Money Talks: After the campaign: paying off debt

Published in the Portland Phoenix and Out In Maine

The final days before the November 6 vote on same-sex marriage saw a crazy amount of spending from political-action committees on both sides of the question, which has led both PACs to seek post-election contributions to pay off lingering debt.

In reports filed with the Maine Ethics Commission on October 26, both PACs — Protect Marriage Maine (opposed to marriage equality) and Mainers United for Marriage (in favor) — laid out their pre-election financial positions. At that time, PMM had $535,012.97 in ready cash and $96,006.75 in outstanding debt; MUM had $99,756.50 in cash, and unpaid debts of $139,827.62.

As far as yearly totals, MUM was by far the big spender, with 2012 outlays of $4,214,648.07 million by October 26, compared with total spending of $843,353.35 by PMM as of that date.

Both groups spent even more in the final days, with PMM buying so much advertising that the group ran through all its ready cash and more — ending with roughly $80,000 in unpaid debt, according to group treasurer Penelope Morrell.

While MUM went into the immediate election period with a net $40,000 deficit, MUM spokesman David Farmer says he does not know exactly how much his group needs to raise now. He estimated "it's in the tens of thousands," and not more than $100,000.

How well the groups do in their fundraising now that the battle is over will first become apparent on December 18, which is the next deadline for PAC reports.

If they don't raise the money by then, Matt Marett, who handles PAC registration for the Maine Ethics Commission, says the groups can simply remain active as PACs, and "collect contributions and continue to spend money for whatever they do in the future." They do have to continue reporting according to the commission's schedule, until whenever they decide to terminate operations, Marett says. (A PAC can dissolve itself with debts still on the books; "that's between them and their creditors," Marett says.)

Either group — or both — could also decide to continue to exist, and even change the registration paperwork on file with the commission to allow them to raise and spend money in the future to back candidates or other causes, or even become a standing lobbying organization seeking to influence legislators.

And WHAT HAPPENS IF A PAC DOES END UP WITH A SURPLUS after an election? "There really are not restrictions" on how the money could be spent, Marett says. It could be given to candidates, other PACs, charities, or to organizations that supported them (such as the Christian Civic League in PMM's case, or EqualityMaine in MUM's case).

They could even spend it on a party to thank supporters, or for travel to hear an issue-related speaker, he says, though in response to a hypothetical question about using surplus money at a casino, Marett allows "we may raise a red flag about that."

Eat before it gets cold: A new book about Antarctic cuisine satisfies foodies and historians alike

Published in the Portland Phoenix

As you nurse your post-Thanksgiving food coma back to normality, spare a thought for the men and women in Antarctica this holiday season. They're warm, well-fed, and happy (if really far from family) — but it wasn't always this way.

Maine author Jason Anthony explains in Hoosh(named for a half-fat, half-meat staple of Heroic Age expeditions) that "Antarctic culinary history is a mere century of stories of isolated, insulated people eating either prepackaged expedition food or butchered sealife." He describes "Antarctica's sad state of culinary affairs" as a set of circumstances where "Cold, isolation, and a lack of worldly alternatives have conspired to make Antarctica's captive inhabitants desperate for generally lousy food."

That wry sense of humor pervades the book, based in part on his eight summers in Antarctica. It begins with the mystical appearance of several loaves of fresh sourdough bread (a delicacy, I can attest from my own time on the Ice, that is of incalculable value) as Anthony prepares for a deep field expedition, with him and one other person (as it happened, a direct descendant of an early Antarctic expeditioner) slated to spend 90 to 100 days alone on a glacier, clearing and maintaining an emergency landing strip in case of bad weather at the main US base, McMurdo Station.

Beyond his own experience, Anthony's knowledge and research is deep, detailing the role of food in historic expeditions both well known (see sidebar) and not, including Japanese and Scottish efforts that have rarely been noticed. He also reviews the mid-20th-century adventures of Byrd, Ellsworth, Ronne, and others. Viewing each expedition through the lens of food offers great insight into the people who were really the most important members of those groups: not the leaders whose names we know well, but the cooks, about whom the public knows next to nothing.

Important for its food writing, Anthony's book is mainly significant because it is just the third volume detailing the modern, corporate, dystopic American Antarctic experience — after Jim Mastro's 2002 Antarctica and Nicholas Johnson's 2005 Big Dead Place. (Disclosure: I was on the Ice at the same time as both Anthony and Johnson, though I didn't know them well.)

And indeed where Anthony's voice truly comes into its own is in writing about modernity, with the spirited air of one who has eaten well in these hard places. He clearly appreciates the effort and expense required — while also marveling at the obscenity and ridiculousness of choosing to serve scallops in a tent.

He adds anecdotal flavors from others: chef-bloggers Sally Ayotte and Michèle Gentille as well as modern Ice legends like Mastro, Karen Joyce, and Jules Uberuaga. They tell of a midwinter air-drop pizza delivery from New Zealand, the fate of fuel-contaminated hot-chocolate mix accidentally diverted from its path to the trash, and the Food Room in McMurdo — where the bland, mass-produced base food stands aside for the wonder of field-camp rations (not just scallops, but halibut steaks, and chile rellenos, and much more).

It's a comprehensive account; Anthony reports a great deal of information the US government prefers remain not widely published — including what happens to the foodafter it is consumed, highlighting the decades-long trash-disposal methods and non-treatment of sewage at McMurdo. He rightly observes that many of these practices have been rectified, but when you learn about how blasting for a new building spawned a major remediation project (at a location promptly named Sausage Point), the full picture of human impact on an allegedly pristine continent becomes apparent.

And yes, you'll also find out what roast penguin tastes like. But that's in the history books. In Hoosh the best things are the tastes (and fuel-tinged smells) you'll find of life in Antarctica today. Touching a particular nerve for me is an accurate description of the otherworldly texture and flavor of Antarctic toothfish, Dissostichus mawsoni, served by the McMurdo chefs on special occasions. The men and women on the Ice enjoyed it at Thanksgiving, and are already looking forward to it for Christmas.

HOOSH: ROAST PENGUIN, SCURVY DAY, AND OTHER STORIES OF ANTARCTIC CUISINE | by Jason C. Anthony | University of Nebraska Press | 186 pages | $26.95 | Anthony reads from HOOSH and speaks November 29 @ 7 pm | Longfellow Books, One Monument Way, Portland | Free | 207.772.4045

Tastes of history: The role of food in legendary polar tales

Among the joys of Jason Anthony's work for those who have know a bit of Antarctic history is his seasoning of the book with tasty nuggets of detail about stories we've all heard and think we know well. Here are a few morsels to whet your appetite:

• WE KNOW The Winter Journey from Cape Evans to Cape Crozier (1911) was the "Worst Journey in the World," as described in the famous book of that title by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. WE LEARN It was also a food experiment, in which each of the three men had a diet primarily of protein, fat, or carbohydrates — which deepened their suffering, because what was needed was a balance of the three.

• WE KNOW Six men, attached to Robert Scott's expedition trying to win the race to the South Pole, were sent to explore the coast of Victoria Land; conditions prevented them from returning to the base and they were forced to winter (1912) in an cramped ice cave where they slept, ate, defecated, and breathed air contaminated by the smoke of their only fuel: seal blubber. WE LEARN All six men were so hungry that even in their sleep they dreamed of huge feasts spread before them. Five of the men always woke up before they were able to taste even a bit. They were extremely jealous of George Murray Levick, the only one of the group who was able to eat his fill — though only in his dreams.

• WE KNOW Douglas Mawson was the lone survivor of a three-man overland journey to map King George V Land (1912-13); after a crevasse took most of their supplies and team member Belgrave Ninnis, Mawson and Xavier Mertz continued, until Mertz died of poisoning from eating dog livers as part of their survival rations. WE LEARN After Mertz's death, Mawson fell in a crevasse and was preparing to die, when he decided that he had spent so much energy safeguarding what little food remained (barely enough to stave off starvation) that he could not die and thereby allow it to go uneaten. He pulled himself out of the crevasse and made it back to safety.

• WE KNOW After losing lost their ship Endurance to the ice, Ernest Shackleton and his men made an over-ice and open-boat journey (1915-16), finding solid ground at Elephant Island. WE LEARN One recipe book made it to Elephant Island, and "from it each night one — only one — recipe was read aloud, like a passage from the Bible."

• WE KNOW Shackleton and five men took an open lifeboat across the stormy South Atlantic Ocean, traveling 800 miles from Elephant Island to South Georgia, navigating by sextant (1916). WE LEARN They cooked in the bottom of the boat; two men braced their backs against the hull, and held the cooker between their feet, with one man tasked with lifting the pot off the flame whenever the boat hit a big wave.

• WE KNOW Shackleton and two of those five men traversed unmapped mountain territory to cross South Georgia to find a whaling station and safety (1916). WE LEARN When they arrived, they were fed "cake, bread, scones, jam, and coffee."

• WE KNOW Commander Richard E. Byrd and three other men make the first flight to the South Pole, but barely clear a key mountain pass because their Ford TriMotor is too heavy (1929). They have to throw cargo out of the plane to gain altitude. WE LEARN Byrd, worried about the potential for a crash, had brought two 125-pound bags of emergency rations. That was the cargo pitched overboard.

• WE KNOW Byrd, alone at a weather station in the Antarctic interior for five months, got carbon monoxide poisoning from his heater and stove, and went quite mad (1934). WE LEARN He had trouble cooking pancakes and was able, by radio connection, to seek advice from the chef at New York City's Waldorf Hotel. (The advice was "butter the pan," which Byrd was already doing.)

Getting Results: Who won? We did

Published in the Portland Phoenix

We did it. The progressive, thinking, socially minded, involved people — people like you, the readers of the Portland Phoenix — won the election. For years, we've been talking about marriage equality, about preventing religious ideologues from getting between women and their doctors (and pharmacists), about the fact that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, that we are all on this Earth together, that "I've got mine" is a terrible philosophy dividing and destroying us rather than freeing us to some self-powered higher achievement.

We knew, when we heard the speeches, that Obama was right — nobody who built a business in this country did so without the help of roads and schools and firefighters and police officers. (Not to mention the government-insured bank accounts that let all of us stash our earnings safely.)

We agreed with Massachusetts US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren when she declared during her campaign, "You built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

We knew it was wrong for Governor Paul LePage and his fellow Republicans in the Legislature to cut off state-subsidized health-care coverage for thousands of young poor Mainers.

We knew Mitt Romney's claim that the government shouldn't pick "winners and losers" in the business world was misguided because he failed to mention the federal tax policies that picked him and his investor-class ilk to become incredible winners, at the expense of all us workaday losers out here.

We know climate change is happening — and we've already taken our own action to slow its progress. We know it is wrong to throw out immigrants who are trying to help us make this country better. We know handing senior citizens coupons toward private health insurance isn't a way to guarantee a human right.

So while conservative pundits, misogynists, homophobes, racists, and corporate raiders lick their wounds and re-evaluate how they got everything so wrong, we — the Portland Phoenix and our readers — can take heart. After years of being made to think we were the minority, the underclass, the un-privileged, those who lack support, we can now take comfort in the fact that the people of Maine, and the American public at large, have our backs.

On November 7, we woke up in our world. Even Bill O'Reilly admitted on Fox News on election night, "It's not a traditional America anymore." He was referring to demographic change, but his statement has a much wider truth: "Traditional America" isn't what a lot of people thought it was.

Joel Benenson, Obama's chief pollster in 2008 and 2012, wrote a post-election piece in the New York Times, describing the "set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in: A nation that makes the investments we need to strengthen and grow the middle class. A nation with a fair tax system, and affordable and excellent education for all its citizens. A nation that believes that we're most prosperous when we recognize that we are all in it together."

We knew it — and we've been saying it — all along.

Press Releases: False Equivalency

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Lots of ink has been spilled over Nate Silver and his uncannily accurate statistical predictions of how the presidential race turned out. We need not repeat the hagiography here.

We also need not delve deeply into the repetition of the mainstream media's reporting of the hand-wringing and finger-pointing now under way in conservative circles, including the media branch of the right wing, Fox News.

What's being overlooked in Silver's results — and the results of the election itself — is the power of the conservative media over the rest of the mainstream media (and the mainstream's utter abandonment of truth-seeking in favor of he-said-she-said coverage).

After all, national media outlets had access to all the data Silver did — the polling results and the history of how well those polls predicted past elections. Heck, the national media had access to Silver's actual analysis of it, which was posted publicly on the New York Times website.

And yet, while over the course of weeks and months every measure Silver used consistently showed Obama ahead of Romney, the mainstream media continued to paint the race as tight. It plain wasn't.

Since June, Silver's predictions showed Obama always winning more than 283 electoral votes, and Romney never winning more than 255. (Winning takes 270.)

The low point for Obama was on October 12, when he had 61.1 percent chance of winning, and Romney had 38.9 percent.

That same day was the only day Silver's model predicted that Obama would get less than half the popular vote — 49.8 percent, to Romney's 49.1 percent. On October 11 and on October 14, Obama was at 50 percent. (Silver didn't do a prediction on October 13.) And every other day, Obama was predicted to get more than 50 percent of the popular vote; Romney hadn't previously — and wouldn't again — registered over 49 percent.

What made the mainstream media portray this race as close, then? The principle of false equivalency.

This is the same problem that plagued climate-change reporting for years. One side said climate change was a looming emergency; another side questioned whether it was happening at all. And the reporters and editors doing the stories put their hands up and said things like, "We report. You decide."

Except they didn't report. Not really. They didn't seek truth about the topics they were discussing. They didn't, for example, until very late in the game, begin even talking about Nate Silver — and then, often only to ask him if he even knew what he was doing (and why his results were just so partisan).

This is false equivalency. Nate says one thing; Karl says another. "We report. You decide." So the race appears close because Thing 1 and Thing 2 say differing things, rather than because the facts support a claim that it's close.

This sort of thing is more of a problem when talking about climate change. (It is happening; I've personally seen it, and evidence is all around us.) For years, reporters sought out people who said things that might be interesting, and did not concern themselves with determining who, if anyone, was speaking actual objective truth.

It's common to blame this on lazy reporters; the truth is elsewhere. The reporters are not lazy but in fact, in a downsized, pay-cutting media landscape, running their asses off. They're so overworked they lack the time to research, question, examine, and think for themselves. That's why you thought Romney might still win; and that's why major action on climate change is not happening.

ALSO OF NOTE The Nieman Media Lab piece by Ken Doctor observing the striking similarities between the losing Republican Party and the dwindling American daily newspaper. (Think of the target audience: old, white, male.) Very well worth reading for anyone who is thinking about what else this election might mean for the vaunted American news industry.

Laurels: Honored for torture exposé, Tapley points out more work to be done

Published in the Portland Phoenix

At an October 26 event attended by five previous awardees and nearly 30 others, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine presented Portland Phoenix writer Lance Tapley with its 2012 Roger Baldwin Award, recognizing his nearly 100 stories over seven years exposing solitary confinement and other torture of inmates in Maine's prison system.

According to ACLU of Maine executive director Shenna Bellows, Tapley's reporting, which began in 2005, prompted the ACLU of Maine to decide to focus on prisoner treatment (specifically the elimination of solitary confinement), an issue on which the civil-rights organization has led pressure for reform both nationally and in the state. Bellows also told the assembled group that the ACLU's interest — and threat of impending legal action — was key in pressuring new Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte to undertake sweeping reforms that have significantly reduced the use of solitary confinement, both in terms of prisoner numbers and duration of their stays.

Though solitary confinement has not yet been eradicated in Maine, the ACLU of Maine credits Tapley (and the Portland Phoenix) with having inspired the effort and kept media pressure on, while activists and lobbyists attacked the problem from other angles.

Both Bellows and ACLU of Maine board president John Paterson described Tapley's work as "exemplary journalism" and "rare" evidence of a commitment of a journalist and a media organization working over many years, despite many obstacles, to seek truth and right wrongs.

Tapley, for his part, thanked his wife, Peggy, and many supporters, but took most of his time to highlight another example of torture in the corrections system. He read from a disturbing letter he received from an inmate recently returned to Maine from out of state, describing abhorrent, cruel, traumatic, mentally damaging, and life-threatening treatment during the multi-week trip across the country in a privately owned prisoner-transport van.

As ACLU of Maine legal director Zachary Heiden said during the event, if all ACLU offices and staffers nationwide could stop everything they're doing and focus solely on prison-related issues, they would have enough work to keep themselves busy for a very long time.

Tapley ended his remarks about the abuses encounters in prisoner transportation by saying, "It needs to stop. If you'd like to help, let me know."

Bellows responded, as she took the lectern, "Emphatically, yes."

On being undead: Why I’m bailing from giving the gift of life

Published in the Portland Phoenix

I've been an organ donor since I first got a driver's license, more than 20 years ago. But Friday morning, after getting off the phone with the New England Organ Bank, I took a black marker and crossed out that line on my license. Here's my public declaration that I'm not interested in being an organ donor anymore. When my license needs renewal next year, I'll make sure the designation isn't there.

I haven't suddenly become cold-hearted or unwilling to be of use to others after my death. It's just that, as a direct result of reading Dick Teresi's The Undead (published by Pantheon earlier this year) I no longer have confidence in the medical establishment to accurately determine that I actually am dead. And after talking to spokespeople Laura Dempsey and Sean Fitzpatrick at the NEOB, I no longer have confidence that organ donors have professionals looking out for their interests, either.

What I found, and what Teresi, a science journalist with decades of experience (including being former top editor at Science Digest and Omni), documents comprehensively in his book, is a culture of defensiveness that attacks skepticism with assurances that lack any factual support.

When I mentioned that I had read Teresi's book, Dempsey's first reaction was to blurt out, "Oh no." (She later specified that she'd thought I was calling to do a pleasant feature about someone who was either about to receive an organ transplant or had just donated their organs after death.)

The bottom line is that she and Fitzpatrick didn't like the questions Teresi was asking — which is exactly Teresi's point. Fitzpatrick even called Teresi's tone "snarky and nasty," apparently without irony, as he labeled the work itself "sensationalistic and unserious" and said it "does a disrespect to the science of the topic."

My own reaction was that Teresi's were great questions — like "How do we know who is dead and who is alive?" and "If someone's heart can be restarted in someone else's body, how come it can't be restarted in its original body?" He assumed that there are good and solid medical answers to these questions, and set out to find them.

Fitzpatrick, however, viewed them as allegations that physicians are "willy-nilly killing individuals across the country," a charge he vigorously attacked. "Nobody wants the person dead," he told me.

I'll grant that. But Teresi searched for many years without locating anyone who could tell him — or demonstrate scientifically — how we can tell, with no exceptions, the difference between being living to being dead. That's what his book is about. It turns out that many people who are declared dead may not in fact be dead; some of them may even have the capacity to recover to more or less normal lives.

He says the medical profession makes little or no use of that information, and posits that the reason for this lack of interest is because of pressure from the organ-donation industry, which is seeking bodies that are legally dead but perhaps still have some vitality left somewhere, to provide new parts for others' worn-out, but still-hanging-on, frames.

In my view, this link is the most tenuous of his book. But clearly there must be a reason that doctors don't use all their high-tech diagnostic equipment to determine, for example, whether someone declared "brain dead" actually has no blood circulation in their brain. (This is required in Sweden, but not in the US.)

DEEP MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Teresi's book has seriously unsettled me, by documenting two conceptual disconnections between the medical field and the public at large, which individually and together compound (and confound) decisions about death and organ donation.

The first disconnection has to do with what death actually is. Most of us have a sort of visceral understanding of death as when your breathing and heartbeat stop. But at least some of the time, that's not the measure doctors use.

Rather, they use the concept of "brain death," which medical professionals and laypeople alike take to mean that there is no remaining brain function, neither at the low-level brain stem, nor in the highest levels of the cerebral cortex — the home of memory, personality, sense of humor, self-awareness, and all the other stuff that we might call the person inside the body.

Doctors encourage us to think this — and they think so themselves. But, Teresi argues, that's only because of the second conceptual disconnection, which is that while modern medicine has made truly startling advances in being able to keep people alive, and modern science has deepened our ability to detect life signs, almost none of this wondrous knowledge is applied in the hour of our death.

As Teresi points out, the protocol for determining brain death — which has remained the same across the US since the 1970s — does not test the cortex at all, but just the brain stem. In fact, among the most common — and decisive, for doctors — tests of whether a person is dead is to flush ice-cold water into a person's ear canal and see if their eyes twitch (or not). He rightly observes that this seems a bizarrely Stone Age method in a world where machinery lets us view oxygenation and neural activity deep inside the brain.

Dr. Galen Henderson, the director of Brigham and Women's Hospital Neurocritical Care and Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, told me that's because the technology has already been used on the patient, to determine what's wrong in the first place. Henderson, who is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, says procedures like CT scans of the brain and MRI exams are "prerequisites" to the point at which a doctor might test for actual brain death with the decades-old methods, which he describes as a more thorough version of a series of tests used to determine whether — and how deeply — a person is in a coma, vegetative state, or other condition.

My assumption was that Teresi's revelations, which so shook me, would have made some sort of difference in the months after the book's March 2012 publication (which was accompanied by coverage in major news outlets worldwide).

Perhaps doctors involved in determining death — and those involved with organ transplantation — would have stepped up to offer the answers Teresi was unable to find. Maybe the explanations were there all the time, but Teresi didn't ask the right people, or look in the right journals.

I hoped that Dempsey and Fitzpatrick would be able to explain what had happened in the book's aftermath. This was particularly the case when Dempsey told me that Teresi did his interviews and research "years and years ago, before the book was published." Fitzpatrick also accused Teresi of, among other things, using "potentially outdated information."

Some of Teresi's references do go back as far as 1976 — with historical sources well before that — but his endnotes reflect that the bulk of his research was in the mid-2000s, with the latest interviews coming in 2011.

And the protocols for determining brain death that the book describes are listed as current by, among other authorities, the American Academy of Neurology and the New England Journal of Medicine. The NEJM article Henderson pointed me to specifies that "interpretation of the findings on neuroimaging" is a precursor to a declaration of brain death, and says a CT brain scan is "essential for determining the cause of brain death." But Teresi provides examples where brain scans were not used until it was (nearly) too late.

I asked Dempsey if anything changed since Teresi's contact with NEOB in late 2010. And that's where I began to see the problem Teresi saw: "I don't know that much has changed since 2010," she replied.

It was then that Dempsey told me she was "uncomfortable" with even mentioning Teresi: "I honestly don't want to be part of this piece if you're going to talk about the book."

CERTAIN UNCERTAINTY

Shifting into PR-script mode, Dempsey began the organ-donation sales pitch that Teresi criticizes. Dempsey told me that 118,000 people in the US are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and that 18 people die daily in this country because "there's not enough organs to be transplanted." Rhetorically, she asked, "If you're to pass away, then why wouldn't you want to help someone else?"

Of course these are sympathy-inducing facts, and it's a fair question. It's also tempting to accept at face value Fitzpatrick's assurance that "dead people don't feel pain." All Teresi is doing — and all I was following up on — was asking questions about the fact that the focus of the organ-donation community seems to be not on the donor, but on the recipient, and seeking protections for the organs' original owner.

In the vein of assurances on the donor side, Dempsey offered the same explanations that Teresi had found lacking. "Death is irreversible," she said. An organ donor is "brain dead" before the organs are removed.

The determination of brain death is by "a very complete neurological examination," Dempsey said. "No one has ever recovered after the series of tests has been conducted" with a determination of brain death.

I pointed out to her that Teresi dissects each of these claims and offers convincing evidence that they're false. In a significant number of determinations of brain death, the tests were conducted improperly; in several well-documented cases, patients have in fact met the clinical definition of brain death and yet returned to functioning life, even as the surgery to remove their organs for donation was moments from beginning.

Noting that Teresi's research had disturbed Dempsey, I asked if his information had prompted any sort of ongoing discussion in the organ-donation community about the issues he raised. "Not really" was her very quick answer.

Not even the revelation that apparent pain responses are common in patients whose organs are being removed for transplantation appears to have shaken the establishment. (Fitzpatrick says these are similar to the flinch your body makes to pull your hand away from a hot stove before your brain registers the "Ouch!" Henderson says that's a bad comparison; there are different types of reflexes, some of which do involve brain activity.)

Also failing to shake the establishment is the fact that some death experts want very particular criteria to be met before they themselves are declared dead — nor that if they are to have organs removed after death, they would require their next of kin to ensure anesthetic was administered to their corpse.

As Teresi writes, despite all this, organ-donor organizations, including NEOB, are unwilling to talk about anesthesia. They say not that the patients have been proven by science to be unable to feel pain, but simply assert — with no supporting scientific evidence — that if a patient is declared dead, they are assumed incapable of sensing it.

If the people who run the show aren't interested in legitimate questions being asked about their processes, and don't have any interest in finding answers when those questions are asked by others, my faith in the system leaves entirely.

FACING THE END

I am not involved in some effort to deny death, though Teresi posits that medical professionals and the public alike misunderstand death (and misrepresent it) because we wish to avoid thinking that one day we too will die.

I know — and mostly accept — that I will die one day. (I've actually thought it was about to happen one dark night when my car left an icy road, headed into the woods. I escaped with minor injuries.)

I accept that at some point my heart will stop, my lungs will no longer exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide between the air and my blood, the cells in my body will cease their metabolic processes, and my neurons will stop sending and receiving minute electrical currents.

What I struggle to accept is that with all we know about science, and all of the equipment, technology, expertise, and experience, the only way I — or anyone else — can be truly certain of my own death is that my body will begin to decay, as my immune system will no longer hold off the bacteria and fungi that constantly assault it from within and without.

And at that point, the first moment at which everyone involved — medical experts, legal experts, and family members — can agree that death has occurred, it will be too late for me to be an organ donor. (I may still be able to be a tissue donor, as some bodily tissues, such as bone, can be harvested for some time after circulation, respiration, and metabolism stop.)

Which is all to say that there is an answer to the question, How do doctors know you're dead? But you're not going to like it, because the honest — and fucking terrifying — truth is that they often don't.

And if doctors can't tell for sure if I'm dead, I'm certainly not going to let them cut my organs out of my body while I might still be alive. Because that would kill me. For real.

WHAT'S LIFE, ANYWAY?

• Teresi's book explains the history of how death has been determined over millennia, and focuses on the major sea change, in 1968, when "brain death" was formally defined by a group of people who published their work in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

He observes that the paper was deeply flawed: The committee itself was primarily neurologists and other brain scientists, and did not include cardiologists or others who might have helped clarify the traditional heartbeat/breathing definition of death. The work included no references to scientific studies, and no direct research by its authors. The main reasons given for creating a definition of brain death had nothing to do with the patient in question, either. Instead, the report expressed concern about the burden on the patient's family, and about providing opportunities for increasing organ donation.

It set up several criteria for death, but as Teresi chronicles, those details — inadequate on their own — were shifted, subverted, and ignored systematically. And none of the criteria involve any of the technology of modern medicine, using rudimentary methods to test brain-stem function without using advanced equipment to examine higher-level activity. (Though that technology may have been used to form the decision to test for brain death.)

Ultimately the definition of death came to mean, Teresi writes, "The patient was not necessarily dead, but he was not going to recover." And even then, the tests laid out in theJAMA article were done improperly as much as two-thirds of the time, meaning the conclusion could be entirely wrong.

Most stunningly, Teresi relates the experience of a woman who was found to have a massive, life-threatening aneurysm at the base of her brain. In the surgery to repair it, her body was chilled to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, her heart was stopped, and her brain drained of all its blood. By medical definitions, she simply could not be alive.

Nevertheless, she not only recovered to full health, but was able to accurately recall, by way of a near-death/out-of-body experience during the surgery, very specific details of the procedure and of the conversation between the medical professionals conducting the operation.

Teresi observes that this raises questions about where life resides, if not in the beating heart or the blood-infused brain. What part of this woman's life was present during that surgery, and where is it located? He notes that we should probably find it and test it, too, before announcing that someone is actually dead.

Press Releases: Rating the campaigns

Published in the Portland Phoenix

When reporters are trying to get info on candidates to share with voters, campaign staff hold the keys to the kingdom. They can get answers, arrange meetings, and share information. Or they can decide not to do those things. Campaigns with small staffs or tiny budgets aren't necessarily worse; neither does more money and experience guarantee a better level of communication.

We spoke with many political reporters around the state, from many of the largest news outlets. We promised them anonymity in exchange for candor. Here's what we learned about what's behind the scenes in the biggest race in Maine, the chase for the US Senate.

ANGUS KING His campaign is very fast to respond to inquiries, and serious about staying on top of developing stories. Sometimes that concern develops into a "tizzy," as one reporter put it. Reporters agree that the King campaign is the most worried of all six candidates' about ensuring it's coming across well in the media. The campaign started "thin-skinned," according to one reporter, and while the attitude has improved, that tendency to be "nitpicky over small things" remains, with one person calling the campaign "really sensitive." At times King's staff will question the premise of a reporter's story, or even suggest an alternative topic or angle that would be more favorable to their man. Nevertheless, getting to actually speak with King is quite easy.

CHARLIE SUMMERS Initially, the campaign struggled to communicate with the media, but when Lance Dutson was replaced as the top spokesman, things improved significantly, reporters agree. (Though that hasn't meant returning multiple communiques from thePhoenix.) Dutson's successor is Drew Brandewie, whose regular job is as press secretary for the US Senate office of Texas Republican John Cornyn, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (See how much the GOP wants to win this race?) Under Brandewie, the campaign responds "efficiently and telegraphically," to questions, and issues more email announcements (too many, in some opinions). The campaign "thinks through all of the political calculations" relating to press inquiries; according to one reporter, Summers's practice of skipping candidate debates and forums extends to "actively avoiding" the press. The candidate himself can be very difficult to get on the phone, but "you can stalk him" with some success.

CYNTHIA DILL Reporters panned this campaign, with many reporters using phrases like "something of a disaster," "ill-prepared," and "complete mayhem" to describe its media interaction. Things began reasonably well with former Kennebec Journal editor Bob Mentzinger at the helm, running a "professional, smooth" operation. But mid-campaign he was replaced by former Press Herald top editor Jeannine Guttman, who regularly issues statements on Dill's behalf but is rarely in actual substantive contact with reporters, and has been slow to respond to many inquiries from multiple parties at different publications. (Scheduler Kate Cadena has been very helpful, though.) And one reporter described having a better experience with Guttman than with Mentzinger, but agreed that non-email contact was infrequent.)

ANDREW IAN DODGE is "happy to talk," personable, and extremely fast to respond. (Anecdotal example: I sent him an email, and in response he personally called my direct office line less than 30 seconds after I hit "Send.") Fewer reporters were able to describe interactions with him (and with Danny Dalton and Steve Woods), citing their supervisors' decisions to pay those efforts significantly less attention than the King, Summers, and Dill campaigns.

DANNY DALTON is also "happy to talk," but often expounds at great length on material "beyond the scope of the campaign," such as the whereabouts of Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and the activities of the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He can be dismissive of those who seek to discuss other issues.

STEVE WOODS is the candidate who most impressed reporters at the outset as being a serious candidate, if a political unknown. But after an initial flash of activity, Woods "disappeared" from the inboxes of many reporters. While he is quick to respond when contacted by the press, his lack of direct outreach may have doomed his campaign.

Youth Culture: Bullies beware

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Wells rapper and man-about-town Spose is not a fan of bullies — or pulling punches. His song "Jimmy!" on his recent album The Audacity!details bullying, victimization, and comeuppance (karmic and otherwise), starting with describing Jimmy as "a troublemaking popular kid" who picks on Chris. Over the course of the song, Jimmy degrades into robbing and "doing coke off the floor again/while Chris graduates as the valedictorian."

To make the song's video, Spose is working with Project Aware, a local youth-driven non-profit opposing bullying and dealing with other aspects of teen health (sexual, physical, and mental).

As another element of that collaboration, Spose is headlining a fundraiser for Project Aware that plainspokenly hands victims of bullying a possible weapon (words only!) to use against their tormentors. The event's title is "Don't Be A Douchebag." (It also features performances by other musicians, including some young players from the Maine Academy of Modern Music.)

The name is in keeping with his approach of talking to young people in their own language. "I've always kind of tried to touch on serious issues in a relateable manner," he says — not shying away from being "brutal and honest." He definitely doesn't want to "talk down to the kids like it's a high school assembly."

That said, the 27-year-old has matured since his earlier, more flamboyant work, and while he still uses rap's approach and stylings, he's more careful about his language now: "I try not to use 'bitch' too often," Spose says.

Project Aware co-founder Carl Lakari says lots of words in common parlance have been "used to hurt kids," Lakari says — including "jerk" and "idiot." But kids adapt them and often co-opt their uses. (Cf. "queer," "nerd," and "geek.")

"This is their language. This is from their perspective," Lakari says, observing that he and Spose came up with four possible names for the event, the other three of which were less forward. "Without question, and with vehemence," the Project Aware kids chose "Don't Be A Douchebag."

"I took a risk," Lakari admits. "I could have stopped it, but I felt like I would have been disempowering the youth" — the very people he created the organization to serve.

It's very much along the lines of how Project Aware approaches youth service differently from other organizations. For example, there's the 35-minute dramatic short April's Heart, filmed by the film club at Sanford High School, released in 2010 and showing raw and unfiltered scenes of teenage life in today's world.

Lakari says his goal is to "allow youth to have a voice . . . without judgment" — which at times means having open conversations among teens and adults about boundaries, consequences, and risky behavior.

Spose approves: "Their videos were brutal and hard-core and they weren't flowery and After-School Specials," he says of what attracted him to work with the group. "That's what kids are really going through."

In response — and in recognition — Spose promises to deliver "a full all-ages set that's not scaled-back and boring" on Saturday. And on Friday evening from 6 to 7 pm on WCYY (94.3 FM), he and Lakari and several teens will be on the air with Mark Curdo to talk about the issues facing teens.

Deliver a big blow to bullies everywhere: Listen on the radio, and head to the show.

'DON'T BE A DOUCHEBAG' | benefit for Project Aware | with Spose, Dean Ford, Better Than, God.Damn.Chan, Steiner Street, Running Gags, Beware of Pedestrians | October 13 @ 1-5 pm | Asylum, 121 Center St, Portland | $5, all ages

Laurels: Tapley racks up another award

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley, who has covered conditions in the Maine State Prison and throughout the state's corrections system since 2005, will be honored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for "outstanding advocacy for prison reform."

The recognition, in the form of the 2012 Roger Baldwin Award (named for an ACLU founder and former director), will be presented on Thursday, October 25, at the University of Maine Wells Conference Center in Orono.

Tapley, who recently contributed to the New York University Press anthology The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration & Abuse, has won many previous honors for the ongoing series, including from the national Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the regional New England Press Association, and the Maine State Bar Association.

His reporting "became the catalyst for reforms that have helped make the prison safer for both prisoners and guards," said ACLU-Maine executive director Shenna Bellows, in a press release announcing the award.

"Maine has become a model for other states on solitary reform," said Bellows. "We would not be this far along without the reporting of Lance Tapley."

Please join us in Orono to celebrate Tapley's work, which totals nearly 100 stories to date. (See links to all of them at tinyurl.com/PhxMainePrisons.) It's free and open to the public; the evening's events begin at 6:30 pm.

Youth Culture: Bullies beware

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Wells rapper and man-about-town Spose is not a fan of bullies — or pulling punches. His song "Jimmy!" on his recent album The Audacity!details bullying, victimization, and comeuppance (karmic and otherwise), starting with describing Jimmy as "a troublemaking popular kid" who picks on Chris. Over the course of the song, Jimmy degrades into robbing and "doing coke off the floor again/while Chris graduates as the valedictorian."

To make the song's video, Spose is working with Project Aware, a local youth-driven non-profit opposing bullying and dealing with other aspects of teen health (sexual, physical, and mental).

As another element of that collaboration, Spose is headlining a fundraiser for Project Aware that plainspokenly hands victims of bullying a possible weapon (words only!) to use against their tormentors. The event's title is "Don't Be A Douchebag." (It also features performances by other musicians, including some young players from the Maine Academy of Modern Music.)

The name is in keeping with his approach of talking to young people in their own language. "I've always kind of tried to touch on serious issues in a relateable manner," he says — not shying away from being "brutal and honest." He definitely doesn't want to "talk down to the kids like it's a high school assembly."

That said, the 27-year-old has matured since his earlier, more flamboyant work, and while he still uses rap's approach and stylings, he's more careful about his language now: "I try not to use 'bitch' too often," Spose says.

Project Aware co-founder Carl Lakari says lots of words in common parlance have been "used to hurt kids," Lakari says — including "jerk" and "idiot." But kids adapt them and often co-opt their uses. (Cf. "queer," "nerd," and "geek.")

"This is their language. This is from their perspective," Lakari says, observing that he and Spose came up with four possible names for the event, the other three of which were less forward. "Without question, and with vehemence," the Project Aware kids chose "Don't Be A Douchebag."

"I took a risk," Lakari admits. "I could have stopped it, but I felt like I would have been disempowering the youth" — the very people he created the organization to serve.

It's very much along the lines of how Project Aware approaches youth service differently from other organizations. For example, there's the 35-minute dramatic short April's Heart, filmed by the film club at Sanford High School, released in 2010 and showing raw and unfiltered scenes of teenage life in today's world.

Lakari says his goal is to "allow youth to have a voice . . . without judgment" — which at times means having open conversations among teens and adults about boundaries, consequences, and risky behavior.

Spose approves: "Their videos were brutal and hard-core and they weren't flowery and After-School Specials," he says of what attracted him to work with the group. "That's what kids are really going through."

In response — and in recognition — Spose promises to deliver "a full all-ages set that's not scaled-back and boring" on Saturday. And on Friday evening from 6 to 7 pm on WCYY (94.3 FM), he and Lakari and several teens will be on the air with Mark Curdo to talk about the issues facing teens.

Deliver a big blow to bullies everywhere: Listen on the radio, and head to the show.

'DON'T BE A DOUCHEBAG' | benefit for Project Aware | with Spose, Dean Ford, Better Than, God.Damn.Chan, Steiner Street, Running Gags, Beware of Pedestrians | October 13 @ 1-5 pm | Asylum, 121 Center St, Portland | $5, all ages

The Outsiders: Also on the ballot, and making good points

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Three candidates you haven't heard a lot about from the mainstream media are, nevertheless, running for US Senate. Danny Dalton, Andrew Ian Dodge, and Steve Woods are perhaps like the much-maligned but ultimately more heroic Greasers gang in the classic SE Hinton novel The Outsiders. They're not polished, refined campaigners or politicians — and they definitely lack the slicker appeal of the more popular and seemingly successful crew that Hinton called the Socials. But each of these underdogs has noteworthy credentials, experience, and ideas. In fact, if you think standard politicos are part of the problems in Washington, you might consider taking these men more seriously than the Big Three. They're certainly more likely to "stay gold," maintaining their philosophies and political stances upon arriving at the Senate.

STEVE WOODS,THE ENTREPRENEUR

In the sprawling Falmouth building that houses his privately owned mini-conglomerate, Woods laughs at the irony of being a marketing executive running on what he calls an "anonymity platform." Then he rails against mainstream media — specifically the Portland Press Herald — for failing to cover his campaign adequately. He has a point: While the press talk with King, Summers, and Dill about health-care issues, one of Woods's firms is actively engaged with big players in the health industry, giving him broad perspective. (He supports the Affordable Care Act, not as a finish line, but as a starting point.)

But rather than elaborate, he moves on, observing that when the press talk with the Big Three about energy and environmental issues, perhaps they might want to talk to a guy who has a solar-powered office campus (complete with electric-car charging station), a rainwater-reclaiming roof, and a green-living marketing firm, Viridescence. He might have something to say on those topics, too.

If only he weren't so upset that when talk turns to jobs, nobody calls him — "I've created 100 jobs here" and invested millions in Maine as part owner of the Maine Red Claws, and as a partner in the Thompson's Point redevelopment project, he says. He complains that high taxes and onerous government regulations have made running small businesses harder than ever.

Which reminds him that democracy is on the wane ("woe is the republic" is a frequent refrain), and that civic involvement is dropping, and that elected officials are incompetent and —

Well, that's the real problem. Listening to Steve Woods talk is like drinking from a firehose. There's delicious, refreshing substance that can bring great relief and growth, but There's. Just. So. Much. Of. It.

Perhaps it's the relentless drive — and let's say it, passion — that has landed him at what he terms the "kids' table" of this US Senate race. It could be his own admission that "I probably entered the process a little naively," expecting a more level media playing field. Maybe it's his idealism about American civic obligation.

"Public service is a privilege," Woods says. He's serious when he says he won't accept the $174,000 salary a senator receives, and will seek to have it sent directly from the US Treasury to several Maine-based charities.

It's a way to achieve his goal — which is not to change history (he thinks none of the candidates will), but to "change the dialogue, and . . . to change democracy in America," bringing civic engagement back from the cliff of cynicism.

But this wish is tempered with a harder reality, such as when he condemns today's broken political system with lines like "institutional lying has become part of the fabric of our political system" and accuses not just the leaders but also the followers of failing to protect the American experiment. "In effect, it's all our fault," he says, following that with an admission that it's an uphill slog to seek votes from people while telling them they're the problem.

ANDREW IAN DODGE, THE RABBLE-ROUSER

Dodge got into this race because of a promise to his father, who died shortly afterward. A Maine Tea Party Patriot coordinator whose vow to drive Olympia Snowe from office failed to win him the Republican primary, Dodge declared independency after the loss and has tried to wax more libertarian (including speaking recently before a USM appearance of Libertarian Party veep candidate James Gray) while keeping his ultra-conservative but very personable campaign going for the November election.

Dodge's conversation is punctuated with an occasional English-accented word or turn of phrase, recalling his work for, as he describes them, "unsuccessful" UK parliament races, as well as his time studying at the University of Hull in Yorkshire, almost 20 years ago. He regularly refers to his studies — which also include a 1989 BA in political science from Colby College — as qualifications for his Senate run.

His is an off-beat effort, perhaps most obviously distinct from most candidacies by its bright-yellow comic-book "kapow" logo. Dodge embraces this aesthetic, even "opening" for a trio of metal bands in Gardiner the night after the USM event.

"I'm perfectly happy to say things that piss people off," he says — and so he does, not shying away from taking fairly absolutist stands, and brooking little moderation. He rejects the idea that humans are influencing global climate change, thinks Paul Ryan's budget-reform plan does not go far enough in cutting federal services and spending, and would abolish the federal Department of Education. He opposes the Affordable Care Act and objects to federal funding of any kind for Planned Parenthood (even for non-abortion services). He's against raising taxes on the rich, and instead promotes a "flat" tax system — as well as the dramatically reduced federal spending such a system would mean. He wants to expand NAFTA and lower barriers to trade with other English-speaking countries. At the same time, he wants to "de-fund the UN and suggest it move elsewhere" from its current New York home.

Endorsed by the Libertarian Party of Maine, he also is in favor of some left-wing causes: same-sex marriage, food sovereignty, and marijuana legalization. On immigration — his wife is English — he favors easing the legal arrival of skilled workers while wanting "strong border defenses," as his website words it. He wants to slash military funding, too, and eliminate all forms of corporate welfare.

And his logic is generally consistent — if at times arriving at politically questionable suggestions. Government is too big, and should be dramatically reduced, he argues, returning direct exercise of sovereignty to the people (or, if collective action is necessary, the states). That includes privatizing Social Security and Medicare, programs he has claimed are poorly managed and wasteful despite their overwhelming effectiveness and popularity among citizens of all political stripes.

He doesn't think much of traditional politicians, though, and sums up his competition this way: "I find it hard to believe that I'll be any more of a pretentious ass than some of the others who are running."

DANNY DALTON,THE EX-COP

Dalton's a details man, as you might expect from a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who spent more than a decade chasing narcotics cartels across the globe. Also a former Air Force and Army serviceman, Dalton's approach is bold and direct.

For example, this question: "Why are we bothering to spend $700 billion on a military that can't win a war?" Much of his campaign energy is spent talking about waste and incompetence in government agencies, specifically law-enforcement and military organizations. He has reams of allegations on the tip of his tongue, with sometimes-excruciatingly exhaustive explanations.

There's also his work history. He left the DEA in 2005, objecting to ineptitude he saw throughout the government. And then he went to work for the State and Defense departments, at least some of the time as an employee of Blackwater, the controversial paramilitary company that was ultimately expelled by the Iraqi government and fined by the US State Department for misconduct, including alleged illegal arms dealing.

After seeing even more fraud, waste, and incompetence (the three may be his favorite words, he uses them so much), in 2008 he apparently became some sort of international private investigator. That effort was funded with his own money and did, he says, a better job investigating terrorists and drug-traffickers than the federal agencies tasked to do that work, including those for which he used to work.

Upon offering the information he and his network uncovered to top-level federal agents, he found himself rebuffed. (It's unclear whether that was related to his requests for reimbursement for the expenses he incurred — which he says are minuscule when compared with the costs of supporting a uniformed American soldier in an overseas combat zone.) So he took his complaints elsewhere, seeking audiences with Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. He met with their staffs, but says he was never able to talk to either of the women directly. In any case, they didn't want his information either, he says, and referred him to some of the agencies that had already declined his information.

This led him to enter the Senate race, accusing both Snowe and Collins of failing in their duties as elected officials by refusing to even look at what he was presenting.

At the same time, he took advantage of basically every chance opportunity to present US law-enforcement personnel with what he had learned. He tells the story of being stopped at a border crossing, and then trying to hand over a dossier of information on the whereabouts of an alleged Taliban commander in Afghanistan — to a Border Patrol supervisor near Canada. He continues to profess amazement that the officer was uninterested in his data.

It may stick in his craw because for a time he worked for the Department of Homeland Security's effort to get law-enforcement agencies to share information better. But he views it as part of something much larger: "That's the problem — the two parties. Everything else is a symptom of that problem," he says.

Press releases: Mistrust

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Gallup polling company last week released a report saying Americans' trust in the mass media hit a new low this year. The survey results, which have a four-percent margin of error, show that 40 percent of Americans have either a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of trust in "newspapers, TV, and radio," while the remaining 60 percent have "not very much" or "none at all." That's lower than any time since Gallup began polling on the question in 1972.

What's most alarming — for those of us in the media business, at least — is that a mere 8 percent of Americans have a "great deal" of trust in the media. So 23 out of 25 Americans have somewhere between a little and zero trust in the people, companies, and organizations that claim to be expending great effort and sums of money in attempts to be honest and trustworthy.

How's that for a bad job-performance score?

The Gallup report goes on to say that "Media sources must clearly do more to earn the trust of Americans" — which must strike mainstream newsrooms as a serious blow, since most American journalism outfits have been striving for many years to improve transparency and increase consumer confidence, including hiring ombudsmen and having top editors write columns about the news process.

Gallup says "This is particularly consequential at a time when Americans need to rely on the media to learn about the platforms and perspectives of the two candidates vying to lead the country for the next four years."

But Gallup's own analysis gives us a view into exactly how dire are the consequences of media misinformation. For one thing, there are more than two viable presidential candidates: Green Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson are on enough state ballots that either could potentially achieve the winning tally of 270 electoral-college votes.

And second, Gallup presumes that Americans are getting, should get, and need to get a significant amount of information about the presidential campaign through the news media. That's no longer a safe assumption at all.

A Google report on political decision-making (released in July) said that for half of voters, comparing candidates online helped make their voting decisions. (The report didn't specify on what sites, but then a part of the impetus for Google's study was to promote the company's Internet-wide campaign-advertising services.)

Further, one-third of voters hadn't watched TV in the previous week — and even those who were watching TV weren't giving it their undivided attention: 80 percent of smartphone owners used their phones while watching TV. The Google report also said people spend more time on their mobile devices than with newspapers and magazines combined.

Of course, at least some of what people are looking at online and on their mobiles may in fact be electronic versions of traditional news media. (Google's report said 90 percent of tablet users get news on their tablet that they used to access "in other ways.")

But there's much, much more online, including material people find and share themselves. A report earlier this month from the Pew Internet and American Life Project showed the strong influence of social-network sites on people's efforts to keep up with political news: 36 percent of social-networkers say the sites help them that way, and 25 percent say they debate and discuss political issues online (plus or minus 2 percent).

And the Internet will only get more influential. Minorities — blacks and Hispanics (who are poised, together, to become a majority in the US) — say they find social-networking sites even more useful for keeping up on political news than whites; younger people (who will get older and find their views more prevalent as those who disagree expire) say so at a higher rate than all social-network users.

All of which is to say that if people mistrust the mainstream media now, and are increasingly seeking out alternative sources of information and finding it influential, those reporters and editors and managers whose jobs it is to make themselves truthful and useful to the public really have their work cut out for them.