They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

From the top of the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima looking northwest. Frame buildings recently erected. 1945*

I’m taking a class on New Journalism, and our reading assignment this week was John Hersey’s famous article, published in The New Yorker on August 31, 1946, simply titled “Hiroshima”.  (You can access the article here, but it’s behind a paywall.)  Hersey’s piece  is a truly harrowing tale told from the perspective of a handful of citizens who lived through the bombing—their actions in the direct aftermath, and their struggles a year after.  Hersey’s prose is matter-of-fact:  he does not proselytize; he does not interpret; he simply tells the story and stays out of the way.

One passage in particular struck me:  Mr. Tanimoto, a Methodist pastor who has been ferrying the wounded and dying across a river for hours in a small punt, using a bamboo pole in place of an oar, … Read more

http://www.flickr.com/photos/migrainechick/ / CC BY 2.0

So this article on the NewScientist website really chapped my ass.

It cites the publication of a new study that outlines successful use of acupuncture to treat spinal injuries induced in rats.  Now, I’m not a doctor, and I’m unable to access the full-text of the study in question.  My suspicions are that some qualified party will cite methodological issues, or more likely, the study will remain a footnote  in light of the overwhelming weight of evidence in favor of the interpretation that acupuncture possesses no therapeutic benefit beyond that of placebo. (Maybe not.  We’ll see, but I doubt it.)

From the article:

Acupuncture’s scientific credentials are growing. Trials show that it improves sensory and motor functions in people with spinal cord injuries.

Well, not really.  For a great review of the current literature regarding acupuncture and an even greater deal of irate bitching … Read more

Simon Read. War of Words: A Tale of Newsprint and Murder. Union Square Press, 2009. 320 pages. ISBN-10: 1402756127

“Journalism [is]… a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world of misfits and drunkards and failures.” — Hunter S. Thompson

Simon Read begins War of Words: A Tale of Newsprint and Murder with two quotations, the first an excerpt from the Daily Dramatic Chronicle (later the San Francisco Chronicle) comparing the marksmanship of American journalists to that of their French counterparts and the second a fitting quote from Thompson’s indelible The Great Shark Hunt, a landmark collection of essays and articles that chronicle Thompson’s slog through the mid- to late-1960s and 1970s.

It is hard to imagine anything (journalistically, at least) that rivals the depravity Thompson encountered and, in some cases, perpetuated during the Hippie movement, the 1972 presidential campaign, and Richard Nixon with … Read more