Author:

More Amazing Things About Me

And while I’m on the subject of me:
* a few minutes ago I finished the first bout of marking for the first-year tutoring I’m doing. I do enjoy marking, except for the fact that it takes almost forever to do it well.
* finger is back in a splint. This time it was custom made for me (Splints While-U-Wait!) so should do a much better job of sorting out this finger. The hand therapist took some measurements – it’s the first joint on my left ring finger, and I can’t bend it down further than about 60 degrees or bring it up any straighter than about 30 degrees. I probably won’t ever get the full 0-90 range of movement back but she was optimistic about getting pretty close. Sounds good to me.
* LJ readers will already know this, but for those in the UK who don’t read there: I’m coming over your way to attend the wedding of Leon, King, God and one of my oldest friends, to his Lady God. I’ll be in London the week of the 11th August, and in Edinburgh the week of the 18th August, except for the days when I’m in Winchester or wherever the heck else.
* I really should go to sleep now.

More Youthful Misapprehensions

As a wee chap, it was commonplace in our schoolyard for one lad to deride another’s claim or opinion with the phrase, “Get off the grass!”
Naturally I presumed that there was a metaphorical lawn, upon which one’s pronouncements were apt to be exaggerated if not outright falsehoods, or in the case of statements of opinion, extreme and poorly considered.
By reference to this metaphorical lawn, and exhorting the speaker to depart from it, one could indicate one’s poor opinion of the veracity of the speaker’s claims, or of the value of their opinion.
Rather a useful piece of garden topiary, I’m sure you’ll agree!
Ah, the naivete of youth!

The Wire

As a white person, of course I like The Wire, the Baltimore-set depiction of a city struggling against the drug trade and its own systemic inertia.
The show’s title is a reference to the phone taps that the police unit use to crack cases. It’s also, more importantly, a reference to the ethos of the show. The Wire is itself a wiretap, letting us listen in to the conversations that happen behind closed doors, so we can see for ourselves how the business of managing power creates our society.
Also it’s compulsive, thrilling, and often hilarious. Add it to your Netflix queue or whatever.
(Props to my brother for steering me to the Wire. Thanks Nature.)
(Please no spoilers in the comments.)

Cellphones and Water Drinking

A great example of how media coverage lets us down in the news last week.
On April 1, NZ media pushed hard a story about research showing that mobile phones increase the cancer risk:

The link between mobile phones and brain tumours should “no longer be regarded as a myth” after research suggests high cellphone use could double the risk of brain cancer.

More science on April 4, a Reuters wire that was trumpeted through the NZ media, this time research showing that we don’t actually need to drink all that water:

There is no clear-cut scientific rationale for the average healthy individual to drink a lot of water – and it may be downright harmful – according to two kidney experts.

Both of these entries extensively quote the researchers involved. The cellphone one goes on to quote some other people for extra perspective. Yet these two science stories are not like each other.
The two articles both mention where these scientific reports were published. The water article was published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The cellphone article was published on “the website brain-surgery.us”. They don’t go any further and acknowledge that their might be a difference between these two venues of publication. Anyone who takes the trouble to click through the links above, however, can instantly see that the water study was published in peer-reviewed scientific journal of long standing, and the cellphone study was published on the author’s personal website without review by anyone at all.
A half-second’s further review of the cellphone study should set off serious alarm bells for anyone with any inkling about communication (like, say, a journalist): it’s written with an abundance of cheap visual rhetoric, the stock-in-trade of the internet hysteric: bolded and colour-coded phrases, massively overlong paragraphs, paranthetical exclamation marks (!) and even SCARE CAPITALS.
These differences seem massive and obvious to me, but this crucial context is completely invisible in the way these stories were reported. This failing becomes shameful when you consider that the subjects of these stories are of significant public interest and likely to inspire behaviour change from some of the audience.
It’s a sad state of affairs, really. I find it hard to blame the journo in the byline of the cellphone scare story, Greer McDonald – a quick google shows she is fresh out of journalism school. It’s editorial that bears the burden of shame here.
And since it’s unrealistic to expect this to change any time soon, if ever: in this age of Google, it’s up to the reader to be their own factchecker. Get into the habit.

Farewells and Welcomes

Malcolm departed today. He is off to the land of Oz, and then further afield still on his road back to Edinburgh. Farvell, as the viking says on the sign by the little town of Norsewood.
And some new arrivals deserving of welcome – baby boys to Chuck (of Sidonia) and Sally, and to Gino (of Death From Above) and Viv. If I have my timing right, both of them have a birthday of April 2, which is in my eyes a most auspicious date.
The birthday wisdom is accumulating in the comments to the previous post. They fill me with such glee. Politics, Yeats, Bon Jovi, BrainDead, the Wire, even a shocking true tale of the emergency room told in two quotes. Check them out – and if you haven’t already, add one for me!

Birthday Wisdom 2K8

I turn 32 around midday today, in about a dozen hours. What kind of age is that, 32? It seems a meaningless age to be. (I sincerely hope it is.)
As is traditional here at From the Morgue, I ask my readers to add a quotation of some kind to the comments as a birthday gift.
It can be a quote from a song or a poem or a movie or a conversation or an advertising brochure or a blog or a speech or a legal opinion or a sports commentary or a magazine article or a comic book or a novel or a motivational poster or the website you have open on the other browser tab. Give me a quote that means something to you, or a quote that means nothing to you, or a quote that couldn’t mean anything to anybody even if they tried.
Every year, this collection of random bits of the world makes me happy, and I like to be happy on my birthday. C’mon and indulge me.
Previous Birthday Wisdoms: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007

North Island in January

Malc has put up some amazing photos from our trip through the North Island in Jan.
A taster from my morgueatlarge email:

We set off Jan 11, stopping at the Army Museum in Waiouru before circling Mt Ruapehu and setting up camp in its shadow. It was a rare clear day, offering unfettered views of Ruapehu and its companion mountain, Tongariro. Next day we pushed up to Whangamata in the Coromandel Peninsula, east of Auckland. Had a lovely swim at the beach there, a wonderful golden-sand curve. Didn’t see any sharks…

Read the rest if you so desire, but the real joy is those photos.

Malty Birthday

Wellingtonians:
Wednesday is my birthday. Yet again. Someone oughta do something about how quickly those things roll around. Since finger-injury is still ruling out the netball basketball fun, I’m gonna be at Malty Media instead. Malty Media is this:
It’s the first Wednesday of the month, time again for another free mid-week chill out session… Your hosts Jet Jaguar & Aquaboogie mix up their own compositions & improv jams with bonkers selections from 50s pop through contemporary classical to 80s soundtrack themes. Oh, and mangled field recordings.
So come to Malty Media and say hi. It’s free, at Katipo Cafe on Willis St, from 7-9pm, Wednesday April 2nd.
(Weds is also Malcolm’s last night in NZ. If you missed the gathering on Saturday then pop along to this.)

Friday Linky

Home sick with a cold today, which gives me a chance to provide your Friday Linky:
Start with the Seven Fortean wonders of the world – I hadn’t heard of Oak Island and its Money Pit, or the Piri Reis map.
I’ve already mentioned Sixteen Candles once this year – how improbable is mentioning it a second time? NPR has a feature on Long Duk Dong, the cringe-inducing Asian character from that film. It interviews actor Gedde Watanabe, and also features a one-page strip by Adrian Tomine about being an Asian American in high school when “the Donger” was famous.
In other comic-related linky, Newsarama has the special Scott Pilgrim comic released for Free Comic Book Day – if you don’t know Scott Pilgrim, it’s a super-fun oddity featuring young love, rock and roll, and cute dimension-hopping rollerskate couriers. It is the hipster book of the moment, and worth checking out. (Wellington Public Library has ’em, local readers!)
And Cracked has an article on when Princess Di joined a superhero team in an infamous killed storyline for X-Men spin-off X-Statix by Brit stirrer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred. Features the rarely-seen cover art that was solicited before the Windsors said, um, no, and the story was altered. See it to believe it.
Star Wars fans, check out the space fight from Return of the Jedi with all the non-space fight bits edited out – just nine minutes of pure space battle adrenaline (and not coincidentally the best sequence in Return of the Jedi).
Eco-stuff: Malc pointed me at this BBC report on the fate of plastics in our ecology – drifting in the sea currents so it all ends up on this remote island of ‘Midway’. If you’re still in doubt over whether we need to kick our plastic bag habit, this will tip you over. The ocean-crossing robot should become some kind of mascot… Also, the AVClub discusses misguided enviro-friendly entertainments such as Captain Planet, Ferngully, and Melissa Etheridge. (Hang on…)
And finally:Einstein’s theory of relativity in words of four letters or less. Worth your time (so to speak). Not kidding about the four-letter limit, either – they refer to Isaac Newton as “Izzy” throughout…