Mask science is clear: Wear one

There’s been confusion about masks, but science has cleared a lot of it up.

Here’s the short version:

Yes, masks limit the transmission of the COVID-19 virus.

Yes, if you wear a mask of any kind, you’re less likely to spread it to someone else.

And also, yes, if you wear a mask, you’re less likely to get the disease yourself, or if you do, it is likely to be less severe.

Can we now just do ourselves a favor and just wear at least a cloth mask when we’re around other people?

If you drop a glass and it breaks on the kitchen floor, you put slippers on to keep from getting cut until it’s cleaned up. Simple enough.

Cowboys who ride through brush and cactus wear chaps to protect their legs from scratches and pokes. Simple enough.

There’s a serious disease wafting on moisture droplets in the air. You wear a mask to filter them out. 

Seems simple enough.

This disease is only a year or so old, and we arre still learning about it. That’s why the guidance is changing—because we’re learning more. 

In the early days, when infection levels were still very low, the recommendation was for the general public not to wear masks—largely to preserve the mask supply for health care workers who were at highest risk.

Then this amazing cottage industry rose up, and folks were sewing cloth masks. Folks studying them found that, yep, they reduced the chance of a sick person spreading the disease to others. That led to the line, “My mask protects you, your mask protects me.”

But most of us really wore the masks in hope that it might actually protect us, even if just a little.

And sure enough, the science shows we were right. My mask also protects me.

If you’re around covidiots who insist on not wearing masks, you’re a little safer if you are wearing one. But you’re even safer not to be around those bare-faced covidiots in the first place.

So here is some of the science:

https://bit.ly/3lukqQf

That’s a July article from the Journal of General Internal Medicine with this headline, “Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer.”

The upshot of the article is that even if you do get a dose, it will likely be a smaller dose, and it potentially gives you a less serious case of the disease, and maybe even an asymptomatic case—meaning you got it but you don’t feel sick.

Here’s a paragraph from that paper, describing what researchers found: 

“A report from a pediatric hemodialysis unit in Indiana, where all patients and staff were masked, demonstrated that staff rapidly developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 after exposure to a single symptomatic patient with COVID-19. In the setting of masking, however, none of the new infections was symptomatic. And in a recent outbreak in a seafood processing plant in Oregon where all workers were issued masks each day at work, the rate of asymptomatic infection among the 124 infected was 95%. An outbreak in a Tyson chicken plant in Arkansas with masking also showed a 95% asymptomatic rate of infection.

But if you want to avoid getting sick at all, it’s best to go for the trifecta. Wear the mask. Keep your distance from people not in your household. Wash your hands frequently and well.

Oxford English Dictionary all hemajang

"Chee, you seen Kaipo? He had karang da reef on his face. Ho, all hemajang. Was uji."

I was reminded of the wonderful Hawaiian pidgin word hemajang when the Oxford English Dictionary announced it was putting the word hammajang on its extensive list of "real" words.

There is, of course, no standard spelling for most pidgin words. And I was concerned the English dictionary OED would create a standard where none existed. I was concerned, because if you were to find a standard, it might not be hammajang.

I wrote OED this email:

I note that you have added a word, hammajang, to the dictionary.

I am a lifelong journalist in the Hawaiian Islands and want to suggest another spelling, which is often used, is pronounced in the same way, is more attuned to the word’s Hawaiian language roots, and doesn’t violate Hawaiian pidgin spelling rules in the way that hammajang does.

The more appropriate spellings, from my perspective, are hemajang, or perhaps hamajang or even hemajeng or hamajeng.  But not hammajang.

I have no thoughts on the origin of “jang, but hema may be from the Hawaiian word hema meaning left or south (used in the sense that English uses sinister, as left but also wrong, odd or unfortunate). Or perhaps hemo, which can mean loose or undone.

The Hawaiian language reduplications, hemahema and hemohemo, emphasize these definitions.

Hemajang is Hawaiian pidgin, meaning it is a spoken and not a written language. There is no consistency in spelling. But one rule is this: As in the Hawaiian written language it doesn’t use double consonants.

This word is sometimes spelled hemajang, my own preferred spelling, which is also the preferred spelling of the classic Hawaiian creole book, “Pidgin To Da Max,” which dates to 1981. I’m not sure whether hemajeng was in the first edition, but it was in later editions of a book that now claims more than 200,000 printings.

And sometimes hemajeng (https://quizlet.com/89843159/pidgin-flash-cards/),

And sometimes hamajang (http://slang.uoregon.edu/pub_search.lasso?RecordIDNumber=15079&Process=detail01)

If you’re going to stick with hammajang, please at least concede that there are other spellings. But I suggest that hammajang is a nonstandard spelling and that hemajang is the one that gets the most currency.

Pidgin is very personal to folks, and I know that the pidgin I learned on west Molokai is different than the pidgin of Kalaheo and of Makawao and Kunia and Papakolea. There really isn't one pidgin. It changes (at least words, although not so much grammar) with the ethnicities of the community.

I will concede that there are occasionally double consonants in pidgin (but not Hawaiian). Like buggah. And slippa. At least in these cases, the double consonants are a function of English words repronounced as pidgin, bugger and slipper.

I will further concede that some folks in the Islands have used the spelling hammajang. The website e-hawaii.com does, but then, with all due respect, they also spell hanabata as hanabaddah and uji as ujee. Maybe that's an O`ahu thing.

There are places where a voyage is something on which she went go, where other places she had go.

Certainly, there are a lot of communities that don't use some pidgin words that are common elsewhere. Take tantaran or borot. Some places you hear them, others not so much. (Incidentally, if you can have a conversation about the difference between someone who's tantaran and someone who's borot, you’re up in pidgin master's degree territory.)

And back to the subject at hand, when a European publication decides to decide how to spell a Hawaiian pidgin word. 

Well. 

That's hemajang.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2019

Want to lose weight? Go with your gut, or your mom, but not the internet.

You need to lose a little weight, so you go to the internet for solutions, right?

Wrong.

Asking the internet for advice is like asking random people for technical help, except that the internet is also populated with an oversupply of trolls who rejoice in misleading you, along with a whole lot of hucksters trying to sell you things that may or may not help.

I came across a news report that suggested the body’s natural messenger to prevent overeating is a hormone called leptin. So, how do you increase leptin and decrease your appetite?

I went online.

Oh my, the lies, the errors, the active commerce, and the answers from people who know less than you do. 

Here’s Wikihow, which has a long list of tips, including that you should eat protein for breakfast, and definitely not cereal, because after all, cereal is “full of lectin, which actually binds to your leptin receptors, keeping leptin from being able to do its job.”

Of course, then you go to Livestrong.com and the first recommendation is to eat plenty of cereal with fruit, because of the fiber: “Fiber gives you a feeling of fullness, causing your intestinal tract to send a signal to your brain to release more leptin.” 

Some sites say get lots of sleep, because if you don’t sleep your leptin levels drop and you eat.

This guy says it’s all about diet. 

These paleo diet folks say it’s all about diet and lifestyle. They’ll sell you a daily diet program.

These guys will sell you a different diet program to help you “master your metabolism.” All you need to do is buy their book. They’ll also sell you dietary supplements like collagen protein, and “performance coffee”, which cost more than the book.

There are lots of websites that talk about secret foods you must never eat. And others that talk about supplements you must use—and particularly the high quality supplements available exclusively through their particular firms.

I appreciate Healthline for telling you what you already knew. They key to health and weight is no secret: Eat more protein, fewer carbs, more fiber, avoid processed food, sleep better, exercise

Wow. Forget about leptin. Eat right, sleep well and stay fit. You didn’t need the internet for that. Your mom could have handled the job.

© 2017 Jan W. TenBruggencate 

Fake News: What's free speech and what's crying "fire" in a crowded theater

There’s free speech, and there’s yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

“Fake news” and some of the more awful conspiracy theories are more like the latter—and ought to be treated that way—as crimes.

We have a tradition in our country of letting people speak without fear of being censored. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees it. 

But freedom of speech in the United States is not absolute. You can say most anything you like, but it shouldn’t cause harm. Abraham Lincoln gets credit for this line: “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”

If one person claims a presidential candidate is running a child sex ring out of a pizza joint, and then someone else shows up with an assault weapon to clean it up—then maybe the person who spread that filth needs some jail time.

If you provide a vehicle for that kind of nastiness—like a website or a radio station that provides a voice for dangerous conspiracy theories—isn’t that handing a megaphone to the guy yelling “Fire?”

Fake news resulting in aggressive action may not be protected under the First Amendment. There is solid legal footing for the idea that these are “fighting words,” which do not qualify as privileged speech.

“Fighting words” are described by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1942 case as “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” The case is Chaplinsky vs New Hampshire. 

It seems that showing up at a pizza stand with a rifle at the ready, or chopping down a Hawai`i Island or O`ahu papaya farmer’s crop, or vandalizing a historic irrigation system—those may qualify as breaches of the peace. 

Shouldn’t those who incite that kind of behavior be held liable? The First Amendment Center notes that it’s a fine line. 

“The lower courts have had a difficult time determining whether certain epithets constitute ‘fighting words.’ At the very least, they have reached maddeningly inconsistent results,” it writes.

The Supreme Court has given citizens wide leeway to use profane and abusive language, but has been less clear when the language is provocative. 

Still, the standard was established nearly a century ago, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes issued the 1919 unanimous Supreme Court opinion about yelling “Fire.”

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force,” Holmes wrote.

Holmes admitted that it’s not an easy call. One issue is whether speech that promotes physical harm to people is sufficient, or whether calls for damage to property are also covered.

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree,” Holmes wrote.

I’m not an attorney. I’m an old journalist with a lifelong history of supporting the First Amendment. But in these troubled times, I’m forced to modify my support for unfettered free speech.

Some “fake news”-- telling outright lies that cause people to act in illegal ways-- that may meet the standard for unprotected speech.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2016

Climate change: Fear and unfounded allegations work fine at promoting denial

The oceans are clearly warming. 

The sea level is rising. 

The seas are acidifying. 

Corals are bleaching. 

Low islands are awash with seawater.

In Hawai`i, rainfall is diminishing and our coastlines are eroding.

You’d think we could get our heads around this problem of climate change. 

But while world leaders work on defending the globe against climate change in Paris this week, a new study from the Michigan State University says the deniers are winning the war. Here’s a story on that. 

The Michigan State folks conducted a study that gave a large group of people positive messages about resolving climate change, and negative messages about denying it exists.

The negative messages resonated. The positive ones didn’t.

The paper, entitled “Examining the Effectiveness of Climate Change Frames in the Face of a Climate Change Denial Counter-Frame,” was printed in the journal Topics in Cognitive Science. Find the abstract here. 

The authors developed a series of messages on doing something about anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, using four approaches for why it’s important: economic opportunity, national security, Christian stewardship, and public health.

Resopondents getting those messages were told that, "Medical experts argue that dealing with climate change will improve our public health by reducing the likelihood of extreme weather events, reducing air quality and allergen problems, and limiting the spread of pests that carry infectious diseases."

The other half of the 1,600 participants got a negative message along these lines: "However, most conservative leaders and Republican politicians believe that so-called climate change is vastly exaggerated by environmentalists, liberal scientists seeking government funding for their research and Democratic politicians who want to regulate business." 

The researchers found that the positive messages didn’t change anybody’s mind, and the negative message significantly weakened support for climate action.

People getting the negative message were more apt to doubt the existence of climate change. And that applied to both conservatives and liberals.

“That's the power of the denial message. It's extremely difficult to change people's minds on climate change, in part because they are entrenched in their views." said lead author Aaron McCright, associate professor in MSU's Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.

This, of course, confirms the sad news that lots of industries already know. Like politics: negative campaigning may be repugnant, but it often works. 

Fear and allegations of conspiracies are powerful tools—if you can use them and still sleep at night.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2015

Pesticides good and bad, and be very afraid of oxidane

Pesticides have impacts, and improperly used, some pesticides can be health hazards. No question about that. 

In the Islands, it’s become a meme in some groups that pesticides are necessarily awful. But as usual, black and white don’t serve us well in this discussion. The reality falls in the gray.

It’s also true that properly used pesticides can do more good than harm—they preserve our food, remove unwanted pests, protect us from diseases carried by vermin, help control the spread of allergens, and on and on.

In recent discussions, I’ve heard assertions that this man-made compound is an endocrine disruptor, and that compound causes birth defects, and another causes cancer. 

In many case, that may be true. It’s also true that endocrine disruption and birth defects and cancer occurred before modern pesticides were developed. 

Natural products can be associated with those conditions, too. Examples: soy for endocrine disruption; German measles for birth defects; sunlight and tobacco for cancer.

And, of course, there are genetic causes or increased sensitivities for these. See here, and here. Some individuals and families have a natural sensitivity to some endocrine disruptors.

What are we to make of all this? From my perspective, we should accept that nothing in this field is simple, and you are likely to be misled if you listen to people who claim it is simple.

Linda S. Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told a U.S. House of Representatives committee that her agency is seriously concerned about groundwater contamination. 

If you listened to much of the debate in Hawai`i, you might think agricultural chemicals were the only man-made products entering our groundwater. It’s not only agricultural chemicals, but also pharmaceuticals, sunscreen, flame retardants, plastics, cosmetics. All can be endocrine disruptors.

“Endocrine disruptors are naturally occurring or man-made substances that may mimic or interfere with the function of hormones in the body. Endocrine disruptors may turn on, shut off, or modify signals that hormones carry and thus affect the normal functions of tissues and organs,” she said. 

“Both naturally occurring and manmade substances can be endocrine disruptors,” Birnbaum said.

Other chemicals that pollute the groundwater? 

If you get enough people in a community drinking coffee, tea, and cola, then you’re likely to find caffeine—a pesticide—in the groundwater. A 2006-2007 survey on Kauai found caffeine in North Shore groundwater and streams anywhere downstream from human development.

It is possible to make a case against anything, but it may or may not be a valid case, and it may lack perspective.

Example: 

Some entirely natural pesticides are far more dangerous than man-made ones. Take the natural pesticide in the castor bean plant, which can kill anything that eats the seed—aphids and ducks and horses and humans alike. The scientific name of castor bean is Ricinus communis . The poison is one of the most dangerous products in chemical warfare, ricin.

 

Another example:

A real bad guy is the chemical oxidane. It can cause death in minutes through inhalation. In its gaseous form it can burn the skin. It can be a greenhouse gas. It corrodes metals. It is an industrial solvent that is used in pesticides and nuclear plants. 

Not hard to make a case against oxidane with that information. Yet it is found in all our water supplies. For good reason. Oxidane is, of course, a scientific name for water.

In some of our Hawaiian legislative deliberations, we’re considering tossing the safest and the most dangerous chemicals in the same regulatory basket. That doesn’t make sense. 

This is not to say we should not apply rigorous testing to pesticides, and to require protective measures in their use as appropriate. 

It is to say this about making public policy: We are better served if we apply careful scientific discipline than if we heed slogans that fit on protest placards. 

© Jan TenBruggencate 2015

Gov's race polling: Ward is queen...this time

Election 2014 was a critical election in the Islands, but for political junkies, a big question was: How did the pollsters do?

This year, in the governor’s race, one Hawaii-based pollster was spot-on, and the other wasn’t too far off.

The national polls, not so much.

First, these were the actual results in the governor’s race: Winner and Democrat David Ige 49 percent of the vote; Republican Duke Aiona 36.7 percent. Independent Mufi Hanneman 11.6 percent. And Libertarian Jeff Davis 1.7 percent.

Which poll had the most accurate numbers? 

That would be Becky Ward’s Ward Research, and her Star-Advertiser/Hawaii News Now Hawaii Poll, done of 605 likely voters Oct. 11 to 18.

Ward had Ige 47, Aiona 35, Hannemann 12 and Davis 1.

Civil Beat/Merriman River wasn’t far off, but significantly understated Ige’s numbers and overstated Libertarian Jeff Davis’. In this poll, of 1,221 likely voters Oct. 16 to 19.

Merriman River had Ige 40, Aiona 34, Hannemann 11 and Davis 6.

Then there were the Mainland polls, which were a little embarrassing..

CBS News/New York Times/YouGov did an online poll of 1,002 likely voters Oct. 16-23—roughly the same time period as Ward and Merriman’s polls. But they vastly overstated Ige’s vote, and vastly understated Aiona and Hanneman.

They had Ige 54, Aiona 22, Hannemann 5. They didn’t bother polling about the Libertarian Davis and wrapped him into a 19 percent undecided.

Finally, a Rasmussen poll of 750 likely voters Sept. 9-10 had the race a dead heat between Ige and Aiona. This poll was a month earlier than the others, so may not be directly comparable.

Rasmussen had Ige 40, Aiona 39, Hannemann 14 and Davis and the undecided voters at 7.

That said, and Ward herself concedes, nobody got everything right. The case in point is the race for the 1^st District U.S. House race, where most polling saw a tie between Democrat Mark Takai and Republican Charles Djou.

The actual numbers: Takai 51.2 percent , Djou 47.4. 

Close, but the difference is nearly 7,000 votes.

In the polling closest to the election, Ward’s Hawai`i Poll had it a 47-47 tie, and Civil Beat/Merriman River had them tied at 45-45.

Back in August, the Washington Post ran a snarky story about the quality of polling in Hawaii. 

You gotta be careful with the snarky. It’ll come back to bite you.

On the Mainland this week, all the talk is about how national pollsters managed to miss the massive GOP win across the country. 

If Tip O`Neill was right and all politics is local, then maybe those Mainland folks ought to pay more attention to the local pollsters, who know local conditions and election trends.

 

© Jan TenBruggencate 2014