The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
I gave up on the tech issue and passed it on to my usual coworker. Just too boring to me. Ben McGrath's article was at least one-third longer than it needed to be. I never went back to Groopman's article on 3-D printing.
Over lunch today I read the Dec. 1 article on fecal transplants. Didn't faze me a bit. From my work I was already familiar with the concept of using poo-poo transplants to treat Clostridium difficile infections.
Jeff Wrangler:
Shame on Jill Lepore! Shame, shame, shame! And shame on The New Yorker's vaunted fact-checking!
Over lunch today I began to read Lepore's Dec. 1 article, "The Great Paper Caper," about the disappearance of the papers of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Near the end of the first page, I came to this statement:
--- Quote ---The secrecy surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court derives from a policy set by the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, who wanted the Court to issue single, unanimous decisions and to conceal all evidence of disagreement.
--- End quote ---
John Marshall was not the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The first Chief Justice was John Jay, and as an American historian, Lepore should know that, and The New Yorker's fact checkers--if, indeed, the magazine still has any--should have caught that.
The mighty really have fallen. :(
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on December 08, 2014, 02:54:56 pm ---Over lunch today I read the Dec. 1 article on fecal transplants. Didn't faze me a bit. From my work I was already familiar with the concept of using poo-poo transplants to treat Clostridium difficile infections.
--- End quote ---
I was kind of kidding about that. I'm fascinated with fecal transplants and the possibilities of medical breakthroughs based on something that we know so little about that up until recent years our only response to bacteria in our bodies was to kill them.
About a year ago, I read that fat mice who received fecal transplants from skinny mice got skinny themselves. Now where can I find some skinny mice??
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on December 10, 2014, 12:42:08 am ---About a year ago, I read that fat mice who received fecal transplants from skinny mice got skinny themselves. Now where can I find some skinny mice??
--- End quote ---
Indeed! If you find any, let me know? :laugh:
Incidentally, I was so ... moved ... by that blooper in Jill Lepore's article that I actually e-mailed the magazine yesterday. Since I'm so far behind in my reading, I figured they'd already heard about it--probably multiple times--but I wrote anyway. Very promptly I got an e-mail back thanking me and letting me know that the error had already been corrected on the web site and in the archive.
But still. My God. ... :(
Jeff Wrangler:
I am way, WAY behind in my reading. It would not be accurate to say that I'm enjoying George Packer's Dec. 1 profile of Angela Merkel, but I am finding it interesting and informative. I mean, who is this leader of Germany with whom Dubya got overly familiar and thereby embarrassed the whole United States?
Still, I think Packer's article is at least twice as long as it need have been, if not even more than twice as long as it need have been. I guess The New Yorker no longer has anybody who knows how to edit.
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