Author: Anthony

Oxford, Iowa

The New York Times, which has a few good pieces today, links to the story of Oxford, IA, whose 700-some population has been photographed by Peter Feldstein, first in 1984, and again this year. The story is interesting, but this quote gives an illustration:

One of the town’s oldest residents is Iowa Honn, who turned 96 on April 1. Mrs. Honn was born in Oxford, and she said her father named her Iowa because “he said I was the prettiest girl in the prettiest state.” She has only lived outside of Oxford for three years, when she moved to Iowa City, about 15 miles east, with a current population of about 60,000. “I hated every minute of it,” Mrs. Honn said. “I hated city life. I traveled some with my husband, but I liked best when I got home and I could kiss the ground here.”

Organic food and pesticides

There’s a fairly interesting article in today’s Guardian about the benefits or otherwise of organic food. It would have been a very good article, but for two pieces of lazy journalism.

The first is the ‘spurious confession’ spin – common in political writing – where a perfectly ordinary statement is spun as a shocking inconsistency. In this article the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (an independent Government group) admits that he eats organic food sometimes. Admits? One can see Leo Hickman (the writer) battering the helpless professor with question after question till, unable to hold up against the onslaught, he finally whimpers for mercy and confesses that … yes … he … he … eats … organic food. But then, why shouldn’t he? Just because he is something to do with pesticides doesn’t mean that he has to eat nothing that hasn’t been dipped in Weedol. He doesn’t say he ONLY eats organic, just that he does sometimes if it’s not too expensive. But by portraying him as a hypocrite or in some way unfaithful to ‘his cause’, Mr Hickman can do some double spin – himself as valiant investigative journalist, and Prof. Ayres as the slightly shady scientist who doesn’t believe the lies that the industry pay him to spout.

The second bit of lazy journalism is the modern-day “things will never be the same again”:

Well I’m baffled that the onus seems to be on us, the receiving public, to beg our public-health agencies to find out whether pesticide residues could be unhealthy, as opposed to the manufacturers being made to go through more hoops to dispel, once and for all, the public’s evident anxieties – especially as there seems to be a genuine danger of those unable to afford organic moving away from fresh fruit and veg as a result of these concerns.

Or, in summary, “if some people are uncertain, there must be more research”. It’s a popular approach with three types of people – first, the tobacco companies and oil lobbies excoriated earlier in the article; second, creationists who pressure people to “teach the (artificial) controversy”; and third, journalists who are too lazy to reach a conclusion for themselves.

But I can’t hang around, I’ve got to go and check whether the Earth goes round the sun. Apparently, some people still aren’t sure.