Recent Media Goodness

Sometimes the stories pile up faster than I can post them, and I have to resort to a list. So here goes:

NPR's Robert Krulwich on why we perceive time to be speeding up as we get older. I've been somewhat obsessed with this phenomenon since I noticed time changing when I was 10 or 11. The reasons are pretty much what I suspected, but the story was interesting anyway.

The Economist reporting on linguistic research that shows the more widespread a language is, the simpler it becomes grammatically. "Linguists have long known...that 'simple' people with primitive technologies do not speak simple languages. By the definitions used here, the native languages of North America and South America are the most complicated in the world, while Europe’s are the simplest."

Dan Gunderman, writing on Network for Good's blog, about six words nonprofit organizations should avoid. He nailed some of the verbal stumbles (such as writing "website" as "Web site" or using the vague term "capacity building"), but left out one of my least favorite nonprofit terms: "community engagement."

A BoingBoing story (by Cory Doctorow) about people in a South African neighborhood who believe they suffer extreme physical effects from a nearby radio tower, and are suing to get rid of the tower. This despite the fact that (wait for it...) the tower was not in use for six weeks of the time they say they were suffering from its use. The placebo effect giveth and sometimes it taketh away.

A story (which I haven't seen reprinted anywhere) reporting on a study that found rats exposed to the air around Southern California's heavily trafficked freeways showed precancerous changes in their brains within just three months. It sounds like completely legitimate, if preliminary, research, carried out by a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Two New York Times stories related to recess for school children: one about its importance to development and concentration, and another about its timing: having kids each lunch after recess resulted in less food waste, higher consumption of milk, vegetables and fruits, and improved behavior. In the school that made the change and analyzed the outcome, the nurse saw a 40 percent decrease in visits in the afternoon, too -- fewer headaches from not eating enough, and fewer stomach aches. It even resulted in more instructional time because the kids got a cool-down period while they were eating and were ready to go back to class right away.

Let Them Eat Bacon

I turned off the Colbert Report last night too early to see this segment with Jonathan Safran Foer, discussing his book Eating Animals. Which I plan to read soon!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jonathan Safran Foer
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Just Wait Seven Years

Monica Nilsson of St. Stephen's Human Services had an excellent letter in today's Star Tribune:

Regularly, I get calls from the media asking if I have any vets of Iraq or Afghanistan sleeping outside yet, homeless. I tell them to call me in seven years. There's a pause, then a "why?" I tell them it's not that our Marines, soldiers, airmen, sailors and midshipmen who come back pressed and with a crisp haircut immediately move to a homeless shelter. While most will come back to love and purpose and maybe even a parade, others return to begin a new battle.

First, there's a breakup in their marriage. Then, they live with family if they can. Then, our heroes will stay with friends. After they've overstayed their welcome, they'll become residents of pay-by-the-week motels. Finally, we see them after they had to give up the car in which they slept. Now they are homeless.

When I ask the media if they want to talk to homeless vets who served in the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Korea or the Second World War; they're not particularly interested, probably because no one else is. Seven years from now, when we are in North Korea or who can imagine where, they might come calling for the homeless vet news story of the day; I'll offer an Iraq or Afghanistan vet and they'll decline.

Time passes quicker than we realize, though, and now we've been at war seven years and guess what? Last week, I had a homeless vet in my office who has done two tours in Iraq and is sleeping under a bridge in Minneapolis. Don't call me, though; he and his fellow bums or heroes find their participation in our consumption of the news of the day the least of their concerns.

It Was So Much Simpler During the Depression

In case you missed the Mark Morford column called "Why Are You All So Disappointing?", here's a link to it. Reading through it a second time, I keep breaking into pained laughter. It covers everything from global warming to the iPad to Obama... all in one big drowning pool of dyspeptic discourse.

And a fine companion (or antidote, depending on your point of view): comedian Louis CK, in an appearance on Conan O'Brien's show, talking about how "everything's amazing now, and nobody's happy":



Both originally spotted on kottke.org.

A Few Thoughts on the Haitian Adoption Situation

In light of the recent Haitian adoption story, MinnPost interviewed transracial adoption activist and writer Jane Jeong Trenka. Well worth reading, but here's my favorite part:

MP: What do you think adoptive parents of children from situations like Haiti don't understand?

JJT: I feel there is such a lack of imagination. What I mean by that is, if you could imagine yourself being in the shoes of, say, a Haitian mother who has been separated from her child, and who is desperately searching for that child, you would not rush to airlift that child out of the country for adoption. If you could imagine yourself in the shoes of that mother, you would be working feverishly for family reunification and accurate identification. You would be working on building infrastructure in Haiti. You would be concerned about not just children, but also the adults. A little imagination could go a long way toward building a world that is more equitable, where everyone — children and adults — is given the tools to work towards improving their own lives and that of their families and communities.

Clearly, the bumbling Baptists from Boise lack this type of imagination and empathy, believing they're on a one-way mission from God, who must also be short in the imagination department.

One other piece of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Idaho meddlers was an AP story from the Star Tribune on February 2:

Since their arrest Friday near the border, the church group has been held inside two small concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers have makeshift offices and give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged.

One of their lawyers said they were being treated poorly: "There is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing," attorney Jorge Puello told the AP....

Treated poorly, huh, because they have no air conditioning? Does anyone have air conditioning in Haiti at this point, or even electricity? They're in the same building where the government's ministers are also working, so it sounds like it's the best the country has to offer right now, and this jerk has the temerity to complain about his clients' treatment? He should be happy they've got food and water and are being accorded an actual judicial process.

The story ended with these words:

Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption, said the arrests of the 10 U.S. Baptists would probably undercut his orgainzation's push to expand adoptions form Haiti as soon as feasible.

"Maybe the Americans thought they were helping 33 kids, but now there's going to be a much slower process and maybe even a ban on future adoptions..."

If I had a mind to, I might almost take this possible outcome as a message from God that He doesn't want these trans-racial adoptions to happen. But I'm not in the habit of speaking for God.
____________

Update: The New York Times reports on another effect of the Baptist adoption enthusiasts: Medical personnel can no longer evacuate injured children for treatment in the U.S. because they may be perceived as kidnappers, and the proper paperwork is not available for most of the kids.

Before..., the largest pediatric field hospital in Haiti was airlifting 15 injured children aboard private flights to the United States each day.

But since the arrests, it has been able to evacuate only three children on private flights to American hospitals, according to Elizabeth Greig, the field hospital’s chief administrative officer, who has been in charge of trying to get the necessary Haitian and American approval.

At least 10 other children have died or become worse while waiting to be airlifted out of the country...

Spell Check on Drugs, Part 2

I've written before about the funny corrections suggested by spell checkers. Yesterday, my phone presented me with an especially fine one.

I was typing in "Sarah Palin," and what did the iPhone suggest?


Sarah Palindrome.

P.S. - The Urban Dictionary tells me that this term means "A word or phrase that makes no sense in either direction."

The Paws that Refresh Us

Minnesota Public Radio has a new sponsor: Luther Seminary in St. Paul, offering a free daily email called God Pause. (Sign up for it here if you're interested.)

Somehow, I couldn't help but hear that name a bit differently:

Filth Flies Like a Chicken

I've been meaning to post about this Star Tribune article since it ran on January 23. From it I learned about Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin of Northfield, Minnesota, who is working with Mexican immigrant families to build completely solar-heated hoop houses for raising chickens, even during the Minnesota winter. As director of the Rural Enterprise Center, he spends his days working to create "agripreneurs."

As writer Kristin Tillotson describes the hoop house, "It smells not of ammonia from poop, but sweet, clean hay." Humane treatment of the chickens is one part of the larger picture for Haslett-Marroquin, which is, as Tillotson says: "sustainable farming, energy conservation, self-sufficiency for low-income immigrants and healthier food for everyone."

I couldn't help thinking of Haslett-Marroquin and happy chickens when I saw this on a farm and greenhouse products website. It's a description of a liquid-spraying system:

In case you can't read the text at right, this is what it says:

One of the largest management problems facing the poultry producer of today is filth fly control. The shift from many small farm flocks to fewer large poultry operations has greatly increased fly problems by creating concentrated breeding areas and large volumes of waste that cannot be removed frequently. As urbanization and rural non-farm residence increases, poultry producers face increasing pressures to reduce fly populations. FROM TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Darn those city people and non-farmers who force farmers to deal with their filth fly problems. It's not like the flies have been proven to be disease vectors or anything.

According to worldpoultry.net, one of the primary insecticides used in a sprayer like this is pyrethrum. (Reading that page is an eye-opener in general.) Pyrethrum is an extract of the chrystanthemum (daisy) plant, which has what's called a "knock down and kill effect" on insects, such as filth flies. It's usually combined with synthetic chemicals that "synergize" with it to make it more effective. (The pyrethrum knocks them down, but it doesn't always kill them, so the synthetic takes care of that. Not how I usually think of synergy happening, but hey.)

As pesticides go, pyrethrum sounds like it's relatively benign: It breaks down quickly and "only" has mildly negative effects on mammals). Of course, it kills every insect it touches, including honeybees, and it's highly toxic to fish and frogs. Since chickens are supposed to be doused to the skin with it, one can only hope they're more like mammals and less like fish.

Along with "enclosed poultry housing," frequent use of sprayers like the one shown here to spread pyrethrum has been shown to lead to pyrethrum-resistant flies (big surprise!). All of those giant chicken houses, where the birds have no room to move and the farmer can't clean up sufficiently, lead to outbreaks of flies that can only be controlled with chemicals, which in turn lead to resistant flies, requiring ever-stronger insecticides.

All this is to say... I wish Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin the best of luck in building his grassroots, decentralized, solar-heated, chicken coop movement.

Update: Here's an additional story about Haslett-Marroquin's work.

Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth

Here's a book to add to the must-read list... Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank. Author Randi Hutter Epstein was on NPR's All Things Considered today, and here are a few of the topics I'll be interested to read more about:

• The Chamberlen family of doctors, who invented the modern forceps and then kept the technology as a proprietary trade secret so they could be the doctors of kings. Hard to say how many children and women died because of their decision. Now there's an argument for open systems.
• A Southern doctor named Sims, who had some good news and some bad news. The good: He figured out how to cure vaginal fistula (tears in the vaginal walls). The bad (very, very bad): He worked out the details of his cure by practicing on enslaved women. And I gathered he wasn't practicing on tears that occurred naturally. Ugh!
  
• Class issues have a lot to do with attitudes about and access to the range of childbirth technologies. In the early 20th century, some upper class women agitated for the right to be knocked out while giving birth. But it turned out they weren't actually unconscious -- they were in pain and trussed up so their movements could be controlled. They just didn't remember it because the drugs had an amnesiac effect. Another ugh!
  

With stories like that to look forward to, I can't wait to get a copy!

Nano Nano

My jaw is hanging open. I'm wondering if the calendar somehow flipped to April 1 when I wasn't paying attention.

Why? Last night on BoingBoing I saw a story about sprayable liquid glass, a nanotechnology invented in Turkey and patented in German. Here are some of its attributes, as reported on the website physorg.com:

• It's silica mixed with either water or ethanol (alcohol).
• It has a major antibacterial effect because microbes that get on the surface can't reproduce easily.
• Food production companies found that surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with bleach could be sterilized with just hot water. "The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months."
• In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Time for Procter and Gamble to rethink its business plan.
  
• It's resistant to UV radiation as well, and so is being tested as a coating for monuments. I know some printing companies who might think it sounds pretty handy, too.
  
• Because it's so thin that it's breathable and flexible, it can be sprayed on seeds and plants. Seeds protected by it germinate better than those without it; plants are protected from fungi.
• The same applies to fabrics... so all clothing could be stain-resistant.
  

Imagine the uses something like this could be put to in hospitals, computer clean rooms and laboratories that require absolutely sterile environments. And I thought, so it will still be a while until this is available, right?

Wrong. According to the report, "It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US)."

On the other hand, as BoingBoing commenter SolarSailor pointed out:

There has been a cascade of press releases in the last two days all saying the same things [about the product]. None of it is referenced and none refers to published scientific data. The company website has no reference material. However, "trials in a British hospital" are "promising" and sellers of cleaning agents are "worried" and may block sale of [the] product to prevent you, the deserving public, from getting your hands on this wonderfest.

I may be (actually hope I am) wrong, but this has all the hallmarks of a scam/marketing puff piece.

And an anonymous commenter who claimed to be a materials scientist raised what sounded like credible questions about how something like this could work.

Let alone whether it would cause lung damage when breathed.

So I'm not sure if this is a good technology or a bad one... or a technology that even works, or is somebody's wishful thinking... but it sure got my attention.

He Loves You, He Loves You Not

A story from Haiti last week prompted me to look through my list of never-published posts for a piece I wrote back in December, but had hesitated to post because it sounded so... negative or something.

But this story, which told of a young girl found in a collapsed building after 15 days, reminded me of my unused words from late last year. Her recovery was unexpected for sure, and a miracle, some say. I use that word "miracle," too, sometimes, but only in a generic way. Not as in "I believe God caused this to happen."

But the story went on to tell us that the girl's mother never doubted her daughter would be found. Why? Because she had been praying nonstop. Ignoring the fact that every other person with a missing child, sibling or parent has also been praying, to no avail. "I think she has a special God," her brother was quoted as saying.

This drives me crazy, and I just have to say so. Here's what I wrote back in December.
____________

What's wrong with these pictures?

An abducted girl is found safe on December 25, and some people call it a Christmas miracle (clearly, God intervened to save her):



While a different abducted girl is found dead the same day:



Yet no one credits God with that outcome.

I wish people would stop making thoughtless comments about God's role in the outcome of everything from surviving a car accident to winning the lottery. Each positive God intervention implies a host of other God oversights or deliberate snubs resulting in injury, death or, at minimum, disappointed hopes.

Or, if I can't expect people in the extremity of this type of situation to think about what their words imply, can I at least urge the writers, reporters and editors to stop putting this myopic, offensive spin on the stories?
____________

Note: Here's an example of a story about the Haitian girl's rescue that didn't attribute it to God. Both of the photo/headline combinations above are from the Huffington Post, but I saw both stories treated similarly in my local daily papers.

A Star Tribune Double-Header

Today's Star Tribune front page featured this headline, which reminds me the Strib copy editors aren't writing for radio.


A few pages later, I ran across this headline/photo juxtaposition, which struck me as completely inappropriate for a news story.

Clearly, this image is being used as a photo illustration ("Obama is seeing red ink as far as the eye can see!") rather than as a news photo. The caption refers to Obama's session with Republicans last Friday -- leading me to assume the photo was taken there, perhaps when Obama was trying to see through some glaring lights? -- but the story is not about that session and makes no mention of it at all. (I can't link to the story because it's not on the Strib website.)

I seem to recall that this misuse of news photography is a big no-no in newsrooms. Photo illustrations are limited to the editorial and features pages, not the news pages. It's one of the few things left to differentiate them from the sea of opinion and regurgitation we call the media in the age of the interweb.