Phew!

Then again, my friend’s anime blog is worth an envy-producing $14,113.50.

What Iraqi Casualties?

Heard a thought-provoking episode on the public radio show “This American Life” this past weekend. The episode, titled “What’s in a Number?”, included a discussion on a John Hopkins University study published last year in the British medical journal “The Lancet.” The study (free registration required) concluded that approximately 100,000 Iraqis had died since the beginning of the war.

Although the study did not distinguish between civilian and combatant dead, its estimate was much higher than other numbers that had been posited. Apparently, the major media outlets either ignored the study altogether or gave it very brief mention. According to the report, many pundits attacked the study without even understanding the study’s statistical method.

Also in this episode, an American soldier who served in Iraq is interviewed about his thoughts on Iraqi casualties. For full information about this episode, go to http://www.thislife.org and look in the 2005 archive for episode 300, dated 10/28/05. You can listen to the episode on RealPlayer by clicking here.

Note: The Iraq Body Count Web site is mentioned in the episode.

"The Tavis Smiley Show"

The Tavis Smiley Show, which concluded December 2004 when Smiley chose not to renew his NPR contract, is back on public radio. This time, his show is distributed by PRI (Public Radio International).

On Michelle Wie’s Disqualification

On this week’s edition of On the Media, they discussed the controversy surrounding Wie’s disqualification from her first tournament as a pro. Thought it was worth mentioning because it concerns an ethical dilemma faced by a journalist. More on this later.

I’ve also uploaded the photos that I took at the anti-war march in Washington, D.C., last month. You can view them at my Flickr site.

The News Today

I’m baffled by this article on IMDB, titled “Grace Horrified by Holloway Robbery.” Here’s an excerpt:

Josh Holloway’s Lost co-star Maggie Grace is horrified to learn of the actor getting robbed in his home, because she knows he only just completed work on the dream property. … And Grace, who learned of the incident during her current visit to New York City, knows just how much the home and vehicle mean to Holloway.

There’s a brief description of the robbery and an even longer quote from Grace about her reaction to the incident.

Either the article should have been about the robbery and about how Holloway feels, or the article should have mentioned that Holloway could not be reached for comment. Instead, the article ends up sounding like it’s trying too hard to make something (a robbery) out of nothing (comment from a person who did not witness the event and was not in the area at the time).

Maybe this was just an excuse to put up a portrait of Grace, who’s in a movie that came out the same day this article was posted?

On a lighter note, I saw a commercial for an upcoming episode of NOVAscienceNOW that will feature a segment on fish surgery (!). Incidentally, I just read about fish surgery in Herd on the Street: Animal Stories from The Wall Street Journal, which I picked out from the library today.

According to this 2002 Wall Street Journal article reprinted in the book, there are only 20 or so vets in the entire country who operate on pet fish. The number of such vets might have grown since then, as the reporter noted that demand for such services is rising as increasing numbers of people install backyard ponds with fish.