Freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one and he may be an idiot--UPDATED

When I grow up, I'm going to be a newspaper CEO. I don't have the brains to do anything useful--From time to time we’ve reported on the declining state of American journalism here, and this is a really good time to do it again. I have a new set of heroes and a surprising non-hero. [And don't miss the update below]

A dozen Wall Street Journal reporters based in the Middle East, have sent a letter of protest to the newspaper over contract negotiations in which the Journal seems intent on cutting benefits and diminishing the scope of news coverage. This is, I remind you, one of the three best newspapers on America. The letter, printed in Jim Romenesko’s great journalism blog here, came from both union and non-union reporters and had a really nasty and totally justifiable tone to it. These are the reporters who live in the most dangerous places on earth, risking their lives on a daily basis, while executives of the newspaper cash checks. Keep in mind one of their colleagues, Danny Pearl [below, left], was beheaded by terrorists while on assignment for that newspaper.

The pay package of the CEO, Rich Zannino was particularly galling. [The pay packages of all CEOs is galling--actually, they are immoral]. While the reporters are risking their lives and providing the product, Zannino is making obscene amounts of money. Here are excerpts:

* In 2006, Mr. Zannino received $173,441 to cover commuting costs from his Connecticut home to Manhattan. That means that each and every working day the company pays $667 just to get him to show up at the office. He gets far more just to sit in the back of a limo on his way to work than we get to go into combat.
* Mr. Zannino’s compensation package more than doubled when he became CEO in 2006, to $4.16 million from $2 million. Peter Kann was both CEO and chairman the previous years, yet his compensation was just under $3 million. So Mr. Zannino earned 42% more for half the job.
* If Mr. Zannino does that job badly and gets fired, the company has agreed to give him $10 million to clean out his desk.
It's very clear: We take the risks; top managers reap the rewards

They go on to point out that what sells the paper isn’t the skill of the CEO but the reporters and editors who report and write the news, even from such God-forsaken places as Pakistan (where Pearl was killed) and Iraq (where almost 200 journalists have died). They point out that after the last contract negotiations, a group of some of the best reporters quit the newspaper, which certainly doesn’t improve the product any.

The Journal, like the Washington Post and the New York Times, is family controlled, one of the reasons it remains a great newspaper. There really is no excuse for this.

It gets worse, at my old newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer. So hard up are they for reporters to gather the news after massive layoffs and the sinking of Knight-Ridder, Gail Shister, the long-time television critic, has been taken off the job and put on feature writing. The Inquirer says it can no longer afford a television columnist and needs her body covering news. She has had the job for a quarter of a century and is one of the most esteemed television critics in the country. If the Inquirer doesn’t have enough reporters to cover the news maybe they shouldn’t have laid off so many.

Somewhere, in a conference room of overpaid executives, faced with declining circulation and advertising, a decision was made to give the customers less of a product. These same executives are now puzzled and lamenting the continued decline. Shister, incidentally, is considering suing, but I’m not sure on what grounds. Stupidity is not actionable. Her wisdom, knowledge, connections, and her readers are not important enough to the management.[The line about the product comes from Gene Roberts, the legendary editor of the Inky in its glory days. He won his own Pulitzer this week and a hearty mazel tov to him. Live long and prosper]

Bill Marimow, my old colleague who is now running the Inky said that moving her to features is part of the Inquirer’s move to focus on local coverage and she was covering national stuff. The Inky also brought back its last foreign correspondent for the same reason. Shame on him.
[The Baltimore Sun let its political cartoonist go giving the same rationale. The Sun continues to sink in the east as every day there is less and less reason to buy the paper. They teach this shit in business schools?] The owners of the Inquirer will learn that self-mutilation is not a business plan.

I have a friend, Laurie Garrett, who won a Pulitzer for her incredible coverage of AIDS around the world, a project very few newspapers would try now: It costs money and is not productive to the bottom line. She was asked to give a speech to stockholders of her newspaper (Newsday, then, I think, owned by Times-Mirror before the horrors of the Tribune Co.). She pointed out that newspapers play a unique role in a democracy, one of the reasons the press is singled out in the U.S. Constitution. While it is certain that newspapers are not charities and should earn a profit, the profit is not superior to the other responsibilities of the press. She suggested that if they, the stockholders, were not prepared to earn a bit less so that the newspapers can do their job in a democracy well, they ought to take their money and invest it someplace else--and leave us the hell alone!

Yes.

I hope Marimow recovers from his bout with prostate cancer and lives a long, happy life. Maybe it's the chemotherapy that made him silly.

UPDATE:

Oh, it gets worse.

I was in Philadelphia over the weekend and got a chance to read the Inquirer. Most of the front section now consists of AP stories in a newspaper that once covered most of everything itself. No reflection on wire service reporters (I was one for 7 years), but the Inky had superb reporters around the country and the world and they had an unexcelled level of coverage. Except for the local stories, all done well, incidentally, the coverage of the rest of the world was no different than what you would get in the Fairbanks News-Miner. A really great city (I love Philly) deserves better.

And, according to the New York Times, the Inky is now instituting a column paid for by a bank. What the Times doesn't seem to get into in much detail is the foul ethics of such a thing. I think the word is whoring.

Meanwhile, the Tribune Co., which is systemmatically destroying itself has announced layoffs at the Baltimore Sun, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. They seem intent on eliminating reasons to buy their product. Of course the Tribune Co. is going private, a move that will enrich the executives while reporters, editors and photographers are being forced out the door. Feh!

He is going where?

If the temperature falls below -35, Sunday school is canceled--A personal note, if you don't mind. Wondering what the hell I was doing in Alaska? Getting a job.

I thought you all would like to know that starting in mid-August, I become adjunct professor of journalism (Snedden Chair) at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It's a one-year appointment and I'm the first person to hold the position. I just came back this week from five days in Fairbanks. I'm also happy to report that Hannah is coming with me next year, and will start 9th grade at West Valley High School in Fairbanks. She is already wearing a Wolf Pack sweatshirt. Carol will join us periodically when her job permits--she hates cold weather. We hope to live on campus and will return to civilization once or twice during the academic year. We also intend to maintain a place in Alaska through next summer for exploration. It is very beautiful.

I will teach two courses, Prospectives in Journalism, which I can design myself (think corporate ownership, the new media, political pressure etc.) and science writing. Additionally, my students and I will be working on a year-long project, probably on climate change, which is occurring in Alaska faster than anyplace else in the world--or at least is being better measured than anyplace else. I hope to turn it into a book. All that will require some time in the field, an adventure. Muck-lucks and whale blubber, yum. The International Arctic Research Center is based at the university, so a major resource is up the street.

We will return to Baltimore late spring next year. We're home until August 13th or so. Alaska is allegedly the best-wired state in the country so I will not be out of ready touch. I will keep this going until then and then I'll either post on my Alaskan adventures here or start a blog for that purpose. I've had requests.

And the line about the Sunday school--it's an actual message on the website of the only synagogue in Fairbanks, which claims to be the northernmost synagogue in the world. Now imagine kids trudging off to Sunday school in -35 degrees and darkness. The frozen chosen. Oh, and the bear photo? That is a nine-foot Kodiak bear on display at the Anchorage airport. One's only possible reaction to seeing a nine-foot bear--even stuffed--is 'oh shit.'

Now where the hell did he go?

Time to rent the John Wayne movie--If you are wondering why this site seems neglected, your obedient servant is on the road--in Alaska--and won't be filing until next week. There is a logical (well, maybe not) explanation for all of this, probably the result of too many episodes of "Northern Exposure" and I will explain. At the moment it is 6 a.m. in a pitch-dark Fairbanks and I will soon explain the bear at the airport. By the way, if Douglas Adams ever found out that the restaurant at the end of the universe is a Pizza Hut, he'd have been pissed.

Rectal exams and the son-of-a-bitch gene

Do you ever wonder how medical students practice prostate exams?--Prostate cancer doesn’t get nearly as much attention as, say breast cancer, for reasons sociological, not medical. It is the second greatest killer of men after lung cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 232,000 men will be diagnosed with the disease this year and 27,000 will die of it. Thanks in some part to PSA testing, the death rate is declining rapidly, a drop of 32.5 percent in 10 years. If it is caught early, 100 percent of men are alive five years later; if it has metastasized, only 34 percent are still alive.

In a really important study, scientists have found a genetic basis for the disease that has all kinds of ramifications. They also found more evidence that the politically correct attack on the notion of race as a biological attribute is hogwash.

The researchers found seven genetic risk factors, all bunched close together on chromosome 8 that predict a man’s probability of developing prostate cancer. Five are newly discovered; two were known before and the experiment, done at USC, the National Cancer Institute and a company in Iceland, confirmed them. That of course does not mean it’s all genetic; other risk factors like environment also play a role, but if you have the genes you know to be extra cautious and get tested regularly. The role the genes play in this still is unknown. The study is reported in Nature Genetics.

An interesting aspect, however, is it may explain the disparity between blacks and whites in prostate statistics. A black man is twice as likely to die of prostate cancer than a white man and the reason now appears to be genetic. For several decades some scientists have been attacking the whole biological definition of race, claiming it has no scientific meaning. This, of course, is politics, not science, and is nonsense. The list of ailments that have a racial component is long and impossible to ignore and with prostate cancer, there is now a demonstrable genetic explanation: blacks tend to have more of those genes.

And the answer to the question above is: on themselves. And good practice it is. Haven’t you always wanted to stick something up a classmate’s ass?

Oh, on second thought, maybe we should look for the cute and cuddly gene--James Watson, Nobel laureate and codiscoverer of the helix structure of DNA, thought it might be fun to have his DNA scanned using a new technology that would make it possible for all of us peons to knows what lurks in our genes. The technology comes from 454 Life Sciences, a company that hopes to bring the cost of genome scanning down to manageable levels from the several hundred thousand dollars it costs now. They asked Watson to be the first to be scanned and he agreed. Now it seems he is chickening out. According to David Ewing Duncan at Technology Review, Watson first asked the company to delete any results for genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Now he is worried that publication of the rest of his genome will violate his privacy and that of his sons. And since there is now a firm genetic basis for certain behavioral traits, they might be able to show genes in his scans for arrogance and temper. Craig Venter, who sequenced the human genome, who may also have the arrogance and temper genes, appears less concerned and is still planning on release his.

Barbarians here, barbarians there, everywhere barbarians

Let's see: computer? Check. Cell phone? Check. Pens and notebook? Check. Body armor? Check. Stock price? Uh oh. Come home--The most important story in American journalism is getting harder and harder to cover, is being covered less well than ever before, and presents vast new problems for newsrooms. Four years into the Iraq war--probably the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history--the media is up against stinging truths. Covering this war is so expensive that even the largest and best newsrooms are finding they are shifting resources from elsewhere to cover it or are dropping out altogether; it is getting harder to find people willing to go, and the people who are there need a break desperately. The only good news is that the people back here are paying attention as reflected in the polling data.

Because the economics of the media and the relentless pressures of the barbarians on Wall Street, whose concern for the stock price exceeds their concern for democracy, coverage is diminishing. The United States is at war and the bulk of American media have stopped covering it, an unprecedented situation.

In the history of American journalism, you will find few examples of greater heroism than the reporters, photographers and editors in Iraq. So far, 155 journalists, Iraqi and foreign, have been killed covering this war. Several are missing. The reason the war is not being covered as well as other wars is simple: it is too damned dangerous. Many, if not most, reporters are reluctant to leave the Green Zone, the haven in central Baghdad for fear of their lives, and even that sanctuary isn't safe. Stray rockets and mortar shells blow in sporadically. Going out on the streets or into the country to report the wars simply is no longer an option. The best many bureaus can do is send its Iraqi nationals out to cover the story but even that is difficult. Many have been killed, many have been forced to leave the country because of threats, and others live in total terror of what will happen to them or their families. Translators often wear ski masks to protect their identity. Some media now resort to non-Americans in their bureaus. Note the number of British and Australian accents on the air.

Part of the problem undoubtedly is getting volunteers. When I was a young reporter it was clear that if you wanted to cement your career, you went to Vietnam. I volunteered but UPI at the time would not send married reporters, so I never went. Iraq is different. Those willing to go have been sent and recycled in and out for years. Susan Chira, foreign editor of the New York Times, told Editor and Publisher that the pool of volunteers is getting smaller and the people who had been cycled in and out need to move on. John Burns of the Times, possibly the worlds' best war correspondent, is finally being removed to take over the London bureau. I think he was pushing his luck.

The Los Angeles Times put three new people in Baghdad, but all were hires from other bureaus hired in Iraq. Internal volunteers ran out. The Associated Press, which has 85 staffers, including Iraqis, in Baghdad admits that many cycled out for a rest are reluctant to return. The fact the AP has lost four staffers, two recently, probably hasn't helped recruiting. The LA Times admits that the expense--largely security--is draining the foreign news budget. Other stories go unreported in other parts of the world.

The Wall Street Journal, the last of the big four newspapers, does not have a permanent staff covering the war. They have one person assigned permanently, but that person is not there full-time and sometimes, their office is empty. In part, Bill Spindle, the Middle East Editor of the Journal says, it is the cost of security that makes it hard to operate here.

While all this is going on, the barbarians are loose. Two newspapers, the Boston Globe (owned by the Times, of all companies) and the Baltimore Sun (owned by the Tribune Co.), which once had legendary foreign correspondents, either have totally closed their foreign bureaus or are doing so. Neither covers Iraq. The Globe, which once had five people in Baghdad, closed its bureau in 2005, in part after one of its reporters, Elizabeth Neuffer was killed.

This is serious stuff. The media have a responsibility in a democracy and they are not able to fulfill it as well as they might. And everyone is to blame.

[The picture above is Anna Badkhen, on temporary assignment in Iraq for the San Francisco Chronicle.]

I am now going to scare the crap out of you.

While you were out we redecorated your office and abolished the First and Fourth Amendments--An excerpt from John Murrell's "Good Morning Silicon Valley" and linked to the original in the Washington Post. The Post has verified this is accurate. Just out of curiousity, whatever happened to the First Amendment and why isn't the correct answer to the FBI gag order something in the order of "up yours?" [I had something else in mind but children might wander by.] The Post said it published the op-ed piece anonymously despite its rules not generally to do so. Good for them.

"Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. ... I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation."

-- An anonymous businessman describes the gagged life; between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 such letters.

The person involved heroically took the FBI to court with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, essentially telling them to shove it. The FBI responded by withdrawing the request for information but keeping the gag order, which I would think is unconstitutional on its face.

Oh, arragh.

It's 2007, you idiot--Decline of Western Civilization, Part IX

So if I close the covers, the content stays on the pages, even without being plugged in?--What follows are two absolutely true stories, both of which happened this week.

My daughter has been accepted in a Jewish high school for next year. The school is now in its fifth year, with only about 100 students and using borrowed space until they can build their own permanent home. The school is well-funded and resources are not lacking. At an orientation meeting a few day ago, they opened the floor to questions and I asked about the library. I know it fills about half of a normal-sized classroom (they haven't had time to build a real one, yet), but was curious about their plans. They responded that eventually they will have a full-sized library but it is not on the top of their list because the kids don't really use books. They would much rather use the Internet for research.

Quick fade to the home front. My daughter (and I am not picking on the little darling) has an assignment about ancient Greece, the mythology and the Greek alphabet. For reasons we will not go into here, she computer-grounded for the time being. Occasionally, we will let her have her iBook either as a reward or to do homework that requires a computer. Last night we had a bit of a tussle because she insisted she needed the computer to research the Greeks. Reluctant to let her have the computer, I pointed out that we have a brand-new set of the World Book Encyclopedia downstairs, so unused that most of the volumes are still wrapped in plastic. I unwrapped the G volume, opened it up to about 20 pages of text and pictures on Greece, including the alphabet and a whole section on mythology, all beautifully laid-out and easy to search. World Book does a really excellent job. I got the look you normally give a large animal that just peed on the rug. "I don't want to read through 20 pages of text," says she. "It is much faster on the Internet." But using books is something you have to learn to do research, says I. Not everything is on the Internet and some of the stuff on the Internet is not very good.

"This is 2007!" says she, stalking away.

Take me now before it gets worse.

Which gives me an excuse to point you to this positively hilarious sketch, I think from Sweden. You will note I'm not the only one peeing on the rug. Have a laugh on me.

j

[Thank you, Amy]

Beam up the chickenpox, it's getting warm in here

Beam me up, Scotty, and good God, start with my pancreas--Scientists at CERN trying out a new technology to kill cancer cells--antimatter. Yes, the stuff that powers the Starship Enterprise, the stuff that annihilates itself when it meets matter, the opposite of, like everything. In an experiment, cancer cells were targeted with antimatter particles and the cells, predictably warped to Vulcan--no, died. The technology is similar to zapping the cells with conventional particles, except the scientists think the antimatter beam would have less serious side effects. Conventional radiotherapy is extremely unpleasant. Some of the larget machines used are proton accelerators, huge machines, staggeringly expensive, and there is no reason to think that if they ever figure out how to do it reliably, using antimatter, wouldn't be even more so.


While we're talking about chickens...--One of the rituals of being a kid was getting chickenpox. I know parents who deliberately sent their kids to the homes of friends with chickenpox to make sure they got the disease on vacation days--and the subsequent immunity. Then came Varivax, the chickenpox vaccine. in 1995. It works well enough to change the demographics of the disease: the only kids with chickenpox are those who are unvaccinated or those for whom the vaccine didn't take. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine tells us something we didn't know: the vaccine wears out and that means that people are getting chickenpox later in life, when it becomes more dangerous. You have 20 times greater risk of dying and have a 10-15 times greater chance of getting hospitalized if you catch it when you are older. The suggestion: booster shots at age 4 to 6 and for older adults and children. It still is unclear how much protection the second shot would bring.

I guess we can move to Alaska now--The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that last winter was the warmest winter ever recorded on ailing planet earth, with land and water temperatures running 1.3 degrees F (0.72 degrees C) warmer than normal. El Nino was one factor. The temperature has been rising a fifth of a degree every decade and the warmest 10 years on record have occurred since 1995. 2007 could be the warmest year on record. NOAA did not give a cause-and-effect--it didn't lay the blame on us poor innocent humans. But other research by the same team said that was a likely cause--except in Oklahoma, where the state's U.S. Senator James Inhofe has assured everyone it is a communist-media plot.

Arsenic and old lies

I'll have chicken sticks, an order of fries, and could I have cyanide instead of arsenic with that chicken?--I’m sure you will be pleased to learn that that factory-raised chicken you just ate had been fed arsenic to make it plumper and happier. Plumper and happier, is, after all, what factory farming is all about.

At least one huge chicken company, Perdue, requires its farmers to feed their birds roxarsone, a feed additive containing arsenic. Many other producers do as well. The additive fights parasites and produces birds with bigger chests. It gets worse: the chickens poop, and the manure, containing the arsenic, is spread on fields where farmers grow vegetables. Farm workers in the fields handle the stuff. Said one farmer in the Baltimore Sun, “we don’t know what the risks are.” Right.

Not all poultry producers use arsenic. Tyson Foods, the largest, stopped using it last spring, and two other producers have already dropped the additive. Perdue, the largest on the east coast, defends its use, pointing out that the FDA says it is safe.

The Europeans disagree. While the FDA have approved the arsenic additive since 1944, the Europeans ban it because there are no studies attesting to its safety.

A Johns Hopkins study in 2004, found that the levels of arsenic found in young chickens was three or four times higher than in any other poultry and meat, and since the average chicken consumption in the U.S. is 350 grams of chicken per day, people "may ingest 1.38-5.24 microg/day of inorganic arsenic from chicken alone." Some may ingest far more. Perdue claims that the arsenic in the additive is organic arsenic, which is not the same as the classic poison, inorganic arsenic. But a new study out of Dusquesne University in Pittsburgh found that the organic arsenic was chemically and quickly transformed into inorganic, the poisonous, carcinogenic stuff. Bacteria in the soil speeds the conversion along much faster than anyone thought. The inorganic arsenic was found in the fertilizer, which means it also will find its way into drinking water. Other studies have shown similar results. Arsenic also is linked to heart disease and diabetes.

Arsenic also is a byproduct of coal-burning power plants and some mining and smelting operations and is closely monitored. It is banned from pesticides, but is commonly is used in fertilizers on home lawns.

Says the industry spokesman (the National Chicken Council, would you believe): “There’s never been any showings of human health risks from the addition of small amounts of roxarsone to the feed.” The manufacturer of roxarsone, Alpharma, is not amused, calling the studies opinions, not science.

I’ll pass. Actually, in our house we usually use only range-fed, free roaming chickens that have been tickled to death with goose feathers. Talk about plump and happy.

[Thank you , Carol]

Shockley was dead: To begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

I'd get organized but I have this genetic malfunction, you understand--Bill Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, founding father of Silicon Valley and a serious son-of-a-bitch, destroyed his career on the notion that intelligence was genetic. He also claimed that blacks were genetically less intelligent than whites because they scored--as a group--lower on standard IQ tests than did whites. You know all of that, of course. The uproar in the scientific community against his assertion was one of the low points of American science in the 60s and 70s. Shockley insisted people actually go out and do the research and see if he was right; the scientific community (or at least the loud and politically correct) raged against it.

(Disclaimer: your obedient servent is Shockley's biographer and you can read all about it here. End of commercial)

As time goes--Shockley died in 1989--it turns out he was correct about the non-racial assertion. Over the years, scientists have found myriad examples of human traits hidden in the genes, including (and depending on how you define) intelligence. In a piece of research that got very little publicity, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have even found a particular gene.

The gene activates a signalling pathway to the brain involved with organizing, certainly an aspect of intelligence. The gene CHRM2 is "not a gene for intelligence," says Danielle M. Dick, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. "It's a gene that's involved in some kinds of brain processing, and specific alterations in the gene appear to influence IQ. But this single gene isn't going to be the difference between whether a person is a genius or has below-average intelligence." They did find, however, that several variations in the gene could slightly influence the results of IQ tests, particularly performance IQ scores.

The study, published in Behavioral Genetics, was the offshoot of a large study of alcoholism. Some of the subjects (2,150) also took the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised, and the results were matched with individual's DNA.

The study confirms others hinting at the same link

CHRM2 isn't the "intelligence gene." It appears that it affects only one aspect of what we call intelligence. Dick says there could be hundreds of genes involved in intelligence, which seems an entirely intelligent surmise.

Too bad Shockley was cremated--his corpse would be smiling.

Our president doesn't read, why the hell should you?--Decline of Civilization Part VIIII

I’m reading Gibbon. Please go away--Every one has their own measure for the health and well-being of a society. Mine is libraries. How a society treats its libraries (and its literacy) tells you a great deal about it. Folks, we are in deep doodoo.

Thanks to cutoffs in federal funding, 15 libraries in rural Oregon are going to shut down in April, the largest library closure in U.S. history. The libraries in Jackson County lost $7 million in federal funding, about 80 percent of their budget. They are all either brand new (Medford) or newly rebuilt. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, other library systems have been on the brink, including Salinas and Merced Counties in California and Niagara Falls in New York. They were rescued eventually. But this, according to the Chronicle, is different, at least in scope. There are political charges flying back and fourth, children are marching in the streets, and an effort to increase library funding through a property tax has triggered a backlash from the same kind of boar heads who helped destroy California's school system with Proposition 13.

The libraries will close April 7.

The origin of the problem was the failure of Congress (controlled then by Republicans, of course) to reauthorize $400 million for rural counties to goose their economies. Oregon was hit the hardest, and Jackson County lost $23 million. They had to cut everything in sight, including jail beds and first responders. The county was left with the choice of emergency services or books, so they chose the former. Otherwise "we won't be able to monior misdemeanor sex offenders anymore," the county administrator lamented. A crooked railroad deal a century ago--not uncommon in the West--also was involved but that is too complicated to get into, except to say Oregon thinks Congress reneged on funds promised in an agreement with Teddy Roosevelt. Trust me on this. Oh yes, the spotted owl gets involved too.

Three times the good citizens of Jackson voted against a tax to fund the libraries. It's coming up for a vote again and is unlikely to pass because of voting rules on tax increases. God forbid they should have to pay for government services.

The Medford library is brand new and just opened this week.

Just as well. It will be harder to figure out what to read. According to the Wall Street Journal (this one is free), separate book sections in newspapers are becoming a thing of the past. The latest one to fall will be the Los Angeles Times, a paper being sliced to death by its corporate owner and the barbarians on Wall Street. The section will be merged into an opinion section. The reason in this case can't be necessarily blamed on the owners of the newspapers--book publishers are no longer buying ads in these sections. That leaves only five newspapers with separate sections, down from a dozen 10 years ago. Other papers also are reconsidering, including the Washington Post (what will Bush do without a book section, you may ask), the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Diego Union-Tribune. Only the New York Times, which has a book section too powerful for even the dumbest publisher to ignore, seems immune. The publishers have been putting their advertising money in paying bookstores to prominently display copies. The move from the newspapers, the Journal points out, however, doesn't seem to work--book sales are down.

Of course they are.

BULLETIN-Anna Nicole Smith Is Still Dead

Did you know that Fox News had 12 times the number of stories on Anna Nicole Smith than on Walter Reed Medical Center last week? See here.

Does that mean it will crash tomorrow or yesterday?

Mayday, Mayday! I have the International Dateline on my tail—With all due respect to the men and women who are putting their lives on the line on orders from the most inept administration in modern American history, it still is refreshing to know that the military bureaucracy can be just as incompetent as always.

For example, the newest warplane in the U.S. arsenal is the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter. The plane cost $70 billion to develop and each one of the 180 on order will cost $361 million. Like all modern aircraft, it is largely computer controlled, some 1.7 million lines of code, most of which is used to process radar data. You would think that somewhere in those 1.7 million lines of code someone would have thought to enter the International Date Line. You would think wrong. They didn’t. When the Raptors were on their way to Japan for deployment, they flew over the date line and their computers crashed. Dead. According to Maj. General Don Sheppard, interviewed by CNN, the crash took out “all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were--they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers tried to reset their systems, couldn’t get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii.” It is sort of like the space ship NASA sent off to Mars and someone confused pounds with grams. Now think of what would have happened if the F-22 computer crashed during combat. Fortunately, it was fixed in 48 hours. No word on whether they were using Windows.

That’s a 404 error dude, now get your artificial leg off the table—It's a good guess you have been following the problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, uncovered by the Washington Post. (Dana Priest may be the best reporter working in America right now). Yesterday, they fired the general in charge and replaced him with the general who was apparently there when the problems were first noticed and did nothing about them. Well, it turns out the army isn't too thrilled with the publicity, as you can imagine. Keep in mind, this is where many of the men and women wounded in our two wars go for treatment, and you would think they would get care appropriate for heroes. You would think. According to the Army Times, the army has forbidden any of the patients to talk to the press, and the patients are getting early-morning inspections that one patient called harassment. If you go to the Walter Reed website you will find all contacts are missing and the link to "In the News" contains absolutely nothing about the scandal. If try to get info on the garrison commander you get a 404 error, "page not found." No telephone numbers are listed except the general one for the main switchboard, which would not do reporters much good.

Don’t you just love a free press?

[Thank you, Eliyahu]

It’s the South Philly cheesesteak diet

But they do lower the cholesterol in vampires--I believe that the three things medical science knows the least about are nutrition, sex and lower back pain.

Remember all those studies showing how vitamins, especially the antioxidants, prevented all kinds of diseases, from the heart break of psoriasis to actual heart break? Foolish of us to believe any of it.

A meta-analysis from Denmark by the respected Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group in Copenhagen, published in JAMA [click here] finds absolutely no benefit in terms of longevity from taking the antioxidants. In fact, instead of living longer, subjects who took many supplements had a modest decrease in longevity. Meta-analysis--for those unfamiliar with the jargon--means they didn’t do the research themselves; they took published papers, extracted the ones they thought worthy, and then did a statistical analysis of them all to draw stastically valid conclusions. When done well, it is a valid form of tracking data.

They used all the studies up to October 2005 involving beta carotene, vitamins A, C and E as well as selenium, compared in blind tests with placebos or nothing, 68 studies worldwide, 232,606 subjects. They found no significant effect on mortality. In 47 studies they actually found an increase in mortality for everything except vitamin C and selenium. Subjects died earlier than those who did not take the supplements. They concluded: “treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E may increase mortality. The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study.”

Criticism of the studies, of course, came immediately [here and here] but why critics bother, I don’t know. Just wait a few months and you will get another study contradicting this one. Meanwhile, I take vitamins.

Remember the studies on garlic and cholesterol? Another reported dud. Multiple studies now show no effect on cholesterol from taking garlic pills or garlic mash potatoes or garlic bread (damn!). All those other studies were all wrong. No study has yet disproven the effects of garlic on vampires although I can tell you I cook extensively with garlic and we have never been bothered by vampires. Nunca. Zero vampires.

As I said, the three things....

Decline of Western Civilization--Part VI, or the decomposing Ms. Smith—UPDATED

We interrupt this newscast for a Fox exclusive: Anne Nicole Smith’s body is decomposing and Cheney blames Hillary--If you, like me, have been appalled at the coverage of Ms Smith’s untimely departure from celebrity and life, and wondered what would happen if one of the 24-hour news networks broke ranks and actually covered actual news, I have bad news for you

CNN, which has become less and less relevant in the U.S. in recent years with its slide into junk news, decided to cover the news (there is a war going on, there is another war being planned and the country is going to hell) with an exclusive interview with Condi Rice, while Fox and MSNBC stuck with the decomposing Ms Smith and the totally hilarious court case over who gets the increasingly offensive body. CNN got clobbered. In the afternoon cycle both MSNBC and Fox creamed them, with CNN getting a third of the ratings of the other two. See here. MSNBC even killed two news shows to continue covering the hearing. Unfortunately, they don’t do IQ tests on the audience and advertisers don’t seem to care if the famous youth age group they find so attractive can chew gum and masturbate at the same time.

If you get bored with Ms. Smith [that's her Houston police mug shot up there--I have no idea why she was arrested, being actively irrelevant is not a criminal offense], there is always Ms Spears. She shaved her head and went into therapy. Oh, and the Sunni insurgency is now using poison gas in Iraq

This is not a serious country. The Romans in the 3rd century are the closet match I can think of. Unlike the Romans, however, we are not going to be invaded by barbarians. We are going to become barbarians.

UPDATE—No, Ms. Smith is still decomposing. But on Saturday, the esteemed New York Times printed a half dozen letters defending all the folks who turned on cable to catch the latest contretemps over the corpse. The message was that the world is such a mess, and the country is such a mess, and there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about it since the government is not responding, we are entitled to a break to worry about something unimportant and to be amused at the people who think it is important. Nonsense.

BULLETIN--Anna Nichole Smith is still dead.

Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot

Darwin, of course, changed his name for business purposes—In America, we have a president who thinks the Theory of Evolution is just another theory. In Britain they put Charles Darwin on their money, the £10 note. Here we still argue. The rest of the world—appropriately—laughs. It just got funnier.

Try this from a Texas newspaper:

By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN - The second most powerful member of the Texas House has circulated a Georgia lawmaker's call for a broad assault on teaching of evolution. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, used House operations Tuesday to deliver a memo from Georgia state Rep. Ben Bridges.

The memo assails what it calls "the evolution monopoly in the schools." Mr. Bridges' memo claims that teaching evolution amounts to indoctrinating students in an ancient Jewish sect's beliefs.

"Indisputable evidence - long hidden but now available to everyone - demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion," writes Mr. Bridges, a Republican from Cleveland, Ga. He has
argued against teaching of evolution in Georgia schools for several years. He then refers to a Web site, www.fixedearth.com, that contains a model bill for state Legislatures to pass to attack instruction on evolution as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Mr. Bridges also supplies a link to a document that describes scientists Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein as "Kabbalists" and laments "Hollywood's unrelenting role in flooding the movie theaters with explicit or implicit endorsement of evolutionism." .....

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stori...

Naturally, you want to blame the Jews. Darwin’s real name, of course, was Chaim Darwinsky from Chelm, and this is a Jewish plot to undermine a Christian America. We had a speaker at the latest meeting of ZOG, the Zionist Occupation Government. Sorry you missed it. We served cake. It was at my house. Nice turnout, by the way.

How weird is it? Well actually:

The theory of evolution accords with the secrets of Kabbalah better than any other theory. Evolution follows a path of ascent and thus provides the world with a basis for optimism. How can one despair, seeing that everything evolves and ascends? When we penetrate the inner nature of evolution, we find divinity illuminated in perfect clarity. Ein Sof [the essence or light of God] generates, actualizes potential infinity.

From The Essential Kabbalah; the heart of Jewish mysticism, by Daniel C. Matt.

You really gotta go the the fixed earth website cited above. Keep in mind this man was elected to a state legislature. Keep in mind that Chisum was too. When the story was published and was met with waves of hilarity, Chisum recanted and apologized Don’t you really miss Molly Ivins now? [Yes, that’s her line above]

As someone pointed out, if Darwinsky actually said only the fittest survive, Chisum, Hall and Bridges are living proof he was wrong.

The president of the Fair Education Foundation, Marshall Hall, said he had sent the memorandum to Mr. Chisum at the request of Mr. Bridges, whom he called a longtime friend and supporter. Mr. Chisum, in a letter accompanying the memorandum, said he distributed the memorandum “on behalf of” Representative Bridges. He said he knew Mr. Bridges through the National Conference of State Legislatures “and greatly appreciate his information on this important topic.”

The memorandum was condemned by some Texas lawmakers and by the Anti-Defamation League.

In a letter to Mr. Chisum dated Feb. 14, Mark L. Briskman, director of the league’s North Texas-Oklahoma regional office, said, “We are shocked and appalled that you would share this outrageous anti-Semitic material with your colleagues in the Texas House.”

Questioned Friday about his apparent endorsement of the memorandum, Mr. Chisum appeared to back away from it. “I read it, but he didn’t ask me to edit his memo,” he said. “It does not reflect my opinion.”

I’m not making any of this up. Ignorance is an equal opportunithy characteristic. See Darwin and the Zoo Rabbi here.

Special thanks to the folks at SCJM for calling this to my attention.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, contractor

We've got everyone we need but a couple of history majors--After seven months engaged in actual employment, I’m back (on the streets) freelancing and blogging. I missed you all. I will miss the paychecks.

But, I had an interesting experience in a milieu most people are unaware of: it’s not clear to me why this doesn’t get more attention. After spending the seven months working in northern Virginia (otherwise known as the “Commute from Hell”), I am convinced our government hasn’t a clue what is happening in the world or what to do about it. Instead, it is pouring money at as many people as it can find, hoping some of them will think of something. As one of the people I met described it, the government funding--from Defense, Homeland Security, and the intelligence community--is like being at the end of a fire hose. Come up with anything even vaguely resembling a good idea and the hose turns your way.

I was lucky enough to run around with my little bucket for a while. We got to pay for my daughter’s bat mitzvah and finish the basement. This fiscal phenomenon is the reason the three Virginia counties outside the district have become the richest counties in America. All federal money in unspeakable amounts. Drive around and check the parking lots, the upscale restaurants (try Capri in McLean) , the upscale supermarkets (Balducci’s). In my next life, I’m going to be a BMW dealer in Herndon. The government sponsored-boom has been reported on; what hasn’t is the frantic cause or the amounts.

They measure the money in the billions and that is only the stuff they can tell you about, not what’s in the black budget. We are talking obscene amounts of money pouring into contractors from a government that can’t afford health care for its citizens, or decent treatment for its wounded veterans, or funds for schools that are failing, and is in debt to the Chinese up to its rectum. We’re talking not about the cost of the Iraq war, but about the ancillary expenditures of the War on Terror you know nothing about. Billions, people! And no one seems to be watching.

The place is full of office buildings with no names on them; blank lobby registers; floors that elevators don’t seem to stop at, people hiding ID badges as they leave the buildings; security people rummage through dumpsters to see what other people threw away; secret rooms; there’s a service for shredding classified documents, normal shredders aren’t good enough. [By the way, know how to destroy a CD with classified information on it? Two minutes in a microwave]. It's a whole world most people know nothing about. One joke is that even the waiters at the pizza places need clearances.

From my experience, they are bright, patriotic, dedicated people, all of whom are at the end of the federal hose, and bless them for it. Some of them even do come up with bright ideas from time to time. They work very hard. I’m just dismayed at the notion that if the government knew what the hell it was doing, Reston would still be an interesting housing development and that part of Virginia would return to the obscurity it richly deserves.

And I’m also dismayed that no one is watching. Or seems to care.

Oh God! He's coming back. Get your daughters' off the streets

It is the end of the world as we know it.

After a brief return to actual paid work in an actual office with supervisors, bosses, h.r. departments, forms, limited vacation schedules and a commute from hell, your obedient servant is returning to blogging. Watch this place next week. We are going to have some fun.

Hello! Anyone Home? It's Getting Hot in Here!

I'm driving my Hummer over to see the Al Gore movie, but don't worry, I'll drive slowly--The latest outrage in the wingnut culture is Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," about the effects and dangers of global warming. Conservative commentators are predictably foaming at the mouth at this latest liberal outrage. It and the scientists who support the idea that humanity is about to really screw up planet Earth, have been called unAmerican. I can't comment as I haven't seen the film yet, but we are going to next week.

So how accurate is the film? Apparently, very.

The National Geographic Society took environmental scientist Eric Steig of the University of Washington to the movie. Steig reports: "I was looking for errors. But nothing struck me as overblown or wrong." Gore claimed that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had doubled last year. True. Heat waves are increasing. Also true. Deaths from global warming will double in just 25. A reasonable extrapolation. More than a million species will be driven to extinction in 50 years. Ditto. Sea levels could rise more than 6 meters and Central Jersey would become beach front property. Yup. Move upland.

Then the Associated Press, about as neutral a news sources as you are likely to find, did a survey of more than 100 climate researchers to ask them if they thought the film accurate, including the few remaining skeptics. Those who saw the film or read Gore's book agreed he nailed it. "I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate [it was]. I was blown away," said Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.

Actually, I wasn't surprised. About 15 years ago, Gore came to Stanford to talk about the environment in general and global warming. I was blown away. He really, truly knew his stuff and was articulate and impassioned. What happened to the articulate and impassioned guy during the 2000 campaign is another story, but anyone who messes with Gore on this issue comes up looking like an idiot. He has been at it for almost a generation and has it nailed.

This, of course, doesn't stop the idiots. See here and here. Part of the problem, I maintain, is the the media (usually not science writers), still cover the issue as if it was controversial. It isn't. The number of scientists who reject Gore's premise can be counted on the fingers of one hand and most of them take coal industry money. The other problem for the wingnut critics is that the film is doing extremely well for a not terribly action-packed documentary. (Jon Stewart says it has the record for the most people who went to see a PowerPoint presentation). It has already grossed $131 million!

Unfortunately, the one man who we most need to see the film says he won't. Of course not.

Your world. Delivered. Straight to an illegal database.

This is the AT&T Operator. Can you type a bit slower? the NSA is have a difficult time keeping up--AT&T, the ghost of Ma Bell, which used to be SBC or something, is in the cross-hairs of a serious controversy and lawsuit and has responded by--how shall we say this--well, lying. And it gets worse. The company (I get tired of looking for the ampersand), as you know, has an operation in San Francisco dedicated to spying on its customers for the National Security Agency, which, as you also know, hasn’t bothered to get subpoenas for their eavesdropping. Now, it turns out, there is yet another operation in Missouri, probably spying on Internet traffic. If you are using AT&T to read this, congratulations, you’ve probably made a probably illegal government database. Salon reports that two former AT&T employees say the company has a highly secured room in Bridgeton, Mo., that may contain another operation. But not to worry. It gets worse.

The company has now notified its customers (and I wish I were one so I could tell them to shove it) that your Internet records on its network are the company’s property and they will give out the details to whomever the hell it feels like. The policy will go into effect tomorrow. Asked to explain, a spokesman said that was nothing new, they were just updating the policy and that was always the deal. They are just trying to make the policy easier to read. He is lying. No, it wasn’t part of the previous contract.

The company also is the subject of a law suit by the State of New Jersey (ray!) demanding to know if AT&T was compromising its customers’ privacy. The Justice Department has now sued New Jersey to stop them from proceeding with the suit, claiming of course, national security, the excuse given by every despotic regime in history for hiding illegal activity.

I’m waiting for the people to get really pissed. I may wait a while. I’m mad as hell! Why aren’t you?!