Think twice about that diet soda

Once upon a time...

No, really, a long time ago, decades in fact, my friend warned me away from the "new" sweetener that was all the rage to replace saccharine.

I'm sure she told me all sorts of terrible things about it, but the one that stuck with me and that made me swear to avoid NutraSweet^® at all costs, was that they (yeah, "they") hadn't determined how your body excreted the chemical. Or if it excreted the chemical.

It's a product of my childhood that the pulsing, glowing bezoar of fake sugar I promptly imagined inside me bore a surpassing resemblance to Kryptonite. It was enough to scare me off the stuff for good.

A recent article on Huffington Post by Dr. J. Mercola made me really happy I don't ingest the stuff, which is back in the news with a name change, from "NutraSweet" to "AminoSweet," to highlight the manufacturer's claim that "aspartame tastes just like sugar, and that it's made from amino acids — the building blocks of protein that are abundant in our diet."

It's a common sleight of verbal hand, right up there with "all-natural." As they say (the other "they"), snake venom is all-natural, doesn't mean it's good for you. As for being made from amino acids, while they are "indeed completely natural and safe," according to Dr. Mercola, "they were never designed to be ingested as isolated amino acids in massive quantities, which in and of itself will cause complications."

Dr. Mercola states that the FDA has received more complaints, over 10,000 in all, regarding Aspartame than all other food additives combined. Take that statistic with a grain of salt, since he also goes on to say that "by the FDA's own admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it."

Er, that is not exactly what the FDA admitted. In a 1993 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, then Commissioner of the FDA, David Kessler, said "fewer than 1 percent of all doctors report injuries and deaths following the administration of prescription drugs" (emphasis mine). Which is really not the same thing. At all. Like, in any way. I managed to find a few citations that the FDA estimates that less than 10% of people report adverse reactions, but I couldn't trace it to the source — so, more salt.

Well, that got me thinking, and digging. This is what I think I know about Aspartame now: "A 1970s study suggested that aspartame caused brain tumors in rats. However, the Food and Drug Administration persuaded an independent review panel to reverse its conclusion that aspartame was unsafe."

There does seem to be consensus that the FDA's approval of NutraSweet in the 70s was a political and financial hairball of liquid lunches and hidden (or not so) agendas. Everywhere I surf, I find Tamlin Carlisle's 1987 article from The Globe and Mail about the FDA's approval, both cited and not. I also found an interesting, albeit a little salty, time-line compiled by an anti-aspartame advocate.

There does not seem to be consensus regarding aspartame's harmful effects — a great summary of both high-profile sides of the argument is on the site care2.com. New studies from Italy published in 2007 caused the FDA to conduct its own new safety reviews and once again wholly dismiss any and all claims linking the chemical additive to cancer. At the same time, CSPI downgraded aspartame on its food additives list from a “use caution” rating to “everyone should avoid," and issued a brief castigation of the FDA's safety review as "perfectly predictable."

CSPI advises against Stevia (they're not alone on that one) and approves Sucralose. Mind you, CSPI itself is a little salty, given that in one sentence it advises avoiding sodium nitrite, saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame-K, Olestra and caffeine. Come again?

They're harmless, they're harmful, they're harmless...

Did you catch the latest cell phone radiation report published by the World Health Organization (WHO)? To be completely candid, I haven't read the actual report, but I have been reading the articles and responses to the report, thinking I'd get the lowdown that way. Which didn't actually work out how I expected.

Some articles, like this one from NPR, report that the study shows no link between prolonged cell phone usage and increases in brain cancer. Others trumpet that the link (and risk) has been confirmed. So, sadly, regarding cell phones, radiation and brain cancer, we're not really any further along than we were before. Does it? Doesn't it? Dunno.

The study is at worst inconclusive, at best it shows there is no link to increased cancer, according to Time, CNN, and The Washington Post. Several international (foreign?) outlets are rather more alarmist — a Scotland paper headline reads "Study links mobile phone use to brain tumours" and another one from The Australian says "Industry study shows brain tumour link to heavy mobile phone usage."

In England, you can start your morning with "Talking on the Mobile Just 30mins a Day Linked with Heightened Risk of Brain Cancer" in the Globe and Mail and then move on to pick up a copy of The Guardian or The Independent to read "Mobile Phone Study Finds No Solid Link to Brain Tumours" or "Steve Connor: Time To Call It a Day for All the Unfounded Hang-Ups About the Dangers of Mobiles." That should clear it all up for you. (Not.)

The one point on which there does seem to be a consensus? The study is flawed (ya think?). To wit:

• the study was conducted from 1999 to 2004, so not only is technology different today, but "heavy" cell phone use at the time was defined as about two (2) hours a month. Yes, a month.
• it classed other cordless/wireless device usage, such as cordless landlines (forget the oxymoron - you know what I mean), as "unexposed" to radiation
• it didn't include children and young adults
• more than half of the control group eventually declined to participate
• the results point to cell phone usage actually being linked to a lower incidence of cancer

Microwave News puts it this way: "There's an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Welcome to Interphone."

A mule by any other name...

...is a landmark law suit.

Betcha didn't see that coming.

I was going to talk about Bundaberg and Barritt's Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, Australian and Bermudan (?) brewed respectively.

I was going to go on about the coolness factor of the form factor of the Bundaberg beer. That bottle! That cap! From there, I was going to transition smoothly into a discussion of the authenticity of Barritt's, to which I was introduced at a sadly missed Jamaican/Southern restaurant, Maroon's, in a drink they called the "Manchester" (which the rest of us would probably call a "Light and Stormy," if there were such a thing).

But instead I'm going to discuss a law suit. It's simple, really. As I was trolling about, searching for the perfect ginger beer image, not to mention the origin of the name "Moscow Mule," a cocktail of lime juice, vodka and ginger beer (if you're interested — Moscow because vodka is mostly ascribed to Russian origin and Mule for the kick of ginger beer), I stumbled onto something far more fascinating: the role of ginger beer in what seems to be considered one of the most famous common law cases in Great Britain. No kidding.

Evidently, in 1928, in a town called Paisley (and I'm pretty sure it's that paisley, but don't let me get off-track), near Glasgow in Scotland, two friends entered a cafe. Friend One ordered and paid for both of them, including an ice cream drink with ginger beer for Friend Two. The cafe owner brought their order and poured some of the soda out of its opaque bottle over ice cream in a glass and left the pair to their own devices. A few sips later, and Friend One considerately poured more soda out of the bottle for Friend Two. Lo and behold, along with the frothy liquid, out tumbled a snail. Actually, the decomposed remains of a snail.

A diagnosed case of gastroenteritis later for Friend Two (a Ms. Donoghue) and voila, law suit. Now that doesn't sound so interesting in our day and age, where we have customers suing restaurants because the coffee is hot. But, evidently, this was a landmark case for a several reasons. One, Ms. Donoghue brought suit against, not the abjectly apologetic cafe owner, but one Mssr. David Stevenson, an aerated water (I'm guessing that's soda by any other name) manufacturer in Paisley, and the source of the, ahem, enhanced ginger beer. Two, the grounds of the suit were the manufacturer's "duty of care" to the ultimate customer, the consumer of his product. Prior to this, although the concept of duty of care existed, it was closely proscribed, and this situation was far removed from precedent.

But justice, at least in this case, prevailed, and new case law was written and manufacturers everywhere (at least in the United Kingdom) became legally accountable to their ultimate customer, regardless of the layers of distribution behind which they tried to hide.

Okay, so it's no Inherit the Wind. But the next time you find something gross in your crunchy cheetos and you want to sue, you know who you have to thank for your odds of winning. The Paisley Snail. (You don't really want me to get into the earlier case, referenced by the judges, in the US — McPherson v. Buick — do you? It's not nearly as interesting as the snail.)

Promises, promises

Baby Einstein, the mesmerizing visual babysitter that parents have been relying on and feeling good about since 1997, is now offering refunds. Refunds you ask? Are the disks disintegrating? Evincing built-in obsolescence? No, not at all.

Baby Einstein is offering refunds to all those parents whose children did not become geniuses after gazing hour after hour wide-eyed and slack-jawed at animation and jingles set to the melodies of Beethoven and Mozart.

Shockingly, it turns out you can't plop your child in a swing in front of the TV and expect that the child you take out of the swing will be, for lack of a better metaphor, Einstein. Indeed, not only are the videos not flowers for Algernon, they are closer to poison in the well. Far from beneficial, "studies show that television exposure at ages 1 through 3 is associated with attention problems at age 7," not to mention "the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time at all for children under 2."

The Walt Disney Company acquired the business in 2001 and are now on the hook to refund up to $15.99 to each household who purchased their DVDs between 2004 and 2009. Even that doesn't seem to be enough to motivate a change in the labeling, which not only still claims developmental benefits (all without using the forbidden word, "educational"), it also states that the videos are intended for babies 9 months and up. Hey, what do those pediatricians know anyway?

Now, my 5 year old niece is a veritable Einstein — if you don't believe me, ask her to quote any part of The Princess Bride. Spooky. Or to name like 100 extinct species of animals. Seriously. — and I don't know when she started watching TV or how much. But I'm pretty sure she could see right through Baby Einstein's new “enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee.”

A picture, a thousand words

One week, two flowers, 97 cigarettes.

Fischer & Fala, a Brazilian ad agency, was tasked with coming up with a campaign to coincide with new anti-smoking laws in Sao Paolo. Point made, guys.

The smoking plant (With english subtitles) from Fischer Fala on Vimeo.
(Yeah, yeah, it's a video. Can't see it? Click here.)

Miles to go before I sleep

Math can make your head spin. I was reading Seth Godin's blog (catching up on his blog actually, but whatever) and came upon his post, "Not so good at math." He reprinted the classic miles-per-gallon example, comparing Suburbans to Priuses, in which two alternative performance improvements are proposed and you are asked which is the better choice.

His point is to remind marketers that the ordinary consumer is, as he puts it "not wired for arithmetic. It confuses us, stresses us out and more often than not, is used to deceive."

Have you ever heard someone say, "numbers don't lie"? Yeah, right. Numbers may not lie, but they sure can obfuscate some cold hard facts, especially when wielded by a master.

To me, it's like the age-old question is lying by omission lying?

The mpg example goes like this:

You want to reduce gasoline consumption and, lucky for you, there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

That seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, except for the fact that you know there's a trick in there somewhere.

This is a bit of a mind bender, but think about it this way (since you've obviously figured out that the answer is NOT replacing the Priuses) — if you drive 25 miles in an "unmodified" Suburban, you'll go through 2 1/2 gallons of gas, while going through only 1/2 a gallon driving the same distance in a Prius. That's easy enough, right? Okay, stick with me. If you modify the Prius, doubling the gas consumption efficiency, and drive another 25 miles you'll save a whopping 1/4 gallon of gas.

But, if you modify your Suburban, improving gas consumption efficiency only by a third, and drive another 25 miles, you'll save 1/2 gallon of gas (actually, a little bit more). Twice as much as you would save modifying the Prius.

Basically, the Prius is already so efficient, that making it more efficient doesn't save you that much. But the Suburban is so inefficient, that even making it a little more efficient makes a big difference.

To Seth's point, however, who of us ordinary consumers would jump to that conclusion first? And no, Dad, you are not an ordinary consumer.

Friends don't let friends drive texty

I considered posting the four minute British PSA about texting and driving, but it's bloody bloody. It's at well over a million views - if you haven't seen it, it's here.
I settled for this clip from Albuquerque's KOAT (yeah, yeah, it's a video. Can't see it? Click here):

According to this report, you're five (5) times more likely to have an accident if you text and drive.

Did I mention that all the PSA videos I watched on YouTube on the "dangers of texting and driving" were accompanied by cell phone ads from Wal-Mart. Is it just me, or is that like having Jack Daniels sponsor your local AA meeting?

Define irony

Of all the books in all the world, Amazon chooses George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" to peremptorily delete from people's Kindle devices? You're kidding me, right?

This is the kind of thing that if I put it in my screenplay some reader would comment in the margin, and rightfully so, "Too spot on. Choose another book."

Yet, it did so happen that on the 17th of July, in the year of the Omnipotent and Everpresent, 2009, Amazon.com did in fact reach its eerie electronic tentacles out into the ether and remove every instance of "1984" and "Animal Farm" from every Kindle owner who had purchased the books. Just like that. Gone in an instant. Poof.

Big Brother comes to life and its name is Jeff Bezos. This is not a drill.

The irony of this situation is so incredible that you can't help but feel that some poor misguided PR peon is sitting in an office somewhere, cowering under his desk, muttering to himself over and over, "it wasn't supposed to happen like this."

To be scrupulously honest, I don't why, but why not, let's let Amazon 'splain. Or at least, sum up.

First, the books' publisher changed its mind about offering electronic versions of the books. Let me be clear, the publisher decided it wanted to rescind previously granted permission. Post-facto.
Next, Amazon crumpled under publisher pressure. Again, let me be absolutely clear. Amazon crumpled, surrendered, folded, caved like Kirstie Alley saying yes to a cupcake.
Finally, like the fog on little cat feet, Amazon snuck in like a thief in the night and absconded with its customers' books.

Well, that does clear everything up.

I hear that Amazon is promising never to do anything like this again. Promises, promises.

Every time...

You know somebody's doing something right when you hang up the phone smiling.

Yeah, yeah, I know you're tired of hearing about this already, but I'm just not tired of talking about it. GoDaddy's customer service rocks. I had another question—not a problem, just a question about how to do something—and once again, they came through. I wasn't on hold. I spoke to a nice guy named Jason. And he figured out what the issue was in about 15 minutes. Smart kid.

Smart company.

It's not just me

Evidently traumatic customer service experiences are universal. So much so that Emily Yellin has written a book, "Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us."

A whole book just on the infuriating, frustrating, maddening, impossible interactions that are mistakenly called "customer service." Ha!

As I was saying not that long ago, customer service centers are for the most part an oxymoron. But like everything else these days, it seems that the obvious solution is not the road taken. Robert Frost notwithstanding, sometimes the right path is the right path. I don't get it, but there you have it.

In the meantime, any business I can do with GoDaddy or Apple, I will. Their customer service actually is. Customer service. Go figure.

Goldilocks goes shopping

I want to talk about the joys of comparison shopping. Now there is certainly joy to be found, I'm sure, in not having to look at the price. I'm sure, but I wouldn't know.

There's a whole 'nother level of satisfaction to be gained from being told one price and then, through a combination of dogged determination, persistence and sheer orneriness, finding that same good or service for a lower price. This I do know.

Just yesterday, my car dealership wanted to charge me $355 plus tax to replace and mount my tire. Leaving there convinced that couldn't be the best price, I stopped into DiscountTires, sure they would beat that price. Shockingly, they wanted $453 to do the same thing (as an aside, I think they might want to consider changing the name of their business).

A few minutes on the internet turned up a source that would sell and ship me the tire for $235. I actually contemplated the look on the face of the nice man who runs my mailbox center when he received that box before continuing my research.

Finally, I found the tire source that was "just right"—Big-O Tires would sell and mount the tire for $250, including tax. And they're just down the street from me. Tell me that's not satisfying.

Name that frog... or septipus

Quick, who said "it's not easy being green"? I'm not talking Kermit, here. Have you met the Green Thing?

Here he is on Vimeo.

So he's not exactly Kermit—I bet Miss Piggy would still be smitten.

an iPhone for Crackberry users

I admit it—the iPhone is très appealing. It's cool. And slick. And does some nifty stuff. And let's even assume I could get used to that pane of glass touch screen.

Still. There's NO CUT AND PASTE. And here's the thing—if that complaint doesn't make sense to you, then, well, it doesn't make sense to you. But if it does—then you, like me, couldn't and wouldn't contemplate using the iPhone for all the tea in China, or Carter's liver pills, or salt in the ocean, or whatever. Not to mention the other various and sundry complaints (that's for you, Mel and Lynn)—such as non-removable battery, SIM card, slow internet connection, yadda yadda yadda. I gotta admit that after the no cut&paste revelation, I stopped paying attention.

Mind you, this is not to say that for the people who love it, the iPhone isn't great. It's simply not all things to all people. And in my world, I'm the only people who count.

So where does that leave me and my people? Happily anticipating the Blackberry Storm. First off, that "pane of glass?" Not a problem. According to Gizmodo, the Storm's entire screen is a giant button. You have to press it—no "click it"—to make anything happen. Now, Gizmodo also says it's likely people will either like this or loathe it. Fair enough. Engadget is a fan of what RIM is calling the Clickthrough interface, which, unlike the iPhone, turns with the phone when you turn to portrait or landscape mode. Nice.

And of course, most importantly... the Storm has, yep, you got it in one, CUT AND PASTE. Not to mention the whole host of Blackberry features that us crackberry fanatics are so addicted to.

Stay tuned, next week I might be so motivated as to investigate the G1 phone featuring Android.