brain feasting

Although the writing life can send the mind in 20 directions at once, causing both headache and professional heartache, most of the time it makes me feel lucky. This week is case in point, with a goulash of interesting and varied tips, leads, questions and links arriving in my inbox from readers and friends. For starters, I heard from a journalism student, somewhere out there, who wants to interview me about left-handedness. Anyone who knows me even a little will know that I am happy to ramble on about this topic.

Next up was this piece, about the evolution of the apostrophe, sent by a friend who shares my interest in matters orthographic and grammatical.

Meanwhile, just as I embark on another autism writing project, a crop of related news emerges. First, the autism incidence and geography study. Next was the Lancet retraction. I don't have much to say about that one except that it's about a decade too late. Finally, check out this LA Times piece, forwarded by some friends who share my anxiety about misinformation peddlers: "Industrial chemical OSR#1 used as autism treatment". Wait. It gets better:

An industrial chemical developed to help separate heavy metals from polluted soil and mining drainage is being sold as a dietary supplement by a luminary in the world of alternative autism treatments.

I would laugh if it wasn't so scary. Yet this week has been so filled with curious stuff that I haven't had much time to feel too downtrodden about zealots or whacktivists. Manipulating salience in the tax code, grizzlies in British Columbia, the Nevada Test Site, Hitachi R&D labs in Tokyo, Iceland's economic collapse, Major League Baseball training secrets, Haiti earthquake responders using social networking tools... Am I hopelessly scatterbrained, or do I have the best job on the planet?

george goes to washington

A few more ripples from my story about George Gollin and his battle against bogus university credentials. CNN picked up my article (in a rather regurgitated format), as did University World News. More significantly, Congressman Tim Bishop recently proposed federal legislation to close some of the loopholes that benefit diploma mill operators, and he invited Gollin to Washington last week for a press conference. Way to go, George.

after the fall (still)

Greetings from rainy Reykjavik. Not a lot doing at the bar in the swanky 101 Hotel. For a poignant summary of the crash that crushed Iceland's economy and spirit, take a look at the dozen or so graphic panels here, put together by a local guy and his son.

nice bit of irony

Of course it was George Gollin who first noticed this:

Hi David,

Very amusing (and nearly impossible to prevent): some of the ads that attach to the online version of your story are from diploma mills. There's one for Almeda University (and three of the four graphics for accreditation mills displayed in the ad are for [former] Randock products: CDEA, AIEA, and IEMAA!). Another is for a Rochville product called "Corllins University."

diploma mills

Check out my story about bogus university credentials--and the quark jockey who'd hand enough--in the January issue of Wired. I will be posting some other resources about diploma mills in the coming week or two, but for the time being I want to tip my hat to two local television reporters who have done some good sleuthing on this topic. See Sandra Chapman series here, and Wendy Halloran's series here.

reason bites back

Is reason making a comeback? Wishful thinking, I know, but I've seen a few hopeful and memorable glimmers of late. The first comes from my local supermarket. New Seasons Market here in Portland is an uppity and altogether terrific place to load up on fuel for humans. A few months ago, the stores began selling New Seasons brand milk. This development would be wholly uninteresting if not for the fact that New Seasons is an organic food lover's paradise. This particular milk, however, is not organic. And it's just $2/gallon. Across the top of the label it says: "From cows raised on Northwest pastures. rBST free." On the bottom of the label, in tiny print, is the following (italics original):

No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from cows treated with artificial hormones and those not treated with artificial hormones.

What interests me about this product and its label is less the actual issue of what should or shouldn't be in milk, or how milk should or shouldn't be produced. (I try to resist the modern temptation to declare oneself an expert on a topic after 8 minutes of googling.) No, what I find curious about this milk and the [apparently FDA required-] label is the reason-based decision to put this product out there in the first place, and the reason-heavy tenor of a label that is respectful of the consumer's intelligence. Before posting this blog, I was hoping to make a call to New Seasons corporate, to find out how the milk is selling compared to the $5/gallon organic milk varieties sold on the same shelves. But holidays, taking care of baby Spencer, and an imminent trip (to India!) got in the way. If anyone happens to know, or happens to know someone who can tell me, do be in touch.

There is also the Wired cover story (November) about the wacko anti-vaccine movement. I especially like the mug-shots lineup of the misinformation peddlers. Even more satisfying, perhaps, was a French court's decision to fine the Church of Scientology. I know. These people and their ilk are thriving, this case was only about financial fraud, and nothing is going to remedy the global epidemic of nutty naivete anytime soon. Still, I can't help but feel good that a court--any court--made even a modest attempt to call a spade a spade.

This last example, for now, is a little subtler, but a close look at the diction of a recent New York Times article reveals something interesting about how we, as a society, deal with ideas that fall loosely into the category of anti-intellectualism/denialism/pseudoscience. What struck me was this passage:

The anti-vaccine movement, largely comprising activists and a handful of doctors and researchers who connect a variety of health problems — particularly autism spectrum disorders — to vaccines, has failed to find large-scale traction in the United States, where more than 90 percent of children are vaccinated.

This is a classic example of the media shaping or steering an issue, as opposed to merely reporting it. Countless stories and books in recent years, including the November Wired piece, have addressed the alarming trend of vaccination refusal, and how more and more educated people are jumping on this bandwagon made of ignorance and recklessness. The problem is that when people see those kinds of stories, some of them can't help but wonder what all the fuss is about--What do Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy know that I don't know? And then they're off, on a Web-surfing foray into the morass, where they easily and quickly find more official-looking misinformation than they could ever have time consume. Voila: another taker in the age of the 8-minute expert. All of which is to say that the blend of diction and editing at the Times that led to the sentence above, and especially to the phrase about the movement's failure to gain traction, is thought provoking--and then some. Does it matter, though? Take a look at the nearly 300 comments to the Times piece, or the 643 comments to Amy Wallace's piece in Wired, for a glimpse of the views out there, ranging from the inspiring to the ghastly. (NPR actually aired a short piece about the hostile response directed at Wallace.)