within 10 blocks. You can message each other about getting together, and maybe send a photo of yourself. Social connection services like this, based on mobile wireless devices, are about to radically changes how we communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_bender071204.asp?trk=nl
Say you’re young and single, and you’re out on the town one Saturday night. With a hot new service called Dodgeball, you take out your mobile phone and tap in the name of the restaurant where you are hanging out. You get a list of friends, and friends of friends, within 10 blocks. You can message each other about getting together, and maybe send a photo of yourself. Social connection services like this, based on mobile wireless devices, are about to radically changes how we communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_bender071204.asp?trk=nl
Social Lives of a Cell Phone
Say you’re young and single, and you’re out on the town one Saturday night. With a hot new service called Dodgeball, you take out your mobile phone and tap in the name of the restaurant where you are hanging out. You get a list of friends, and friends of friends, within 10 blocks. You can message each other about getting together, and maybe send a photo of yourself. Social connection services like this, based on mobile wireless devices, are about to radically changes how we communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_bender071204.asp?trk=nl
Say you’re young and single, and you’re out on the town one Saturday night. With a hot new service called Dodgeball, you take out your mobile phone and tap in the name of the restaurant where you are hanging out. You get a list of friends, and friends of friends, within 10 blocks. You can message each other about getting together, and maybe send a photo of yourself. Social connection services like this, based on mobile wireless devices, are about to radically changes how we communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_bender071204.asp?trk=nl
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
FUTURE PAPERS WILL BE E-PAPERS;
ONLINE NEWSPAPER READERSHIP UP 350% OVER 5 YEARS
The audience for online versions of newspapers has grown 350% over
the past five years, according to the World Association of Newspapers,
which notes that while print circulation figures have declined in mature
markets like Europe and the U.S., they are sharply up in emerging markets
like China and India. In Russia, the number of published dailies has nearly
doubled in two years. WAN attributed the increase in online newspaper
popularity to the growth of broadband in many countries, noting that in
those countries where broadband Internet access is more readily available,
people are watching TV less and surfing the Web more, both for news and for
entertainment. (BBC News 1 Jun 2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3767267.stm
ONLINE NEWSPAPER READERSHIP UP 350% OVER 5 YEARS
The audience for online versions of newspapers has grown 350% over
the past five years, according to the World Association of Newspapers,
which notes that while print circulation figures have declined in mature
markets like Europe and the U.S., they are sharply up in emerging markets
like China and India. In Russia, the number of published dailies has nearly
doubled in two years. WAN attributed the increase in online newspaper
popularity to the growth of broadband in many countries, noting that in
those countries where broadband Internet access is more readily available,
people are watching TV less and surfing the Web more, both for news and for
entertainment. (BBC News 1 Jun 2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3767267.stm
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