Although, growing up in a smoking household (as both my parents smoked), it was harder to smell it, because it does a number on your sense of smell. None of us smoke in my house today, and whenever I go into a smoker’s house, it hits me like a ton of bricks now.
Perhaps I give him too much credit(or too little, my hypothesis might be exculpatory but it’s not terribly flattering); but this seems like the sort of thing that Gladwell wouldn’t need to be put up to.
He’s like a TEDx talk made flesh; to the (mostly softer) sciences sort of what David Brooks is to moral philosophy. Writing a piece about a topic or current interest, from a position that is pleased to see itself as contrarian, but in a very responsible sort of way; with enough citations to look serious but perhaps not enough to qualify as rigorous seems exactly in character.
Well, the article linked above by @EricE does a pretty good break down of his connections with corporate interests and right wing think tanks, so my JOKE seems like it might not be too far off the mark, actually.
Malcolm Gladwell has long been accused of being in the pocket of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.
Yasha Levine wrote a book about that:
Here’s an article strictly about his links to the tobacco industry:
So well, you never know, there might be a rat to be smelled here!
Yes, again, the article linked above by @EricE is about all that, from the website Levine shares with Ames, SHAME…
Indeed!
As a matter of fact, I thought the very lenient rhetoric regarding tobacco and nicotine in the New Yorker piece rather strange. In this context it makes more sense.
I don’t trust him quite so much after his interviews with the Koch brothers on his Freakonomics Podcast. I find he’s really good at turning a critical eye towards matters, but he seemed pretty enamoured with them and didn’t challenge anything they put forth. So I’m not sure where to put him or his views and no longer trust his motivations - even if he is Canadian.
Isn’t that a failure of a critical eye then?
No they’re not. Or won’t be for much longer. Now that it’s legal in Canada they’re hopping on the money maker and changing their tune. And you know legalization is coming to the US of A someday, that will speed things up mega fast.
Hell yeah it is. (I can see now I edited out “usually” when I aught not have.)
Freakonomics was Steve Levitt and Steve Dubner.
Maybe it’s that he’s selectively critical, only taking apart the claims of the critics of corporate interests? By doing so, he can come off as being critical, but while spinning the story in a particular way, none the less.
It’s sad to see your joke floundering after that discovery.
This is the same episode that caused me to stop listening to Freakonomics. Terrible interview.
But it was Steve Dubner, not Malcolm Gladwell. I can see the similarities though. They’re almost indistinguishable.
… Clearly it’s been even longer than I thought since I read it. 
“Chicken” halibut are more like 20-40 lbs and very throwable, but not nearly as streamlined as salmon.
Well, you’re potentially lethal then. I’m a boozer and won’t be going on any killing spree…tonight.
This makes a lot more sense. Because otherwise, what are the odds that a guy who is half-Jamaican living in Canada would be anti-weed?
Nice article - thanks for being a calm, rational voice in the maelstrom of pearl clutching!
