Nut Allergies, Part 2

Previously, I called for research into how to make peanuts less allergic. It appears it's happening.

A recent Toronto Star article entitled Scientists breeding less allergic peanutsdiscusses "breeding new strains of peanuts stripped of deadly allergens that could dramatically reduce the risk to millions of people." I would be among those millions.

It's about time. This could reduce direct costs to society in the form of health care, and indirect costs associated with work absenteeism and lost productivity. It could also open up more revenues for companies who sell products with nut ingredients, the article rightly recognizing nut allergies as a "market barrier."

But, is there a downside to "franken-peanuts"? Perhaps, but is anyone complaining about the size of giant strawberries lately? If we can tolerate genetic modification to turn what used to be a small berry into a multi-bite plum-sized fruit, hopefully there will be few side effects to peanuts that kill less people, provided these geneticists get this right, and I hope they do.

One problem I can readily appreciate is, how would I know if this restaurant or that dessert item includes the allergen-reduced nuts in their ingredients? The danger is that people might be lulled into a false sense of safety and eat something they might previously have avoided, trusting that the ingredients included the allergen-reduced nut, and finding much to their chagrin that the nuts used were reaction-causing.

I only hope, however, that whatever virtue is left in a free market would sort this out naturally; that demand would skyrocket for the allergen-reduced foodstuffs, and suppliers would align their supply accordingly, thus effectively eliminating the reaction-causing nuts from supply through sheer force of concern for profit.

A suit that just doesn't fit

Here's the headline/byline from the Globe and Mail - "Lawsuit could make designated drivers liable for intoxicated passengers: Woman, who leapt from moving car during domestic dispute, sues driver".

Inga Richardson was having a domestic dispute with her common-law spouse Joey Sanayhie one night after drinking, and she jumped out of the moving vehicle he was driving. Ms. Richardson's lawyers contend that Mr. Sanayhie was aware she had previously jumped from a moving boat when agitated and that, as such, he should have been more careful to restrain her before she jumped from the moving car.

I think this lawsuit is absurd.

Adults who drink are still adults

A person who operates a vehicle is responsible to ensure that minors are using functional restraint systems properly. Children who are not properly restrained are the responsibility of the operator of the vehicle. Adult passengers, however, are responsible for themselves and the proper use of seat belts themselves (at least, that's how it is here in Ontario). In the case of a person who was purchasing and consuming alcohol from a retail establishment, that person must be understood to have been an adult (since it is against the law to sell liquor to minors) and, as such would be responsible for their behaviour when they are passengers in someone else's vehicle.

Drunkenness is not an excuse

People who "drink and drive" are held responsible for damage they cause as a result of driving while intoxicated. In fact, driving while intoxicated is itself a crime. If these laws can be upheld, then we accept that a person who does something against the law while intoxicated is still accountable.

Applied to this case, the woman who jumped out of the car, regardless of the fact that she was not operating the vehicle, is still an adult responsible for her actions, even if she is in a state of inebriation when making her decisions - she cannot use her intoxicated state to escape her own responsibility for deciding to jump out of a moving vehicle.

The new status quo - drink responsibly

People who choose to get drunk make that decision to get drunk before they get drunk. Our laws make it clear that damages caused while drunk are not mitigated by being drunk - in fact they are exacerbated because of the stigma to prevent someone even thinking they might escape responsibility by appealing to their drunken state. So, for example, driving is not a crime. Driving while intoxicated is a crime, even if you don't commit any other crime while driving (you don't have to speed, or hit a fire hydrant or telephone pole, or run a red light while drunk - driving itself while drunk is the crime).

This is why the lingo is not "serve responsibly", or "chaperon responsibly", or "bartend responsibly", "be a pal responsibly". The onus sits squarely on the shoulders of the individual who decides to drink.

The bottom line is this: if you get drunk, you remain fully responsible for your actions.

Precedent would threaten the industry

Once this transfer of responsibility is upheld, what person would expose themselves to the risk of being held responsible for the actions of a drunken fool? If there are increasingly less people willing to take that risk, then there will be less support for people to drink; with less support for drinking, there'd be less drinking; with less drinking, there'd be less purchasing of alcoholic beverages - hold the phone...

The revenue stream

When you think about wine, and beer, and alcoholic beverages, there are many iconic brands and identities out there, as well as regions that have become very closely linked to their grape-growing or beer brewing. Whether it's Jack Daniels in some country bar; or James Bond's insistence that a proper martini is made with vodka and is shaken, not stirred; or the classic bottle of Bordeaux wine breathing on the table of a sumptuous spread or casually shared on a blanket with a baguette and some foie gras sitting under the Eiffel Tower... It may be surprising for some to realize that the number-one retailer of alcoholic beverages on planet earth is Ontario's very own LCBO, with sales in 2008 reaching almost $4.27 billion, dividends to the Ontario Provincial Government exceeding $1 billion that same year, and almost $1 billion in PST and GST going to the provincial and federal governments over the same period.

The LCBO is a cash cow for the government. If the social and ethical considerations weren't sufficient to squash this ridiculous suit, the threat to the governments' coffers should be.

Can the Web save newspapers?

This recent article in the Toronto Star suggests I've got to go a little further beyond my previous breakdown.

Comparing news to music is a woefully inadequate justification for a newspaper attempting to charge for its content. iTunes was successful because it listened to what both artists and their fans wanted - for fans to be able to buy as little as they want, not just want the producers pushed. If I like "a song or two," it used to be that I'd still be forced to buy the whole album, or just not buy anything at all. Today, the artist can get a sale because someone can go ahead and just buy a song or two.

But the issue is that a song is a single inimitablething. If I want to listen to Stevie Wonder sing Isn't She Lovely? I can't substitute that with Frankie Lymon singing Why Do Fools Fall In Love? They are two different songs. News is a totally different thing - if a plane crashes, who owns that information? Certainly not the New York Times, or Reuters or Associated Press. News is often public. If I'm walking down the street and witness a collision between a taxi and a streetcar, is there someone standing by to charge me to watch the emergency crews respond? Life isn't owned by anyone who can charge for it.

What, exactly, does a newspaper company sell? "News"? Stevie Wonder doesn't sell "music", and you can get music anywhere. Stevie Wonder sells "Stevie Wonder's music", and there's only one place on earth where you can get Stevie Wonder's music - from Stevie Wonder. That's why he can sell.

Let's cut to the chase - no newspaper is going to make money attempting to charge people for news that is readily available everywhere else for free.

So, if a newspaper company is going to survive, what is it going to sell? It's got to sell something that no one else is selling. What is the New York Times selling?

• something for New York Times fans to read
• opinion about what's happening in the news
• a target market for advertisers who wish to reach the kind of people who read the New York Times

What must, therefore, come forward, is the opinionof New York Times writers. The analysis, the insight, the punditry, those who speak to the issues with the New York Times tone and culture and voice and style. You can't get that from the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.

This opinion can be disseminated on paper but, again, why bother? Paper production carries with it too much cost to be recovered before profit kicks in. People want information when, where and how they want it, and that is increasingly via electronic and mobile media.

As such, I would suggest that the answer to the question of the Star article is "no", the web cannot save newspapers because the web is electronic media that competes squarely with print media. The segment of the population who still values sitting in the living room on a Sunday afternoon going through the Sunday paper is shrinking, and that's driving newspapers' shrinking revenues.

Nor should news outlets bother even asking the question. The paper is not to be saved -- it's the opinion of the news that's to be disseminated via media.

And, I've said it before and will say it again - news outlets must value as a strength their expertise in and obligation to provide legitimacy to news. It's one thing to get a tweet saying "Michael Jackson died," but we all waited to hear from "a real news source" that it was in fact true. News outlets have built a system of fact-checking that is second to none. We, society, need to know that what's happening is what really is happening. Anyone can start a rumour and, these days, get that rumour around the world and back in literally minutes. Today, more than ever, we need systematic rigour to confirm that some news is in fact reality, truth, or at least verifiable.

Standard Oil understood that, while the window of lamp oil demand was closing, motor oil demand was opening up a big door. They sold oil, and would sell to whomever was buying. Nearly 100 years after the breakup of Standard Oil, its two largest pieces, Exxon and Mobil, are one again, and still relevant after so many eras have come and gone.

News services have

• the skills and infrastructure to help us determine what is news, and
• the experience to help us interpret what to think about it.

The press is important because freedom of the press is necessary to a free society. The "press" must transform to stay relevant, and continue to contribute to, support and protect freedom.