Everyone Claims to Be a Victim

I read the transcript of a podcast: “Is the media making American politics worse?” It comes from a political journalist who believes all of his colleagues are honorable and hardworking, but “I’m worried we’re failing. I’m worried we’re making American politics worse, not better.” To get a more objective viewpoint he invites a professor of journalism to discuss it with him. The exchange goes as follows.

The crisis is “because everything around us has changed — our business models, the way people read us, the way we compete with each other, the way we’re manipulated — and we’re not keeping up. Instead, we’re getting played by the outrage merchants and con artists and trolls and polarizers who understand this new world better.” Apparently this crisis of trust is not of their own making. It’s someone else’s fault, the trolls and polarizers.

“We’re being used to fracture American democracy, and I don’t think we know how to stop it.”

His guest believes the president is forcing journalists to cover his “nuts” rallies. The host complains that the media run in packs, so if you get a story wrong it has no consequences, because everyone else got it wrong too. They just move on to the next story without any investigation of their own missteps or any feeling of responsibility to make corrections.

They are concerned that the outrageous elbows out the important in news coverage.

Both admit the media is now in the entertainment business which is different from journalism and that “We don’t really have a press corps that takes responsibility for the priority list that it ends up working from. We have journalists who are just reacting to events.”

So we have journalists admitting that when stories come in, it’s their organizations that decide what is news and what is not (the priority list). Despite that, they don’t want to admit any bias. They want to be seen as arbiters of right and wrong, of truth and lies, but this printed exchange of ideas reeks of political bias. More evidence comes out as they comment on their audience: “So on the one hand, we become more important to the people who feel like they are on our side. And we have become less important to the ones who aren’t.” They then go on to agree that those who disagree with them – not on their side – are wrong and that’s what keeps them from doing their jobs.

See how easily they portray themselves as victims. What they write and what they choose to report is out of their control; and there is nothing they can do about it.

Part of this is a responsibility issue with the reporters, and part is a perspective issue with the audience. The media must deal with a crisis of trust and a built-in conflict between the entertainment and journalism sides of the business. But none of it is their fault. The audience is driving them to water down the important with the “new, outrageous, conflict-oriented, secret, interesting” stories that the outrage merchants force them to cover. As for their audience, our lack of perspective, our yearning for the new and outrageous, results in us getting the news we deserve rather than important and meaningful stories. Meanwhile, these journalists portray themselves as victims of the system.

The bottom line is that we can’t expect anyone to watch out for us. The truth is out there somewhere, but to find it we must question everything! The future lies in critical thinking and perspective, with a little responsibility on the side.

Why Do We Even Pay Attention?

So many scientific studies make the news that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Many of them contradict earlier studies and some don’t make much sense at all. I have given examples of both in the past, but here is one more in the nonsense category.

This headline appears in the UPI Health News section and reads, “Study: Morning people less likely to develop breast cancer.” Researchers from the University of Bristol in England analyzed data from over 400,000 women. That’s a very large sample size, in fact, it includes "the largest collection of genetic data on women with breast cancer obtained so far.” Unfortunately the first paragraph of the story is completely misleading. “If a woman regularly wakes up early in the morning, she has up to a 48 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer.”

That would seem to be something to pay attention to, but not without looking into the details.

A little later in the article, the utility of the information quickly breaks down. The study found “approximately one less person per 100 will develop breast cancer if they have a morning preference compared with people who have an evening preference.”

Suddenly they are no longer talking about actually waking up early. The subject has changed to having a preference for mornings versus a preference for evenings. It's a kind of energy-level situation rather than an alarm clock situation. And the 48 percent lower risk is now expressed as one less person in 100. Calculating that out comes to about 25 in 1000 who are not morning people versus 15 in 1000 who are. This is a minor risk either way, with a 975 in 1000 chance of it not applying at all.

Further on it mentions two additional pieces of information worth noting: the findings have not been peer reviewed and much of the data was based on self-reporting. 

Peer review occurs before publication in reputable journals. Fellow scientists review and approve data collection methods, the mathematics used in the analysis and the experimental design. And one of the least reliable data collection methods is self-reporting where, for any number of reasons, subjects have been known to embellish, exaggerate and misrepresent their actual habits.

Finally, what can an individual woman do about this? Remember, the study was actually about preferences. If you are not a morning person, is it possible to change? It seems as likely as hearing that left-handed people are more creative and suddenly deciding to become left handed. So the information may be useful to scientists who can further study genetic differences, but it’s pretty worthless to the general public.

Why, then, would news media bother to report on this? After all, I got every piece of the above information from one of several articles, all blaring the same eye-catching headline. Other than causing some people to needlessly worry, it serves no purpose.

They do it because it’s easy. They receive a press release from scientists motivated by the need for publicity to ensure a continuation of funding. Then they simply add a snappy, but not necessarily accurate headline, and their work is done. Throw in the scary word "cancer" and everybody wins - except for the unsuspecting public!

Any question about why critical thinking is more important than ever?

The Opposite of a Bargain

Today is “Black Friday,” and people love bargains. Sometimes they love bargains too much and end up injuring others as a result. I hope that doesn’t happen this year, but even some mild pushing and shoving is a sign of poor perspective.

Despite the history of Black Friday, the fact that most of us like bargains can be lost on the experts. In early 2012, Ron Johnson, the new CEO of JC Penney announced a major overhaul of their business plan.  “Fair and square” low pricing was to replace the idea of weekly sales and promotions. He assumed everyone could see through those “fake prices” – marked up to be reduced later. It was logical. But Penney soon found out that shoppers aren’t always logical, especially when anticipating an exciting adventure of hunting for deals and then being able to boast about their cleverness. It’s in their shopping DNA, giving them a psychological boost and a feeling of pride to discover how much they “saved.” 

But that is not always the case, as we can see from this Bloomberg story, headlined: “How Companies Get You to Pay More for the Same Product.” 

Some of the tricks are quite old, like the word “repeat” on shampoo instructions or the suggestion to not let kids use more toothpaste than the size of a pea, implying that adults need to use more. 

Many times we are forced or tricked into either paying more or getting less for the same price. But there are also cases where companies use artificial scarcity to boost the price and desirability of the products. The article discusses five categories.

“Shrink-flation” is how they term getting less for the same price. The standard example is ice cream. “Häagen-Dazs brand reduced the size of its ‘pint’ containers from 16 ounces to 14 oz.” Likewise, what used to be a half gallon, became 1.5 quarts several years ago, and now my favorite comes in at 1.43 quarts. The same is true of candy bars and other sweets, but also of some breakfast cereal (17.3 oz.) and canned green beans (14.5 oz.).

The next they call “Auto Bundles.” “The average new car cost more than $37,000 in October, mostly from the desire for bigger SUVs and trucks, but “options packages and custom trim lines can swell a sticker price by thousands of dollars.” The 12-inch touchscreen for a Ram truck adds almost $8,000 alone.

“Premium Economy” is the new trick airlines use to offer more legroom and amenities to those wanting more but unwilling to break the bank to fly first class.

The “Women’s Brands” category emphasizes how women often pay more for the same product from jeans to deodorant. It’s called the “pink tax” and has been around for a while. One brand even advertises their products as “pink tax free,” although that's hard to prove for their tampons.

The last category is the most problematic as it seems to prey on individual’s need to impress – a real perspective killer! It’s dubbed “Fashion Drops.” European luxury brands and other are trying “to put scarcity back in the equation” with special releases of limited productions. (This artificial scarcity has long been practiced by the diamond industry.) One such example given is Kanye West “Yeezy” Adidas sneakers.

Looking up fashion drops was a learning experience. One site, drophype.com (at least they are honest about the hype), promises the latest news on these highly desirable, special releases; but the last posting is 2 years old, so either the hype has cooled or they just fell behind. But some of those Yeezy sneakers sell here for $999, or only $28 a month! 

Those are apparently the latest tricks and lures for unsuspecting shoppers. Good luck for Black Friday shopping, try to keep some sense of perspective so you don't end up owing a monthly payment on your footwear.

Cancer is Nothing to Toy With

Last week some troubling news came by way of a Harris Poll conducted for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Based on a sample of 4,038 adults and an additional 849 cancer patients, they found that 39% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, "Cancer can be cured solely through alternative therapies, without standard cancer treatment(s)" despite clear evidence that those patients “have much higher mortality rates.” Another  statement, "Alternative therapies are a good supplement to standard cancer treatments(s)," reached a level of 75% overall agreement. 

Some experts commented that the high level of agreement likely was due to strong promotional efforts by the alternative and complementary medicine industry combined with a weak public understanding of science. The opposite of alternative medicine is called evidence-based medicine. In the latter case there is evidence from well-conducted experiments to back up the efficacy of treatment; in the former there are only stories, endorsements, myths, legends, ancient wisdom and uncorroborated, so-called clinical trials. To paraphrase one doctor, “There is no alternative medicine; there is only medicine that works.” (Late addition, 11/20/2018: Spain plans to ban alternative medicine in health centres.)

Walking down the vitamin and supplement aisle of any pharmacy or grocery store exposes the shopper to a wonderland of miracle cures and preventive pills and potions. The only problem is that many studies have shown them to have little or no value (unless prescribed by a doctor for a specific need). And news about supplements found to contain little or none of what’s printed on the label, and sometimes containing dangerous substitutes comes out periodically. A law passed decades ago with a boost from the nutritional supplement lobby ties the hands of the FDA until after problems are reported. 

The industry survives on heavy promotion, a vast amount of shelf space and the placebo effect. But cancer is serious business and should be treated as such.

Here is a case in point involving Robert Young, author of the bestselling pH Miracle books. Sixteen months after going to jail for practicing medicine without a license he has been ordered to pay over $100 million in a civil trial brought by one of his cancer patients. Her suit alleged negligence and fraud after he advised her “to forego chemotherapy and traditional treatment, and instead go with treatment in line with his alkaline theories.” She now has stage four cancer and her oncologist gives her three to four years to live.

The 39% who say they would do this on a survey may be overstated. When it’s life and death people will make more considered decisions than when checking a box on a Harris Poll. But it does happen and every instance is unfortunate and avoidable.

I have advised many times in the past that words like miracle in "health" ads are clear warning signs of something fishy. After Young was found guilty of two counts of practicing medicine without a license, to avoid further jail time he “had to make a public admission [in court] declaring that he is not a microbiologist, hematologist, medical or naturopathic doctor or trained scientist." He may have been sincere about his belief in his miracle cure, but he had no evidence to back it up – as it turns out, and to the distress of his patient, he had just the opposite.

I like people to be able to do what they want with their time and money. If they want to throw it away on dubious pills, oils or ancient remedies, let them be. But when it comes to serious illnesses like cancer, please apply some critical thinking, and stick with real medicine from trained doctors. The odds are so much better.

Someone is Always Watching

While no one is paying attention, our privacy slowly slips away. We have at our fingertips all kinds of new technology that makes life so much easier and more convenient. At the same time, it puts everyone in a position to be held accountable for every mistake they make.

This was brought home to me by two stories on the same day this week on CBS This Morning. The first was about new technology in cars, and the second about a controversial photograph.

The auto technology story is very interesting. The new touch screens on some of the higher end cars help with navigation for regular trips as well as for emergencies. If the car is low on gas, it will direct the driver to the nearest service station and allow payment from inside the car and allow occupants of the car to order food from the snack bar inside. The Wi-Fi modem also allows drivers to make reservations on the way to a destination.

This sounds very convenient, but all that convenience comes at a price. While drivers take advantage of these new gadgets, the car is recording all kinds of data with “the power of 20 personal computers and [it] can process up to 25 gigs of data every hour – some of it beamed back” to the manufacturer. 

The data includes not only driving habits, but also personal preferences. There is so much data that experts estimate that the data stream will soon be more profitable to carmakers than the car itself. Information about purchases can be sold to advertisers who may also pay to put promotions on the screen. Drivers can now voluntarily share data with insurance companies to take advantage of good driving habits and secure a lower rate.

If people don’t fight to keep this information voluntary, however, think of how fast it can get out of control. This, like the cell phone, is one more source for law enforcement in case of crashes, other motor vehicle incidents or criminal investigations. It is a possible source for insurance investigations or rate setting, an additional source for spam (disguised as targeted advertising) and many other problematic scenarios as the cars record location, stops, speed, erratic driving, hard-braking and driver eyelid movements with inside cameras. 

All this seems harmless and some of it is even good, leading to better safety and maintenance, but make one mistake…. Your car is spying on you.

But spy-like technology is not only in your car: it’s everywhere. The second story was about the prom photo from Baraboo, Wisconsin where a group of 30 high school boys seemed to be making a Nazi salute. The staged photo from last May was posted to Twitter last Sunday and has sparked “international outrage.” 

CBS didn’t identify who posted it or find out why it would be posted six months after the fact. According to one of the students who didn’t participate, the photographer only said, “Raise your hand,” and he thought the idea was just a joke on the part of some his classmates. The photographer denies the charge against the boys saying it was supposed to show them waving to their parents. No one talked to any of the other students to find out their intentions. But it’s too late, as our wonderful technology instantly allowed people around the world to be shocked and outraged.

It is without a doubt that CBS and other news outlets picked up on this story for the shock value. But is it really shocking that a bunch of high school boys would participate in this kind of tasteless, insensitive horseplay? And it wasn’t even premeditated, as was the case of Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform to a party when he was two or three years older than these kids. But the outrage merchants never cut anybody any slack. (It’s a good bet none of these boys will be eligible to serve on the US Supreme Court forty years from now.)

Remember, no one is allowed to make mistakes (or bad jokes) anymore. Someone or something is always watching, recording or posting, eager to spread or sell the information. Scary!

Critical Thinking and The Mail

Yesterday was my birthday, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Nor am I naïve enough to fall for all the advertising tricks that come my way. This must come as a disappointment to many companies. I got many examples in a single day last week when I picked up the snail mail.

First, let me repeat the assumption that a large percentage of the ads we see must be working to some extent. If consumers didn’t respond to the ads and buy the product, the company would either change their approach to advertising or go out of business. So let’s go to the mail.

The first envelope contains a typical auto insurance ad. It tells me I can save 15% or more on my insurance simply by switching to their company. (The number of discounts they can offer will make my head spin!) But didn’t I just receive a mailing the week before from another company telling me how much I would save with them? Theoretically, someone could keep switching back and forth between companies, saving with each switch, eventually paying almost nothing. That is certainly too good to be true. So this one gets recycled.

The next one is supposedly from my bank offering me a credit card with a 5.99% APR rate fixed for life. I don’t get too excited, because the fine print gives away some additional information. It’s not really from my bank; all my bank did was sell a mailing list with my name on it. The rate shown boldly at the top of the letter applies only to balance transfers during the first 3 months. After that it’s 15% to 24%. They are no doubt counting on the fact that people who already have a balance to transfer will also carry a balance with them and end up pay the higher rate (for life) – along with the possibility of some $37 late payment fees. This great deal follows the insurance offer into the recycling bin.

But wait – there’s more! This one according to the return address comes from “Your Local Office” in a city I am not familiar with. A gentleman working there is saving my free copy of the Medicare Guide. All I have to do is tear off the stub and mail it back telling my age, phone and email – so he can haunt me for the next year? No, thank you! (The actual name of the company is in the fine print at the bottom of the letter where I am informed that it is not affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency.) Out it goes.

Finally, the letter offering me wonderful, affordable health insurance joins the rest.

This is not the first time I have seen these or similar letters. So what could be the reason that these mailings continue? Someone must be responding. Perhaps it is the people who relieve stress by cow cuddling.

That’s right, for only $300 for a 90-minute session, the latest health trend, according to this source, is “snuggling up with a 1,000 lb farm animal to help with your mental health.” One farm in New York “has a program offering the ‘Horse & Cow Experience’ where individuals can spend time connecting with the large barnyard animals.” When it comes to mental health, paying $300 to spend time snuggling with a cow seems more diagnostic than therapeutic!

I wasn’t born yesterday, but based on the mail I receive and the latest health trend, yesterday must have seen a figurative baby boom. If we get drawn in by these, how will we ever start using critical thinking to solve real problems?

Get a Grip

Several years ago I knew a woman, the manager of an office, who would occasionally remind her workers to “get a grip.” She meant that she couldn’t discuss a problem or issue with them until they could calm down and approach the subject rationally. This tendency to fly off the handle about trivial matters or about things we have no control over is a good indicator of a temporary failure of perspective.

This is what comes to mind when I read about threats from strangers. It’s likely that the person mailing bombs to leading Democrats was just a crazy person motivated by some kind of warped sense of their role in politics. That may also apply to the man in Pennsylvania who threatened to shoot up a polling center on Election Day after finding out he wasn’t registered to vote or to the man in Florida who threatened to blow up an elections office building because he was fed up with receiving too many robocalls. I wouldn’t call these folks typical.

 But there have also been some recent examples of people, who are probably otherwise fairly levelheaded, who needed to be reminded to get a grip.

The first example comes from northern Indiana. On the day before Halloween, a “9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers were struck and killed by a pickup truck as they crossed a road to board a school bus.” It was a tragic and heartbreaking accident that made national news. The driver of the pickup truck has been charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one of passing a school bus causing injury.

Only a couple of days afterward the sheriff was forced to go on Facebook and local television to ask people in the community to stop threatening the woman, saying, "No good can come from the harassment and the threats of violence against individuals involved.” What made those people think threatening this person was a good idea or that it would have positive results? It was obviously more than one person.

In a similar situation at about the same time, professional football player Ty Montgomery and his family were receiving threats. Why? He made a mistake during a football game. Instead of taking a touchback in the end zone after a kickoff in the fourth quarter, he tried to return the kick. He was hit, fumbled and lost the ball, blowing an opportunity for his team to make a last effort to win the game.

You don’t have to look any further than the last word of the last sentence - game! And this again was obviously more than one person. He told the press, "People are sending messages to my wife, people are making comments on posts about my son. I'm getting phone calls, people offering their houses to stay [at] because apparently people are making threats online."

There are a lot of benefits to the current level of technology, allowing mass communications and giving anyone the ability to contact others instantly anywhere in the world. Through social media we can pass along good news or amusing pictures and stories to groups at a time. One downside of the same technology is this ability to express outrage, often in the form of threats. These threats serve no purpose, accomplishing nothing, except possibly making the perpetrators feel a little better about themselves. What’s worse is that it can be over something as trivial as a sporting event.

Maybe everyone needs a sign over their television and computer screen reminding them, when the awful news or the awful sports decision is broadcast, to “get a grip.”

Behavior Matters More Than Politics

Tomorrow is Election Day and many people will be going to the polls hoping to send their candidates to Washington or to the state capital to solve all our problems, or at least the most pressing ones.

The problem is, as I have written so many times here, the solutions to most of those problems lie not in Washington but with individuals choosing better behaviors. More evidence of this came last week in an article from CNN with the headline: “How to evade the leading cause of death in the United States.” 

The biggest killer of Americans between the ages of 1 and 44 in 2016 (the last year with available data) was unintentional injury. The detailed explanation shows that these are directly related to behavior, actions and decisions of the victims or of those close to them.

The first category is basic home safety. The main problem here is fires, which killed 2,775 people and injured 11,025 more. Most fires started when someone was cooking. Experts recommend simple things like having working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors along with a fire extinguisher in every house. Many cities have volunteer programs to inspect and install smoke alarms for people who cannot afford them. Other home accidents are falls and drownings.

Next comes basic road safety. Here CNN reviews the requirements for children’s car seats and booster seats. But a huge problem is distracted driving, especially cellphone use while driving. Do we really need more laws to fix this?

Third on the list is basic bicycle safety. After checking the bike itself to make sure it is in good working order, it’s important to make sure others easily see you. Reflectors, bright clothing and a light at night are critical accessories. The article reminds bikers to ride on the right side of the road, with the traffic, obey other traffic laws and watch the road ahead for obstacles. “Cyclists also suggest tucking your right pant leg into your sock and your shoelaces into your shoe, so they don’t get caught in your bike chain.” And most important, always wear a helmet.

This is only a short list of direct causes of death, but add as indirect causes: smoking, eating and drinking to excess. These are related to the top three causes of death in the country overall: heart disease, cancer and lower respiratory diseases. They are also descriptions of problematic behavior.

And notice the use of the word basic in all the safety advice above. All these life-saving suggestions relate to behavior. They are precautions everyone can take to make life safer for themselves and their loved ones. Collective action in these areas alone could raise life expectancy in America significantly (without a single new law to protect us).

None of these precautions needs any government action, although the government is always happy to intervene where we fail to take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones or show we don't have the discipline to kick destructive habits. (Look at the opioid epidemic.) So as you vote tomorrow, don’t expect miracles. Your future life and happiness are, for the most part, really in your own hands. That is true of every one of us.

Natural Food and Holy Water

True story: Some years ago an older woman visiting her Catholic church noticed the baptismal font was empty. She saw the maintenance worker nearby and told him about it. She was shocked when she saw him run a garden hose through the window to refill it. He explained that the priest would come by to bless it later. 

In a sense natural food is a lot like holy water. It is often as much about faith as anything else. And now people are fighting like a bunch of theologians about what is and is not natural.

The question arises from a lawsuit against LaCroix sparkling water. The company advertises that the beverage contains no calories or artificial flavors and that it is enhanced with natural essences. But what those essences are is a trade secret. Customers don’t have a clue as to the meaning of “naturally essenced” written on the cans. They assume that natural means good. 

But the class-action lawsuit filed last month claims that “LaCroix's all-natural claims are false and that these natural ingredients are actually synthetic.” Although some of the ingredients can be derived naturally, they are listed by the FDA as synthetic and can be found in such products as insecticides. “Popular Science breaks down why the argument doesn't seem to hold up, noting that none of the ingredients mentioned in the case are considered dangerous.”

This is reminiscent of the “devastating news” a few years ago about wood fiber in grated cheese. Actually it was cellulose, but wood fiber sounds scarier. It’s used to reduce clumping, but some companies were adding more than the allowable 4%. No one was hurt and the fuss was far out of proportion to any actual impact. It was more about the principle of purity and the fact that wood fiber in cheese makes a good headline.

Another example comes from the makers of Prevagen, a highly advertised memory supplement derived from jellyfish protein. A minor problem is that they don’t actually get the protein from jellyfish. They synthesize it in the lab. A much bigger problem is that it has not been shown to be effective – it doesn’t do what it claims.

But the natural labelling issue is troubling for some. The main objection is the lack of a clear definition for the term as shown in the following statement. “Although the FDA has not engaged in rulemaking to establish a formal definition for the term ‘natural,’ we do have a longstanding policy concerning the use of ‘natural’ in human food labeling. The FDA has considered the term ‘natural’ to mean that nothing artificial or synthetic...has been added….” 

But does a formal definition make that much difference? There is no question that green tea is natural. BBC Good Food told us about it last July. “With origins going back as far as 5,000 years, green tea is commonly drunk and widely grown in the Far East where the health properties are well regarded.” Later in the same article they say that evidence of its health benefits are "largely inconclusive" and that although “many ‘health’ products now include traces of green tea…there is limited evidence to suggest these products are effective.”

Last week came a sterner warning from BBC Health on the same subject. “When Jim McCants started taking green tea pills he had hoped he was giving his health a shot in the arm. Instead, it appears the pills caused such serious damage to his liver that it required an urgent transplant.” Though this is highly unusual, it can happen.

So natural doesn’t necessarily mean healthy; it doesn’t even always mean safe. Many other substances are natural and not safe, nicotine, for example. The shock when people hear this is like finding out holy water can come from a garden hose. It drives many into denial.

The difference is that holy water is a matter of faith and healthy food is a matter of science. What’s important is whether it is safe and beneficial, not whether it’s natural (whatever that means).