Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker: How caffeine created the modern world. Without it, there would have been no Enlightenment and perhaps no Industrial Revolution (“One way to explain the

industrial revolution is as the inevitable

consequence of a world where people suddenly

preferred being jittery to being drunk. “), no Manhattan Project…

The interviewer is interviewed: Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross.

AJR: One interesting thing about your questioning

technique is that you often ask your guests “How did you

feel?” when key events happened in their lives.

TG: Here’s the thing. I never went to journalism

school, but I think that journalists are usually taught not

to use words like “feel” when what you’re trying to get at

is something that’s more objective. But part of what I’m

interested in when I’m interviewing somebody is their

inner life. So I’m in that murky territory of feeling and

perception. That’s where I try to go, and that’s why the

word “feeling” gets used a whole lot.

Interesting to hear what other interviewers she admires, and the tidbits about the number of people who have walked out on her — Nancy Reagan, Monica Lewinsky, and Jan Wenner of Rolling Stone. Her description of the way she bludgeoned Wenner over the head with some embarrassing data about him, making for the shortest interview she ever did, at less than three minutes before he bailed out, is what some people cherish about her but what makes me cringe every time I hear her wading right in there. Interviewing is, after all, the bread and butter of psychiatric practice…

American Journalism Review

In other NPR news, you’ll recall my coverage of the bitter breakup between the erstwhile host of the nationally syndicated talk show The Connection, Christopher Lydon, and the Boston NPR station where it originated, WBUR. While Lydon is, personally, abit pompous and impatient, especially in response to call-ins from the public, his interviewing skills and helmsmanship of his talk show were unparallelled and made for the consistently most enlightening and listenable talk radio anywhere, at any time. I felt The Connection was Lydon, and would be dead without him.

I got no charge out of the succession of guest hosts WBUR put on the show while waiting to select a new permanent host, whom they’ve now found in one-time Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Dick Gordon (who?). Boston Globe The guest hosting (or “ghost hosting”, as one Lydon-supporting wag put it) interval showed that even very interesting print journalists make stiff radio hosts; the only interesting substitutes were NPR veterans like Nina Totenberg (who couldn’t do much beside politics), Robert Siegel (who would never be lured away from All Things Considered for this!) and Neal Conan (who was in contention with Gordon). Meanwhile, NPR is considering distributing a new syndicated Lydon show. Would WBUR pick it up? The station manager who fired him says she doesn’t want to talk about it. Boston is lucky, however, to have two NPR stations, so I hope WGBH would take a crack at it.

No More Periods, Period?: Progestin antagonists now being developed “would eliminate menstruation altogether, while still allowing women to get

pregnant,” or “…eliminate both periods and pregnancy.” Wired

In Order to Have Your Advice: ‘ The most clueless people in the world used to be the ones driving down the highway for miles with their turn signal on.

Every time it blinks, it blinks, “I’m clueless, I’m clueless, I’m clueless.” They’re still clueless but they’re not the world’s most clueless anymore.

The most clueless people in the world are those who click on

attachments in their e-mails, sent to them by people they don’t know.

Or even from people they do know.’ Wired

Huge identity theft uncovered: “Key personal data belonging to

hundreds of individuals have been shared in an

Internet chat room, in what one expert says

could become one of the largest identity theft

cases ever. The data include Social Security

numbers, driver’s license numbers, date of birth

and credit card information…” MSNBC

Indonesia’s George W. Bush: Remarkable similarities between Dubya and Sukarnoputri, notes William Saletan: ‘Chatterbox expects Bush and Megawati to get along

famously. White House aides will soon be sent scurrying for

answers to W.’s questions: Can she golf? Does she fish?

How’s her slider? What nickname should POTUS give her?

How about “Megawatt”? Maybe that one would lighten up the

mood in California.’ Slate

Critics decry Bush stand on treaties: ‘ “The administration has, from day one, engaged in a wholesale assault on

international treaties,” says Ivo Daalder, a National Security Council

official under President Clinton.

The moves also have sparked sharp rebukes from other nations. The Bush

administration is “practically standing alone in opposition to agreements

that were broadly reached by just about everyone else,” says Fred

Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The administration’s rejection of the biological weapons draft accord

“confirms a pattern of reckless, unilateralist behavior on arms control, as

on environmental and other issues,” an editorial said Thursday in the

London newspaper The Guardian.

Bush’s new foreign policy vision “has largely amounted to trashing

existing agreements without any clear idea of what to put in their place,”

the newspaper said.’ USA Today And “A leading critic of the military’s missile

defense testing program has accused the Pentagon of trying to

silence him and intimidate his employer, the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, by investigating him for disseminating classified documents. ” New York Times