Category Archives: Journalism

Report: Better to have two moms than one dad

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Outstanding. And, of course, consistent with the personal experiences of anyone lucky enough to know a family with two moms. Bonus here is how CNN chooses to balance the story with criticism not from other scientists, but a Bible lady. Which makes this an example of something other than science reporting.

(CNN) — A nearly 25-year study concluded that children raised in lesbian households were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers.

via Kids of lesbians have fewer behavioral problems, study suggests – CNN.com.

Pot scare of the week: "may cause psychosis"

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Crazy, man. (Photo: Dana Ocker/Flickr CC)

Here’s your alarmist marijuana headline for the week (from Businessweek): “Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk”

What researchers found, actually, was an association between tokers who start blazing heavily at a young age, and an increased likelihood they will develop a serious mental illness.

And, of course, we’ve known about the comorbidity of substance abuse and psychoses for many years.

But you can’t blame the media for going overboard, this time: The Australian scientists who found the association between heavy, early use of pot and psychotic symptoms (such as hallucinations), themselves suggest a causal link:

“‘This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship: those individuals who were vulnerable to psychosis [i.e., those who had isolated psychotic symptoms] were more likely to commence cannabis use, which could then subsequently contribute to an increased risk of conversion to a non-affective psychotic disorder,’” wrote the study authors.

Another possibility, of course, is that young people, experiencing early psychotic symptoms, might be engaging in drug-seeking behavior to self-medicate, period.

via Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk – BusinessWeek.

Plug: Check out my Boston Globe personal technology column, User Friendly.

The Heretic's "10 New England Esotericists to Watch in 2010"

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New England is home to some of the biggest brains in the businesses of esoterica and mad science.

But you knew that already.

Here then, is my list of the busiest folks we know in the worlds of offbeat science publishing, UFOlogy, cryptozoology and the occult — even comics. Ghost-hunting? That is sooo last decade. But keep these peeps on your radar in 2010. They make for an eclectic mix, alright, but I think the list somehow works:

Marc Abrahams announcing "The Penguin Prize" at the annual Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, at Harvard U. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ig Nobel Prizes.)

1. Marc Abrahams. Few can match the wit, charm and energy of this singular Cambridge, Mass. personality. Abrahams is the publisher of the uproarious Annals of Improbable Research, and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes awards ceremony, which honors  “research that makes people laugh and then think.” He also writes a weekly column about wacky science (think bras that double as gas masks, and astrology charts for bacteria), for the UK Guardian.

Tim Binnall. (Photo: Courtesy of BoA)

2. Tim Binnall. Did you know that one of the planet’s fastest-growing podcasters to the “Coast-to-Coast AM” crowd is based right here, in the Hub? The young genius behind the whole thing, Tim Binnall, is relaunching his website, Binnall of America, with another season of podcast interviews with big-name UFOlogists and conspiracy researchers, from Texas to Sweden.

Binnall also organizes a successful paranormal confab in the Hub.

3. Loren Coleman. This legend in the world of cryptozoology (2010 marks his 50th year in the business) will be surprising us again with new insights, and new guests and events at his Portland, Maine-based International Museum of Cryptozoology.

A regular contributor to Coast to Coast AM, Boing Boing, and The Anomalist, Coleman is also the keeper of the world’s most popular cryptozoology blog, Cryptomundo.

Loren Coleman and friend. Photo: Loren Coleman (via Thomas Roche/Flickr CC

Coleman this year will be speaking at Bigfoot and “big cats” conferences — both at home and across the pond, in Glasgow, Scotland. This spring, he will also be lending his expertise to the ongoing search for the Loch Ness Monster.

In addition to his ongoing consulting work for History’s “MonsterQuest,” and Animal Planet’s “Lost Tapes,” Coleman will also be working on (we kid you not) five new books.

4. Stanton Friedman. I met Stanton Friedman at a UFO conference in Washington, D.C. a few years ago, and I’ve been trying to keep up his research ever since. But I only learned (after listening to Mr. Binnall’s interviews with this UFO luminary) that Friedman resides in the Northeast. Friedman jokes in his BoA interviews that he is one of the few surviving members of UFOlogy’s “old guard.” But I expect he’ll have a lot more to say at his conferences appearances this year.

5. Greg Kaminsky. If you like your occult podcasts served-up hot, and packaged with vintage Black Sabbath tracks, Beverly, Mass.-based Greg Kaminsky is your guy. Kaminsky is the host of the fantastic website and podcast, “Occult of Personality,” which — like BOA — is poised for big changes (including a subscriber section, with extended interviews) and breakout success in 2010. Kaminsky has landed interviews with leading occult scholars on both sides of the Atlantic since making his quiet start, just a couple of years ago. To taste some of that OoP magic I am talking about, check out this fascinating interview with Penguin’s occult books editor, Mitch Horowitz.

John Rozum and son, at the International Museum of Cryptozoology, in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Loren Coleman)

6. John Rozum. Scooby-Doo. The X-Files comics. The supernaturally-talented writer may be in the business of inventing things that go bump in the night, be he is also said to be living quietly on Cape Cod. One of Rozum’s latest creations, The Hangman, is fighting human trafficking in DC Comics’ just-released The Web #4.

7. Joe Moore. Commended to this list by OoP’s Kaminsky, Moore is a New Hampshire-based podcaster, a breathwork facilitator, and onetime Evolver spore group leader. (Click the links if you are as mystified by these terms as I was.) Not sure if magic is for you? Try the “Mr. Spock” ritual that Moore discusses in his latest podcast with chaos magic expert Andrieh Vitimus. (Skip to the 17-minute mark, if you can’t wait.) Next: Moore and Kaminsky in 2010 are collaborating on a documentary film.

8. Joseph Citro is sick of ghosts. Yeah, that’s right. Ghost-busting, the bane of Binnall and other esotericists — driven half-mad by hacks seeking quick paranormal fame — is tired. Citro made his break from the past last fall, with one of his latest titles, The Vermont Monster Guide, a roundup of the land, air and sea creatures haunting the North.

9. The guys behind NE FOR (the New England UFO Research Organization). When Tim Binnall hints at the political infighting within the New England UFO community, he might be referring in part to the guys who last year formed this New England MUFON splinter group. But more UFO researchers might mean more eyes on the sky, and more thorough documentation of sightings

10. Mr. Crowley. Just be sure you pronounce the first syllable of his name correctly, like the bird, while in Salem, Mass. (Not the way Ozzy Osbourne does in his classic song about the Beast.)

And yeah, I know the guy’s dead. But when the Heretic placed its call for nominees last weekend, a bunch of folks, from Salem and beyond, tapped their peers in magical orders that derive their inspiration from Crowley. Crowley-inspired authors and booksellers, too, all got a good talking-up.

So, stay tuned on this one, because I’m going to need a week-or-two to share with the rest of you, what our magician friends have been sharing with me.

The Sci-Tech Heretic predicts: Pot legal, $15 per ounce, within three years

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Photo: Neeta Lind. Flickr/CC

Photo: Neeta Lind. Flickr/CC

This piece (above), links to the original report from NBC Miami, which is a funny, nicely written bit about Irvin Rosenfeld — one of four tokers who get their supply from the US government, which enjoys the monopoly on legal marijuana.

The MyFox National piece also notes, in the trail-off at the end, that the American Medical Association is about to endorse marijuana as medicine.

Again, my prediction: marijuana will be legal (not only for medical use) by the end of 2012. Estimated price within a year of legalization: $15 per ounce.

NBCMiami.com. reported that Rosenfeld is writing a book on his experiences as the nation’s longest-running legal pot-smoker, tentatively called “Potluck.” He hopes to have it published in the spring. But he expects Friday, Nov. 20, he will set a world record for marijuana consumption when when he lights up No. 115,000.

Link here to the MyFox Maine piece.

Gadget maker: We need a spy for Consumer Electronics Show

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Image: James Vaughn. Flickr/CC

A Japanese consumer electronics maker is hiring unethical reporters to gather video footage of competing products — saying it needs the hacks’ press passes to access the devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

This reporter on Friday received an email from the company, which included an offer to pay me handsomely for close-ups that will only be available to accredited members of the press.

I have since swapped voice mail messages with the sender of the email, who works at a PR firm employed by the company. I declined the offer via email on Saturday.

The offer, an all expenses paid trip to Vegas, plus a fee for my time (“Does not include gambling, though, ” the rep quips), would have required me to examine and make detailed recordings of new products from all of the company’s competitors.

“The gist of it, is that they need photos – close up videos (we’re thinking of using a simple Flip HD cam) - of all their competitors, but most booths will not allow close ups unless you have a press pass,” the company representative writes.

Despite my refusal, I fear the electronics company will find its spy, anyway.

At the moment, in addition to blogging at Blast Magazine, I write the Boston Globe’s personal technology column, User Friendly.

But I have also written for dozens of trade and consumer rags. And many of those had editors who were preoccupied with what they called  “strengthening vendor relationships.” That’s code for befriending potential advertisers and taking their money and free shit — while keeping their readers in the dark about those relationships.

Susan Orlean on the rise of backyard chickens

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The great author and New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean shows readers her own chickens, which she keeps on her property in the Hudson Valley.

The video (an accompaniment to her magazine piece this week), features Orlean’s Eglu chicken house, and a cool scale, which she uses to weigh-out her girls’ products–small, medium and large. (I’d always wondered how those got measured.)

Loren Coleman on the 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference

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Loren offers some interesting backgrounders for anyone attending:

I originally met Mike at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference back in 2000 or so, and he then stopped off at the Texas Bigfoot Conference in 2002, I believe, on his cross country move from San Diego to Connecticut.

via Cryptomundo » Special Limited Edition T-Shirt for the 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference.

Weed watch: Globe column backs vaporizing

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Photo: CC/Chuck Coker

Photo: CC/Chuck Coker

Globe columnist Judy Foreman has a fine piece on medical marijuana, and says, if she need to use the stuff, she’d vaporize:

Vaporizing vs. smoking: The push now among proponents of medical marijuana is toward inhaling the vapor, not smoking. Vaporizing is a safe and effective way of getting THC, the active ingredient, into the bloodstream and does not result in inhalation of toxic carbon monoxide, as smoking does, according to a study by Abrams published in 2007 in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

via The pros and cons of medical marijuana – The Boston Globe.

Vaporizing is healthier than smoking. But, as I noted in a previous post, there is no free lunch: One study (and there have been far too few studies, altogether) found that vaporizing releases toxic gases.

Also, I am concerned about the quality of vaporizers on the market. These are effectively unregulated medical devices, made with parts that–when heated–may expose users to even more crap.

MSM obessing over Twitter

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Photo: CC/Jim Milles

Photo: CC/Jim Milles

The geezer media believe that the kids love Twitter (they don’t), so they are flogging away at the thing.

WaPo columnist Kurtz cites this lame-o example of pop culture nattering (below), to bolster his threadbare argument that something remarkable is taking place in Twitter:

When I mentioned on my Twitter page that I would be talking on the air about Conan O’Brien taking over “The Tonight Show,” I got a flood of messages. Some called him a genius, others think he’s a goofball. What I quickly learned is that O’Brien is a polarizing figure in the late-night world, loved and loathed with equal fervor.

via Howard Kurtz – Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes: How Twitter Users Are Changing the Landscape – washingtonpost.com.