BARBS

To Twitter.

Blogging suddenly feels very yesterday! Don’t know if this is a temporary or permanent hiatus, but please follow me on Twitter to see what’s on my so-called mind. Thanks.

One of the funniest bits in recent memory had The Daily Show’s Jason Jones visiting the New York Times, and challenging Assistant Managing Editor Rick Berke to show him “one thing in [the paper] that happened today.”

The heart of the bit, of course, is that newspapers — emphasis on paper – are dead. Old. Yesterday’s news.

Perhaps they are, and there are certainly plenty of examples to prove the point, and observers smarter than I am to outline the argument. That said, however, I was thinking today about why it is that, for now, as much news as I consume online these days, I do not (yet?) want to let my hard-copy subscriptions go. And what I realized is, it boils down to rituals.

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My father, at leisure:

A line from a longer blog post by San Jose State University journalism student Suzanne Yada:

Don’t teach social media tools, teach concepts behind them. Don’t teach Twitter, teach why Twitter.

I like that. Thanks, Suzanne.

NB: Suzanne’s post summarizes a panel discussion that included CUNY J-School Prof. Sandeep Junnarkar.

We Americans are apparently going to snack our way out of the recession.

According to the latest research from marketing firm Packaged Facts, U.S. sales of packaged snacks will reach $81.6 billion by 2013 (up from $68 billion in 2008). And, Packaged Facts predicts, “salty/savory snacks should continue to eat away at the lead enjoyed by sweet snacks in sales.”

Why are we snacking with such gusto? Here’s their take:

Despite the dampening effects of global recession, consumers are snacking more than ever, thanks to pull-backs in restaurant dining, harried lifestyles that reduce opportunities for sit-down meals, and a growing consensus that several small meals or snacks during the day are actually healthier than the three-squares paradigm.

I’m not sure “salty/savory snacks” are what nutritionists mean when they suggest several small meals during the day instead of three squares.

In addition, as the sluggish economy fans job-loss fears, health insurance woes, and environmental and social justice anxieties, snack consumers are embracing a “value” mentality that prizes quality and “whole” ingredients, “better for you” recipes, and green production practices. While low prices are always a draw, consumers are looking for snacks with fewer additives or preservatives, and even spending extra dollars for organic and premium snack treats that can boost their flagging spirits over the long climb back to prosperity.

So, the tranquilizer for worries about unemployment, global warming and whatever “social justice anxieties” are, is expensive treats.

Fat is the new broke.

(photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

I don’t know how to fix, or “reform,” health care in America; I’ll leave that to the professionals (whoever they may be).

But I do know this: there is something wrong with this picture.

One morning earlier this week, I strolled into the Hospital for Special Surgery, arguably the best orthopedic hospital on Planet Earth, for my appointment with a doctor who is arguably one of the best orthopedic surgeons on Planet Earth. I was there because the pain in my left hip that started about ten weeks ago hasn’t gotten better, and I have come to accept that I have reached that magic age where these things really should be checked out.  So, having what these days is probably considered “gold plated” employer-provided health insurance, which doesn’t require even the simplest “referral” by a “primary care physician” (not sure why I am putting these words in quotes but they seem to call for it), I called and made an appointment with this highly-recommended (and highly expensive) specialist. Nice, right?

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Here’s my favorite tidbit from today’s New York Times (which, for some reason, does not appear online):

An article last Sunday about potential harm to civilian infrastructure in an attack on computer networks described the military principle of proportionality, in layman’s terms, as a rule arguing that if you slap me, I cannot blow up your house. In international law, however, the principle includes the concept that if you slap me, I cannot blow up your house unless the advantage from doing so justifies not using a lesser response.

Glad we straightened that out!

Here are a few things I am wondering about after the news events of this week:

1. If (when?) most (all?) journalists are soon to be come independent “backpack” practitioners — you’ve got all the tools, you’re on your own, good luck! — who will rescue those who, either through youth, inexperience, stupidity, or sheer bad luck, find themselves under arrest and in big trouble? What if, say, they not only don’t work for an actual organization with actual resources and support systems; but also don’t happen to work for a guy who happens to know the former President of the United States? What then? Say what you will about (mostly) corporate-owned “old media” companies (I know I certainly do); they do have systems in place for preventing what happened to Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and when it does happen, they have a bunch of back channels for protecting their people and getting them home safely (yes, I know there are exceptions; see, e.g., Daniel Pearl).

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It isn’t often that I find myself in agreement with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. But today (actually,I’m talking about yesterday’s paper but I’m only getting to it today), I do.

In an editorial titled, “The Fat of the Land,” the Journal takes the government to task for its role in stoking America’s obesity epidemic, an epidemic that has become an increasingly large part of the nation’s health care spending — which the Obama administration is trying to tamp down.

The editors point out:

• 72 million Americans — that’s one out of every three — are obese.
• Obesity is associated with diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and other chronic illnesses.
• In this week’s “Weight of the Nation” report, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that obesity now accounts for 9.1% of all medical spending — $147 billion in 2008.
• The CDC also estimates that the annual per capita increase in Medicare spending attributable to obesity is 36%; for Medicaid, it’s 47%.

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I am back home after three days at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, working with my MSNBC.com colleagues on their ongoing Elkhart Project, and one of the bumpiest airplane rides I can remember on my way into LaGuardia Airport this afternoon (and one of the chattiest flight attendants ever: by the time we landed, we’d all been forced to learn that she hopes to have grandchildren, is a cancer survivor, has to call her mother every time she lands, applied for but didn’t get a job at Continental, owns two of her own businesses, and gets a thrill each and every time she flies as if it’s the first time).

The Elkhart Project focuses on the economy and unemployment in one hard-hit community as a way of putting the national struggle in a more personal context. Thus, most of the work I did this week was with an eye towards that issue, although we did post a couple of cute pieces of video on the Elkhart Facebook site.

On our first day at the fair, we asked fairgoers whether and how the recession had affected their experience at the fair, a longtime beloved annual tradition for folks in Elkhart County and beyond. Here’s what some of them told us. See also this longer article on fairs in general as an economic indicator.

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