“…we look rock ‘n’ roll death in the eye and examine some of the most ghoulish trends in rock history…”, including the ‘deadest bands in rock’ and the ‘deadliest jobs’ in the field. (New York Daily News)
Daily Archives: 5 Oct 04
Sprawl May Harm Health, Study Finds
“People who live in sprawling communities tend to suffer more health problems, according to the first study to document a link between the world of strip malls, cul-de-sacs and subdivisions and a broad array of ailments.” (Washington Post)
Unintended Consequences Dept:
Vitamin boosts may increase death rate of users: “Thousands of people could be dying prematurely from vitamin supplements, researchers report today, stating that the pills increase the death rate of those who take them by 6 per cent.
One in three women and one in four men in the UK is estimated to take dietary supplements for health reasons. But a review of 14 trials of vitamin pills taken by 170,000 people found they increased the death rate by 6 per cent. While they offered no explanation as to what caused the deaths, they discovered that the supplements offered no protection against cancers of the gut.” (Independent.UK)
Could it be that people who take vitamins, as compared to those who don’t, are more anxious about their health, and that this is correlated with the excess mortality, either because they have something about which to be anxious, or because the anxiety itself has adverse health consequences?
The Submerging World
Bill McKibben says that low-lying islands are being drowned. They are the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ of global warming, since
“warm water takes up more space than cold water does. That simple fact of physics, utterly inexorable, is one of the two or three most important pieces of information humans will have to grapple with in this century…
Admittedly, no one intends this destruction — on the other hand, nobody is doing much of anything to stop it, either. Eventually, of course, our inaction will do enormous damage even to our midlatitude fortress continent. Those pictures of crumbling foundations, swelling lagoons — that’s our future too, along with parched deserts, dying forests, discombobulated agriculture. But by the time that future kicks in, later in the century, we will be hard-pressed to say we don’t deserve it. Right now, global warming is coming first for the Tuvaluans — a little like last century’s scourge came first for the Jews. It took us too long, but eventually we roused ourselves to help meet that challenge with sacrifice and with fortitude. I wonder what we’ll do about this one.” (Orion )
One World Health
New Scientist interviews Vicki Hale, founder of the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, which is obtaining the rights to ‘orphan drugs’ for rare but devastating diseases traditional drug companies have little incentive to address.
Long Strange Trip
“It has been a long trip for psychedelic drugs, but they’re creeping toward prescription status in the US, thanks to a group of persistent scientists who say they can help people with mental disorders and chronic pain.” (Wired)
Bad Thoughts
New Scientist interviews Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic.
“In your book you are quite harsh on religion. Aren’t people entitled to their faith?
This is one of my favourite errors. An interesting change has happened, at least in the west. It used to be that people would argue for a particular religious dogma or a clear religious doctrine. That is no longer what happens. The world is increasingly dividing into those who have “faith” and those who don’t. It doesn’t really matter what the faith is. That is why you now get “faith groups” coming together from all kinds of different religions. The weirdest manifestation of this new tendency is when people say: “I’m not a Christian but I believe in something.” Then I say: “Of course, I believe in many things, like there is a chair there and a table. What are you talking about?” And they reply: “Well, you know, something more.” But what “more”? What they mean is something more than we have any good reason to believe in.
That really seems to get to you!
What amazes me is that they like to set themselves up as having a slightly finer sensibility than you or me but in fact they are completely intellectually irresponsible. They used to come up with very bad arguments for their faiths but at least they felt that there was something they should provide. Now mere wilfulness has triumphed. This is what I describe as the egocentric approach to truth. You are no longer interested in reality because to do that you have to be pretty rigorous, you have to have evidence or do some experimentation. Rather, beliefs are part of your wardrobe. You’ve got a style and how dare anybody tell you that your style isn’t right. Ideology is seen as simply a matter of taste and as it’s not right to tell people that they’ve got bad taste, so it’s not right to tell them that their opinions are false. I’m afraid that the cast of mind of most people is the opposite of scientific. “
Italians fall out of love with ‘two Simonas’
“Italy’s adoration of the ‘two Simonas’, the women aid workers abducted in Iraq, began to sour yesterday, as the extent of their sympathy for the Iraqi fight against the allied occupation became clear.” (Telegraph.UK)
On a Matter of Life or Death, a Patient Is Overruled
“In intensive care units, the steamroller of technology starts moving quickly, flattening all ambivalence.
…’If you get through this,’ I whispered to Mr. Smith, ‘I hope you can forgive me.’
I have never been able to balance satisfactorily in my own mind the twin pillars of modern medical ethics: patient autonomy and the physician’s obligation to do the best for his patient. As a doctor, when do you let your patient make a bad decision? When, if ever, do you draw the line? What if a decision could cost your patient’s life? How hard do you push him to change his mind? At the same time, it is his life. Who are you to tell him how to live it?” (New York Times)
In this troubling essay, the physician seems to justify an invasive outright violation of a competent patient’s clearly expressed directives because the patient is grateful several weeks later. The physician asserts that no one really wants to die, and agrees enthusiastically with a colleague, in a travesty of a competency assessment, that if the patient had expressed a wish not to have heroic measures, his thinking wasn’t straight. This style of medicine is pitiful in its singleminded, vain and ultimately of course pointless quest to cheat death at all costs. The pride physicians like this take in their seeming omnipotence and omniscience make me ashamed of my profession. I am surprised that the author was so un-self-conscious as to have no embarrassment at having portrayed himself in this light. There are any number of vignettes most of us can describe — or which you can see on ER every week — that describe the subtleties of medical decision-making in the face of ethical dilemmas… but this is not one.
Cracks in the Facade
“The former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq says the United States ‘paid a big price’ for not having enough troops on the ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.” (CNN)
“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared Monday to back off earlier statements suggesting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.
He also conceded that U.S. intelligence was “wrong” in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” (CNN) What is going on here? Is it possible that, in the aftermath of the debate, as Bush’s inability to admit his mistakes seems as if it will lose the election for him, he is sending out his minions to see how a ‘flip flop’ would play?
Oh, and: Poland (as in “Don’t forget Poland”) is pulling out of the coalition of the misbegotten.
Kerry, Newest Neocon
Safire just doesn’t get it: “As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry’s edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush.” (New York Times op-ed)
Two Peoples, One State
Should Palestinians give up on an independent state?:
“As Christians and Muslims, the millions of Palestinians under occupation are not welcome in the Jewish state. Many Palestinians are now convinced that Israeli support for a Palestinian state is motivated not by a hope for reconciliation, but by a desire to segregate non-Jews while taking as much of their land and resources as possible. They are increasingly questioning the most commonly accepted solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – ‘two states living side by side in peace and security,’ in the words of President Bush – and are being forced to consider a one-state solution.” — Michael Tarazi, a legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (New York Times op-ed)
‘Fairness and Balance’ Dept.
Fabricated Kerry Posting Leads to Apology From Fox News: “Plenty of news media analysts thought Senator John Kerry looked good at Thursday night’s presidential debate, but Fox News went a step further, posting a made-up news article on its Web site that quoted Mr. Kerry as gloating about his fine manicure and his ‘metrosexual’ appearance.
Fox News quickly retracted the article, saying in an editor’s note on its Web site that the article ‘was written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast.” It said, ‘We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice…” (New York Times )
The well-respected senior Fox correspondent who wrote the story has been ‘reprimanded’ but continues to report from the campaign trail. Fox has declined to say what action, if any, was taken against those who reviewed the article for posting. The New York Times places this incident in the context of “a time when journalistic errors and lapses both big and small have called into question the credibility of a number of major news organizations”, citing the CBS News embarrassment about the Bush National Guard documents. No mention is made of the Times’ own besmirched record in covering the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and its role in the totally uncritical media coverage of candidate Bush in the 2000 campaign.
