December 2009

Just as The New York Times recently reported that cellphone manufacturers pushed the convenience of driving while dialing even as they knew of its dangers, surely someday history will laugh a bitter little laugh at the thought that anyone would manufacture an application to improve the safety of walking while texting, or Texthook, a new device that makes it easier to text while pushing a stroller. This summer, the American College of Emergency Room Physicians released a statement expressing concern about the issue, citing a Chicago doctor who was seeing a lot of face, chin, eye and mouth injuries among young people who reported texting and tumbling. At Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, Marc Felberbaum, an emergency room doctor, said he had been seeing more of this over the past year. He recalled in particular one patient who had tripped on a curb while texting, not only breaking his wrist but losing grasp of his cellphone, whereupon it was crushed by an oncoming car. (And yes, it was with some satisfaction that the doctor recounted the last part of this cautionary tale.)

Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York's largest publishing houses have worried that big-name authors might sign deals directly with e-book retailers or other new ventures, bypassing traditional publishers entirely. Now, one well-known author is doing just that. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most successful business authors of the last two decades, has moved e-book rights to two of his best-selling books from his print publisher, Simon & Schuster, a division of the CBS Corporation, to a digital publisher that will sell the e-books to Amazon.com for one year. Amazon, maker of the popular Kindle e-reader and one of the biggest book retailers in the country, will have the exclusive rights to sell electronic editions of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and a later work, "Principle-Centered Leadership."

Major television networks continue to host retired generals as military analysts without alerting viewers to their extensive ties to defense contractors and the Pentagon. Military strategy is a frequent topic on TV in the wake of President Obama's announcement that he will send more troops to Afghanistan now -- and start bringing them out by mid-2011. But few television viewers have any idea that some of what they're hearing originates from men who are literally profiting from the war. One of these men in particular -- NBC News military analyst and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey -- has appeared on MSNBC at least 10 times in the past month to criticize Obama's proposed troop-withdrawal deadline, to lavish praise upon Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and to underscore the importance of training Afghan security forces. But neither McCaffrey nor the MSNBC anchors ever mentioned the fact that McCaffrey sits on the board of directors of DynCorp International, a company with a lucrative government contract to train the Afghan National Security Forces. Nor did they mention that McCaffrey recently completed a report about Afghanistan that was commissioned by Petraeus and funded by the Pentagon.