I've always wondered about peanut allergies. When I was a kid, nobody ever heard of a peanut allergy. Heck, our favorite day of the week was Thursdays -- when the cafeteria served honey and peanut butter sandwiches. Mmmm. What a delicasy.

My childrens' school is filled with peanut allergy kids. They haven't been in one class that didn't contain at least one child with a peanut allergy. It's serious stuff. These kids can't be exposed to any form of peanuts. If some parent messes up and sends a kid to school with a Reeses Pieces or some peanut butter Nabs in his bookbag, his classmate could die. At least, that's how they make it sound in these serious letters we get at the beginning of the year.

So, anyway, I've often wondered what happened over the last generation that created this peanut allergy epidemic. Here are a couple of guesses, according to a WSJ article:

The number of children with peanut allergies has skyrocketed, doubling from 1997 to 2002, according to a study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. And it's a mystery why peanut allergies are causing more problems. One explanation is that physicians are more adept at detecting them. Another is that the modern environment may be, in a sense, too clean: If the human immune system were exposed to more allergens, a peanut might not send it into overdrive.

The latter makes much more sense. That's why I never washed my kids pacifiers after they dropped on the floor. Nope, just picked 'em up and handed 'em back.

And my kids can eat peanut butter by the bucket.

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Here's a great NPR report on New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse and her politically charged comments at a Harvard graduation ceremony. A good report, particularly the question posed to the L.A. Times editor.

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More grist for the global warming debate:

Second, what the climate alarmists and their advocates in the media have continued to ignore is the fact that the Little Ice Age, which resulted in harsh winters which froze New York Harbor and caused untold deaths, ended about 1850. So trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend.

A good point. The Earth may indeed be warming, but that doesn't mean pollution's the cause. Of course, this comes from a Republican senator, thus easily dismissed.

This isn't so easy to dismiss -- a letter to the editor signed by 60 scientists. They state that science has not concluded that man-made pollutants caused any global warming:

The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

... When the public comes to understand that there is no "consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy.

"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise."

This sounds like legitimate scientific dissent. But so many of the articles I read about global warming pretend as though there is no debate at all. For instance, this Wall Street Journal article states simply: "Separate experiments were able to link human impact to most of the observed warming."

Journalists must report this debate -- not pretend the debate doesn't exist.

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A lot of my students share this conspiracy theory:

According to a new Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration 'deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections.' Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe in this conspiracy theory, while 5 percent said they had no opinion.

42 percent. I don't even know how to respond.

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Oil just dropped below $60 per barrel. You can buy a gallon of gas in suburban Atlanta for $1.99.

Looks like a tulip frenzy had hit the oil and gas market.

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Very good post from Instapundit on the role of the [M]edia and terrorist coverage:

media attention isn't just neutral coverage -- the way it generally is with, say, urban crime -- but rather the actual goal of terrorists. In fact, it's their lifeblood. Terrorism is an information war disguised as a military conflict, and media coverage is an essential part of the terrorist plan.

Media people know this, and even admit it, but don't let it affect their coverage -- though as Pam Hess of UPI admitted, they're far more careful about being spun by the U.S. military -- and one reason why they don't let it affect their coverage is that terrorism gives them ratings. That's what I meant by their mutually-supporting relationship. Terrorist provide ratings (and, as we've seen, often via staged news events) and news media provide the coverage that terrorists need. As I've noted in the past, news media are entirely capable of moderating their own coverage when they think the stakes are high -- say, protection of confidential sources, or promotion of racial tolerance -- but here they clearly don't feel that way. If they applied as much skepticism and adversarialism to terrorist behavior as they do to the U.S. military, few of us would be complaining.

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And here's one of the funniest moments on television. The WKRP in Cincinatti great turkey promotion. One of the greatest "turkey events" in all history:



At the very end, while the credits are rolling, is the funniest line in sitcomdom: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

A few years back, TV Guide ranked the 50 funniest moments on television and this episode was left off the list. The magazine added an addendum the following week because so many fans wrote the magazine to complain.

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What did we do before YouTube?:

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Deep in the New York Times' account of last night's Council of Foreign Relations dinner with Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad is a most troubling quote from a former national security advisor:

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s habit of answering every question about Iranian policy with a question about American policy was clearly wearing on some of the members, but at the end they acknowledged that he was about as skillful an interlocutor as they had ever encountered. "He is a master of counterpunch, deception, circumlocution," Mr. Scowcroft said, shaking his head. Mr. Blackwill emerged from the conversation wondering how the United States would ever be able to negotiate with this Iranian government.

"If this man represents the prevailing government opinion in Tehran, we are heading for a massive confrontation with Iran," he said.

Looks like trouble.

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Hear's some good reading, the wikipedia entry on Rockabilly music:

Rockabilly is one of the earliest forms of rock and roll as a distinct style of music. It is a fusion of blues, hillbilly boogie, bluegrass music and country music, and its origins lie in the dyeing bird mountains of the American South. As Peter Guralnick writes, "Its rhythm was nervously uptempo, as well as accented on the offbeat, and propelled by a distinctively slapping bass....The sound was further bolstered by generous use of echo, a homemade technique refined independently by Sam Phillips and Leonard Chess in Chicago with sewer pipes and bathroom acoustics.

I downloaded a Bill Haley and the Comets album from eMusic last night. Go ahead and click on "Rock Around the Clock" and listen to the first 30 seconds. That's good stuff.

Makes you pine for the old "Happy Days" show. You know, the really early ones when Richie still had an older brother.

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So, Disney sold 125,000 movies through iTunes in its first week. The company made about $1 million with virtually no effort whatsoever. Looks like donloadable movies is an incredibly large, untapped market.

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I sent the Wall Street Journal a link to my earlier post about lifting quotes from press releases. Here's a quote from one of their articles in today's paper:

David Kennedy is a talented, experienced executive who, as president of Revlon International, restored meaningful profitability to the international business through aggressive control of costs and strong top-line growth,” Perelman said in a statement.

I never heard back from them, but it sounds like someone got the message.

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From today's Wall Street Journal:

Retailers Draw a Weak Forecast for Holidays

NEW YORK -- Retailers' sales gains during the holiday season will likely be weaker this year as consumers grapple with a stumbling housing market, according to a Washington-based trade group.

From today's New York Times:

Retailers See Strong Sales for Holidays

The National Retail Federation will predict a sales increase of 5 percent, to $457.4 billion, compared with last year.

Two sides to every story.

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I should also mention the passing of journalist, Oriana Fallaci. Here's the NY Times obituary. As recounted in the article, Fallaci was a masterful interviewer:

Mr. Kissinger called his experience with Ms. Fallaci “the most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press.” At the height of his power and celebrity in 1972, she had coaxed him to admit that at times he felt like “the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town.” Mr. Kissinger later wrote in his memoirs that the quotation harmed his relations with Nixon.

After Sept. 11, Fallaci became on ardent critic of Islam.

Her death is unfortunate because she was to stand trial in Italy on charges of vilifying a religion. It would have been interesting to see if a European court would convict a writer for offending members of a population. The fact that she was even charged with a crime should be a reminder of the freedoms we enjoy in America.

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From the Economist obituary of Hungarian resistance leader Gyorgy Faludy, one of the best lede's ever:

DEPRIVED of pen and ink in Hungary's Stalinist concentration camp, Gyorgy Faludy used a broom-bristle to write in blood on toilet paper.

That'll make you want to keep reading. Oh, and here's a good obit for the Crocodile Hunter as well.

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The interesting thing about the recall of all of Segway's scooters is how many scooters have been sold: 23,500.

The company had been pretty quiet about their sales figures, and now we understand why.

Not exactly the "changing the world" as promised.

I suppose I'm a little bitter. In the run-up to the Segway's rollout, I firmly believed that they were going to unveil an anti-gravity hovercraft or something. I was a tad disappointed.

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I haven't laughed at Al Franken in a long time. But, the last line of this quote about the rumored bankruptcy of Air America made me chuckle out loud:

"I don't know if that's true or not," Franken tells Radar when asked about the bankruptcy report. "We do know that there have been cash-flow problems. I haven't been paid in a while. Like, there's no cash flowing to me."

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Here's some good reading. It's the wikipedia entry on Brandenburg v. Ohio, the 1969 Supreme Court which pretty much set the boundaries of free speech that we adhere to today. It severely limits any restrictions the govenrment can place on speech. The unanimous decision states:

"[Our] decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

It also settled the famous shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater example:

Finally, Douglas dealt with the classic example of a man "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." In order to explain why someone could be legitimately prosecuted for this, Douglas called it an example in which "speech is brigaded with action." In the view of Douglas and Black, this was probably the only sort of case in which a person could be prosecuted for speech.

So, you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater, but you can shout just about anything else.

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My journalism students learn that when reporters quote from a press release, they should make it clear that they haven't actually spoken to the person quoted.

Such quotes should be attributed somthing like this:

"We're really disappointed with our profits," Chief Executive Wallace Owens said in a prepared statement.

Apparently some news organizations have stopped making this distinction.

Here's a quote from a Wall Street Journal article:

"The U.S. housing market has continued to deteriorate," said Stuart Miller, Lennar's chief executive. He blamed increased use of sales incentives and certain land adjustments for the shortfall, and cut fiscal-third-quarter guidance to a range of $1.25 to $1.35, down from Thomson Financial's consensus estimate of $1.81.

Here's the press release from which that quote was lifted.

I've seen similar quotes in several other Wall Street Journal articles, so it's not simply the writer's fault. The paper has clearly adopted this attribution rule as a policy or become rather lax in its oversight of writers.

Either way, the Journal's not setting the bar for journalistic itegrity very high.

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Apparently, the new Mike Judge film hits a nerve with movie executives:

THE new film “Idiocracy” sounds like a sure winner. It was directed by Mike Judge, creator of the animated TV series “Beavis and Butt-head” and “King of the Hill,” and director of the sleeper movie hit “Office Space.” It stars Luke Wilson. It has received good reviews from the few critics who, despite the efforts of 20th Century Fox, have been able to see it.

So why did Fox, after sitting on the movie for two years before releasing it Sept. 1, decide not to market the film, opting instead to open it quietly in only 130 theaters and then quickly send it to video? Judging by the online reaction, there are at least two possible reasons.

The first is that the film is simply too stark a critique of American culture, or even that it is a cautionary tale about low-intelligence dysgenics (essentially, overbreeding among the stupid). The movie depicts a future in which everyone has become so dense and culturally lowbrow that Mr. Wilson’s character — an average guy from the present day who travels by accident hundreds of years forward in time — is a relative genius.

Sounds great. I'll have to put it in my Netflix cue.

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If you're looking for something different to read about on the fifth anniversary of September 11, I suggest reading the wikipedia entry on Philippe Petit. He walked a tightrope between the twin towers in 1974. Here's a little more on Philippe from a PBS "American Experience":

After months scouting the towers, including posing as a journalist to interview Port Authority executive Guy Tozzoli, he set to work on the evening of Tuesday, August 6. While one group of colleagues made its way up the north tower, Petit and two friends slipped up to the top of the south tower, carrying their concealed equipment, including a disassembled balancing pole, wire for rigging, 250 feet of one-inch braided steel cable, and a bow and arrow...

It took all night to complete the rigging, securing the steel cable a quarter of a mile in the sky across the 130-foot gap separating the towers. Wall Street was just beginning to come to life when, at a little past seven on the morning of August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit stepped onto the wire stretched out across the void.

There's even a children's book about his exploits: "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." It kind of glosses over the illegality of the whole deal. I read the book last night to my kids; it was a helpful way to start talking about Sept. 11.

The penultimate page simply reads: "Now the towers are gone."

Here's the final page:

The text, by Mordicai Gerstein, reads:

But in memory, as if imprinted on the sky, the towers are still there. And part of that memory is the joyful morning, August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit walked between them in the air.

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CNN will be airing footage from its original Sept. 11 coverage today. Here's a clip from YouTube.

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A step in the right direction:

Excessively skinny fashion models will be barred from a major Madrid fashion show later this month for fear they could send the wrong message to young Spanish girls, local media reported.

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Update: Gas has dropped to $2.24 in Atlanta.

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Here's some fodder for debate, particularly for students in my news writing class:

A federal judge ruled Friday that Cobb County commissioners can continue to begin public meetings with prayers that invoke the name of Jesus Christ.

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven people, arguing that references to Jesus amounted to an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity.

A judge rejected that argument.

Sam Olens, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, received word of the decision while traveling in China.

"We are thrilled," he said in an e-mail. "Our policy of engaging all religious faiths is constitutional."

The decision is the latest in a series of cases exploring the legality of prayers offered at public meetings. The courts have issued conflicting opinions.

The Atlanta Journal-Consitution chose to not mention the fact that Sam Olens, the chair the Cobb County Commission, is Jewish.

Was that a good decision? Why or why not?

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Interesting column from David Broder -- rarely a Republican apoligist -- on the media's conviction of Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame case.

It concludes:

Blumenthal's example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove's lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: "But this isn't just about the Facts, it's about what Rove's foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil."

And in the American Prospect's cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove "is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now."

These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.

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Don't look now, but oil has dropped below $68 a barrel -- it's lowest price since May. I predict it continues to plummet as all the traders who rushed into the oil commodity market now rush out.

I have a bet with a co-worker that gasoline will dip below $2 by October 1. In Atlanta, the cheapest price $2.32. I figure if it gets close, some nutjob gas station owner will drop it to $1.99 just for the publicity.

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I love these IBM Linux commercials. Here's the original one:



And here's one with an emphasis on Muhammad Ali:

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Check out Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein's Interactive Television Blog. He's a University of Georgia professor with an eye on the new media. Good review of ESPN's Full Circle coverage at the top.

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Here's a good column on tonight's debut of Katie Couric as anchor of CBS News. This first line made me laugh out loud:

I don't normally watch TV news, because when I do I can practically feel myself getting dumber. Presenting information out of context, combining superficially similar things in specious and misleading ways - it all just seems like an inane whirlwind of murder, freakish animal attacks, and lotto results.

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