Things which are obvious within your field but controversial to the public

[Sequent]

@Sample_the_Dog

I recently heard a story on NPR news that claimed it’s common practice for NFL teams to issue antibiotics pre-emptively to the players, on the grounds that an infection could easily spread and sideline the whole team.

Seemed monumentally stupid to me, if true.

It is true. Sounds like they might actually have something to pre-empt, though.

[Rusalka]

How about the common belief that antibiotic overuse comes from human overuse rather than the widespread practice of giving antibiotics to healthy domesticated animals like cows in order for them to produce more milk, etc…which then gets into the environment to foster disease resistant bacteria.

[Sample_the_Dog]

@Sequent

It is true. Sounds like they might actually have something to pre-empt, though.

It still seems monumentally stupid to me, given this:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which was part of the investigation, has since developed a protocol for college teams aimed at preventing the infection…

Researchers found that Rams players and trainers did not have regular access to hand-cleaning material, that players shared towels and other personal items during practices and games, and that players often failed to shower before entering whirlpools.

Kazakova said that since the outbreak, the Rams have taken steps to help players avoid staph infections by making them more aware of the problem, adding wall-mounted soap dispensers, avoiding hot tubs if they have turf burns. No new cases have appeared.

“The measures are really very simple,” Kazakova said. “It all boils down to good personal hygiene.”

[Evil_One]

From my days working in televison newsrooms:

1. Just because a story is a big deal to you, it may not be to us. Once you receive the standard response of “We’ll try to be there” to your invitation for your groundbreaking, visiting poobah, product unveiling, etc, no amount of further justification will produce an ironclad guarantee of attendance.

2. Just because you have no comment to a story that is negative as far as you are concerned, that does not mean that the story won’t be done anyway.

3. As awful as the tragedy du jour is to you, it is just grist for the mill to us. It’s just another car wreck, fire or a body under a sheet. No amount of yelling about insensitivity will make any difference.

4. We just laugh at you when you threaten to stop watching.

[Unintentionally_Blank]

@Snickers

–Indexes require a lot of thought and planning to create. Not that this is controversial; rather, most of the public don’t give it any thought at all. One of my friends was amazed that I had to index anything at all, and that it required manual work to create. I, for one, am horrified at the thought of a totally computer -generated index.

One of the tangential characters in a Kurt Vonnegut story (Ice 9?) wrote indexes for books. She was looking at a book’s index, turned red, slammed the book closed and refused to look at it again.

Her husband asked what had offended her so.

She said the index author was gay.

(Of course, I’m sure I nuked the delivery, but it was funny when I read it.)

[Little_Nemo]

There are some critical differences in how sexuality is viewed among different socioeconomic and ethnic groups. The Happy White Baptist Virgin model is only going to work with the Happy White Baptists Virgins.

And probably isn’t working with them. I read an article last week that said that teenagers who take the abstinence pledge have a higher STD rate than teenagers who don’t. Apparently, many of the abstinence pledge teenagers were having “alternative” forms of sex and because they weren’t having “real” sex were less likely to use protection.