They don't want you to know

I'm probably repeating myself by warning you that a sales pitch insisting that the item or idea or information you're selling is something someone doesn't want you to have or to learn about is a marker for hokum and perhaps outright fraud.  Similar marketing techniques include warnings that you must get this or read that or go to the website "before they ban it" or that scientists, or historians or doctors or liberals are hiding the real truth from you about things like magic beans or  some dietary trick that will block the effects of eating ten thousand calories a day -- or that some common ingredient is making you sick or pumping you full of  obscure 'toxins'  you can only get rid of if you buy my book.

Such marketing, if you can call it that, is so pervasive that it might seem as though the truth about most things has been hermetically

encapsulated in an impenetrable shell of propaganda: websites, infomercials and advertisements designed to misinform and mislead for profit.  We recognize some of it, tolerate much of it as just hyperbole and humor, but sometimes too much flim flam will send you to the slam.

Kevin Trudeau, whose Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About is a prime example of health and nutrition hokum, just found out the hard truth the hard way and will have ten years in Federal prison to meditate on life.

Do booksellers who feature and promote such books bear some responsibility for misleading millions into harming or at least neglecting their health?  As far as I know there have been few cases like it. It seems to be a rarity and there are no end of fraudulent sales pitches for water "with a different, non-toxic hydrogen bond angle,"  bracelets and pendants "tuned to natural frequencies" and books that assure you it's only the gluten-containing bun on that triple bacon chili cheese megaburger with cheese fries making you sick and giving you "grain brain."  Caveat Emptor after all, is part of the Tea Party Utopian dream where allowing anyone to cheat anyone else leads to liberty and justice for all -- and of course enforcing any kind of truth in advertising law would run up the debt and cost jobs and place an unnecessary regulatory burden on business.

What you see is all there is

Or Night of the Radio Frequency Dead

Remember the Alar scare from the 80's?  Feed mice enough of the stuff they used to spray on apples to choke a hippo  (about 5000 gallons a day scaled up to human proportions,)  and they sometimes might get sick -- and so therefore according to what passes for logic in America, it's TOXIC and so much so, there were instances of people calling up toxic waste facilities to ask whether apple juice was too dangerous to dump along with the paint remover and the used motor oil.  Flush it down the toilet and the world might just end.

Of course in the real world, nobody really could demonstrate any ill effects from Alar or most of the other fertilizer, pesticide and hormone horrors du jour.  There are after all enough people who don't feel well at one time or another to keep the Chicken Littles clucking about toxins and selling us things to make it go away, from duct tape for your feet to jewelry made of resistors and capacitors and diodes "tuned to natural frequencies."  People still believe Alar is deadly, but then people still believe lead foil on the outside of a wine bottle will make the wine poisonous and that degradation of  someone's DNA would turn it into OJ Simpson's and WiFi at Starbucks will lower your sperm count. Of course there are also enough people that begin to feel better after a while to keep the sales of snake oil brisk, but that's another matter.

Did silicone breast implants really cause cancer and lupus, etc?  Billions in settlements were paid because ad hoc 'studies' and anecdotes seemed like enough data for a jury to believe the story but  large, independent studies have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.  Are we disposed to fear anything new and so much that we refuse to look at evidence and grasp at fragments?

Does eating Gluten give you "grain brain" and make you fat like that e-mail doctor says?  No reason to think so but that some entrepreneur wrote a book and advertises on the internet, but all it takes is a handful of people who say they feel good after eating Doctor Bonkers' gluten free breakfast cereal to provide "clinical results" and don't bother to teach them about statistical regression or the Placebo effect or deprive them of that holier than thou status one gets from a gluten free, 'organic' and free range 'unprocessed' diet.  I mean there's a "study" of mummies that proves wheat killed off the Egyptian aristocracy even though it's total fact-free bunkum. What you see is all there is. It's all I know, so that's all anybody knows.

Think we've learned anything?  No, we haven't and with statistical and clinical support or without it - especially without it -we're still willing to fear that something is making us sick even if we're not sick - something other than the double bacon chili cheeseburgers with special sauce or the cigarettes or all that TV and video game couch time. Besides it doesn't matter if you buy the magic berries of the week from the TV doctor and it must be true if it's on Oprah.  I'm tempted to say there is no truth, no science, no knowledge any more, only marketing.

An article in the local paper the other day told us about the "environmental activist group" that was suing to opt out of the "Smart Meter" program that eliminated meter readers and that can tell the electric company if your power is out and what your peak usage time is.  They use "radio frequencies" insist the activists and although not one of them can cite any evidence that the microscopic amounts of RF these meters use will in any way affect anything living or dead and despite the many years of research and the 100 years of experience users of high power radio equipment have logged, they're convinced that these meters will, like any technology the public doesn't understand, produce immense ecological damage. Will the meter emit less RF than the cell phone the meter reader carries with him?  Of course. It will emit less than your TV or even the 455 KHz IF oscillator in your 1947 radio as well or your cordless phone or your Bluetooth earphone. Of course in this town there's a contingent that is sure the meters are only there to let Obama listen to your thoughts.  I wish I were joking.

These are the same kind of people that will become hysterical about "cell phone frequencies" without any idea what those frequencies are, how they behave, what other equipment uses those bands at much higher power levels and are likely to mumble something about roulette when asked about the inverse square law.  Are they the same people who talk about 'going green' and  'saving the planet' when they unplug their cell phone charger to save a milliwatt hour per year? You tell me.

I remember when TV would make you blind and color TV would give you cancer and you would get melanoma  even on a cloudy day in Yellow Knife wearing a shirt and ski mask if you didn't wear that special clothing soaked in SPF 960. Nuclear testing would produce giant ants and medical advance would piss off God as much as building a ziggurat over 70 feet high once did. None of us are old enough to remember the scares about how taking a train that went over 20mph would make your blood boil and the Telegraph would leach away the electricity from your brain and give you neurasthenia if you didn't buy doctor Feelgood's electric shock machine --  and of course there were dire predictions about electric light and the Telephone - and Ohmagawd, now there's radio and there are "activist groups" to make sure we're properly misinformed and hysterical.

Absence of evidence always seems to trump evidence of absence.  That cell phones after extensive research don't really seem to cause cancer or kill bees, has little effect on belief nor does the fact that 800 MHz police radios put out far, far more power and the police aren't keeling over from neuresthenia - nor the ham radio operators with their 1500 watt transmitters for that matter. Let's not even get into commercial radio stations with a 100 thousand Watts, or high power radar.

That Fluoride in the water doesn't melt your bones and that the Measles vaccine really does prevent measles and condoms really do work for prevention of disease is as demonstrable and more so than than the hard fact that Neill Armstrong didn't take one great leap for mankind in some studio in Pasadena.  It doesn't matter. As Barnum said, there's one born every minute and not one of them has a clue about what a 'study' is, what statistics teach us or what scientists are doing these days.  Daniel Kahneman's brilliant book Thinking Fast and Slow discusses the problem of statisticians who should know much better giving no care at all to sample size and confidently producing meaningless conclusions from "studies" like the now much discredited French Monsanto study showing genetically modified corn producing tumors in rats.  But the public reacts to studies without knowing enough to judge them when it feeds the fear of the new and there's an industry dedicated to keeping things just that way. Just turn on your TV (keeping in mind how dangerous TVs are, of course.)  Data doesn't matter and that study will be referenced by activists and pundits and "save the planet" bloggers ad infinitum. What matters is producing a coherent story that we can grasp at and limiting the data we reveal to that which buttresses the story.

Who knows?  So anxious is the human mind to find causal relationships in chaos.  When one unrelated thing follows another, it's enough and as the columnist from the paper says, "maybe these meters are the reason we have so much more autism."  Maybe indeed and the less information he has about radio frequency emissions or human developmental problems the more speculation seems justified by random events. One always prefers a plausible story to a discussion of mathematical probability and the more so when the plausibility is based on ignorance.  As Daniel Kahneman calls it:  WYSIATI, or What You See Is All There Is. Fragmentary evidence, Gerrymandered evidence -- If I don't know the science, there is no science. If I don't know all the years of research that's been done, then no research has been done and who's going to take the trouble to refute me?
I've always called it the "I don't know, therefore. . ." fallacy or the Argument from Ignorance, but either way if I don't know exactly how the pyramids were built, even if someone else does, it must be space aliens and by the way, my front porch light burned out yesterday and my knee hurts this morning -- those compact fluorescents emit radio frequencies after all.  Scary stuff kids.  Scary stuff.

In marketing we trust

When is science not science? When you read about it in e-mail or see it on TV.  Hyperbole in advertising is universal and the more ludicrous the claim, the less it seems to violate FTC truth in advertising laws at least in terms of enforcement. I'm not talking about the ability of advertisers to distract from facts, like running a Toyota Camry through some kind of  roller coaster contraption to 'prove' that's it's not a boring, soulless transportation appliance for dull people, or inventing "the star safety system" to distract from stories about how people are dying because of it's defects. I'm not even talking about TV ads claiming that after driving a Nissan, the speed of light doesn't seem so fast or showing SUVs beating sports cars on a track.  I'm talking about the level of deceit in the marketing of health and science products and advice -- the kind of pervasive disinformation that makes people believe they can eat double bacon cheeseburgers with impunity as long as they don't eat the bun -- eat chili cheese fries  and lose weight by buying Dr. Oz's magic beans and miracle berries, or put their faith in "the proven science of the glycemic index" as though an index could be science. -- as though that handsome guy in the lab coat were a real scientist and his doctorate not in marketing.

It's about the kind of massive promotion of ideas about gluten and fructose that have no scientific support, about making your brain work better by doing 'exercises' that really doesn't have support from neuroscience as claimed, about getting "grain brain" or removing those mysterious "toxins" from your blood or colon. Never mind none of these "studies" ever appear in professional, peer reviewed journals, but only in advertising. Never mind that what they call "studies" never are more than anecdotes, inventions, gross distortions and deliberate misrepresentations.  You just can't get to the science through the smokescreen of marketing -- and in marketing we trust.

We live in an age of snake oil where all it takes is some actor in a white coat, some diet book salesman posing as a scientist to convince our gullible nation that unhealthy things will make them well, that lethal germs and 'toxins' are lurking under the bed, that green tea or green coffee beans or Doctor Bonkers' Egyptian Oil will let them eat 10,000 calories a day while they stay thin and live forever. The sun will kill you quick, we just know it and even on cloudy days and even wrapping yourself like a Bedouin in wool won't help unless the clothing has extra sun protection chemicals in it. Your kitchen counter of course is a dangerous place that needs to be laved with "anti-bacterial" products lest your family die horribly and everything we touch has to be anti-bacterial. Does it surprise you that SPF 50 doesn't give you twice the protection of SPF 25 -- hell no and while the marketing guys smile we cover ourselves with lead foil and hide in the basement.

UV and Toxins and Germs, oh my! Unless you buy anti-bacterial products you'll be eaten alive by bacteria, no matter that there are more of them inside and all over you than there are people in the world and you wouldn't be healthy otherwise. Anti-bacterial soap, lotion, shampoo, body wash, eye drops, sprays, food, gels, creams, toothpastes -- there are kitchen utensils, toys, bedding, socks, and trash bags -- we're told to be afraid of such things on the food we eat, but we're soaking in it. is it even practical, necessary, healthy or smart to attempt living in a bacteria free bubble? Is that attempt involved with all the allergies everyone seems to have these days?

We never ask what anti-bacterial means, do we?  If cleaning our hands with soap and water removes adequate amounts of bacteria according to real double blind scientific studies, we still want to be righteous and hip and enlightened and we don't bother to ask why some chemical that prevents bacteria from reproducing is needed after the bacteria already has been removed by plain water.  We all feel much better eating "organic" food in the faith based belief that chemicals used by those farmers are safer than the chemicals used by regular farmers and the food is healthier and more nutritious. We obsess about unnamed "toxins" and chemicals and preservatives but we don't ask if long term exposure to the serious toxins in anti-bacterial products might have side effects. But hey, better safe than sorry, right? and if it's on TV it must be true!

There are at least 2000 anti-bacterial products on the market says the FDA.  They're finally going to begin to ask for evidence that they are safe. It's about time. In fact scientists have been pressing for the FDA to remove one chemical, triclosan, that interferes with the thyroid gland in rats, since 1978 even though there is no evidence that soaps containing it are any more effective at preventing disease in your home than washing with plain soap and water. The Government is  finally going to demand evidence of safety and effectiveness and it's about time!

  

Facebook games

When I first got on Facebook, I played some of their games. Gave up after a while, but not before I had a buttload of "friends" who I've never met. I suppose I could go through and delete them, but I don't care enough to do that, and some of them have actually been interesting.

But the other night, I was finishing my drink before I started the dishes, and, for lack of anything else to do, thumbing through Facebook. And I came across this message.

K: Kade is complaining of hear pain and can't sleep does anyone know what I could do even if I took him to the ER Walgreens is closed

Huh. Teenaged mother, hoping for help. I took another drink, and noticed the top three comments.

A: Try olive oil with garlic. Take cotton balls and put them in his ears. The warmth will help him feel better.

K: I'll try that thank u

C: peel and cut an onion in half. place the sliced part of the onion over his ear and have him hold it there until there is relief. The onlion will draw out the toxins that are causing him pain. Works for me everytime. When ur done, look at the onion. The proof is in the rings.

I nearly swallowed an ice cube. Really? Predatory peddlers of woo? Hell, for all I know, they're all from the same town in [click] Wisconsin, apparently.

What the hell: give me a second to change into my superhero costume, and I'm...

Unfortunately, my Captain Obvious underpants were in the wash, and all I had left in the back of the closet was an old Dazzler costume from the 70s, when I... well, let's just skip it, OK? It's a long story.

I'll just have to go in as me.

Me: Oh, god. A little onion juice in the ear could make an infection worse. Same with garlic. Jesus, people, this isn't the 14th century - magic doesn't work. Homeopathy doesn't work. The ER could give him medicine that could help - it might be a cold, it might be infection.

Was that harsh? There are some who might say it was a little harsh.

The ladies, however, weren't done.

A: Garlic actually does work. But I prefer my 14th century methods as opposed to running out and getting tons of medicine before trying a home remedy.

C: excuse me? dr's even tell u to use onion capsules. This works jsut like it did in the "14th century"

Me: Yeah. Really helped with the Black Plague, didn't it?

C: sure, do u see the plague now?

Me: Yeah. I live in New Mexico. Look it up.

You know something? Some of those people may be right. Apparently, I can be a dick.

Me: Let's go over it one more time. If it says "alternative medicine," it's crap. if it works, it's called "medicine."

I'm also not above stealing jokes from Tim Minchin, either.

C: i dont see "alternative medicine" written on an onion, do you? hmmmm that why most pills and medicine contain garlic and onion.

Me: Because sympathetic magic is crap. Because an onion doesn't "suck out toxins." That's called "crap"

A: That's why there's MRSA. And tons of drug overdoes from taking medicine as prescribed. In the morning she can go to the doctor, but for tonight if this provides relief let her do it. Calm down, your jizzing all over your medical magazines.

Me: Yup. Overuse of Methicillin has led to MRSA. Meanwhile, underuse of it leads to situations you can find in third world countries. It's a fine line, but waving your wands isn't going to drive the spirits away.

Has anybody noted that I didn't mention their miserable spelling? Or the fascinating claim that onions and garlic are in most pills?

Me: Heat can help with inflammation, if that's the problem. If it's an infection, those darned antibiotics that Andrea hates can knock it out pretty quick. Aspirin has very few side effects (and comes from willow bark - oooh... natural!). Medicine helps, magic doesn't. Raised 3 healthy kids. Saw a lot of bad advice. Good luck, Ms K.

Oh, one last note The next morning, her status read as follows:

K: Well didn't want it to happen but I had to take Kade to the ER he has a bad ear infection but I won't complain it's only his third ever

See, that's the thing. You can be a dick, and still be right.

Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie

Indications are that the Mayans were right and that 2012 is indeed the end of an era, not because of  some change in politics or religion and not because of anything cosmic or tectonic, but because a piece of America as we knew it has died. An America, exuberant in itself, proud, forward looking, confident.  Hostess bakeries died this week and not because of mismanagement but because of what America has become: timorous, ashamed of what it loves and afraid of being provincial.  Our sweet land of phony authenticity.  Of thee I sing.

The Twinkie, the Ho-Ho, the Snowball are gone now, along with the Oldsmobile and the Mercury; with Buddy Holly and the independent hamburger stand. You can't buy a Hostess cupcake any more for much the same reason you can't find anything like Hopper's Nighthawks any more. Your cupcakes have to be 'artisinal,' gluten free, in season, free range and come from a 'cupcakery' just as that cup of Joe is now an 'Americano' and served (artisinally) by a 'Barista.'  You're not à la mode enough though, unless you order something that sounds like Mississippi camp-meeting glossolalia and costs forty bucks for a "venti."  Good God, don't ask for a "large." America's rites of self detestation and the industries that thrive on it the way a tapeworm thrives on weakening it's host have us all scrambling for the plastic, made in Taiwan, European panache that we attribute to lands  that we otherwise pretend to loathe because, of course, they're 'authentic' and we're not. American means fake and we flee from it toward an imported synthetic authenticity.

The Authenticity industry with it's vast smoking factories churning out the local and seasonal and artisinal synthetic-reality products we crave and the flim-flam pseudo-scientist diet doctors selling us low 'carb' gluten free and without fructose and for heaven's sake, not 'processed' foods: we zumba and carb-count our way to South Beach to be fleeced.  In an age most noteworthy for the triumph of scientific method over superstition and fallacious conjecture, we have come more to trust 'alternative' information that comes from movie actors, comedians and people who get rich by insisting, contrary to all evidence, that gluten is poison, that miracle berries and magic beans will let you live forever, that cooking your food is bad and the fructose you get from corn is full of bad and fattening juju unlike the identical Furanose Sugars found in (organically grown, artisinally picked, local and seasonal ) strawberries.

Studies show. . .  I cringe when I see that and nearly always it means that tendentious conjecture based on selected facts might fool you into thinking. . . It nearly always means that there was no real study.  Large scale, double blind and randomized scientific studies that are repeatable and published in peer-reviewed journals don't have a chance against diet doctors, Oprah-backed pundits or miracle food and fake science purveyors, not in a country trained to favor faith over fact, trained to celebrate the notions of celebrities and mistrust scientists; trained to patronize diet doctors who tell us that studies show.

Twinkies have anti-oxidant  "preservatives" which everyone knows are bad because studies show. They contain things like gluten and fructose that everyone knows are bad because studies show.  Twinkies may be authentic, but they're authentic American and that doesn't count. We long for something Tuscan, even if we're not sure where that is -- something from Tuscany where it's all artisinal.  Hostess Snowballs -- they didn't stand a snowball's chance in the new America. Maybe if you called them gluten free Palle di Neve or Boules de Neige and opened chic little sidewalk places in Boca Raton and Park Slope and South Beach and had them served by Ballistas for ten bucks each. . .
Ah well, one can only dream now of  temps perdue.  Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.