GOODY TWO SHOES: What Passes For “News” These Days
Both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran articles yesterday about President Barack Obama’s hair graying after only 44 days on the job (the former deemed Obama’s follicular pigmentation a front-page story).
For a guy who prides himself on projecting a stress-free demeanor, the changes above his temples are speckled evidence that perhaps the psychological and physical strains of the job - never mind the long process of winning it - are in fact taking something of a toll. (Experts say stress can contribute to whitening locks.) …
“Presidents age two years for every year that they’re in office,” said Dr. Michael F. Roizen, co-founder of RealAge, a Web site that tells you how much older your body really is because of all that smoking and drinking you have been doing.
Are times so stressful - a plummeting economy and two wars - that our young president is going grayer a mere six weeks into the job?
Maybe 754 days is more like it. That's how long it's been, if you can believe it, since a baby-faced senator stood in the winter chill in
The Times and The WaPo must be tiring of MO’s overexposed bionic biceps but a 47-year-old man going gray is hardly a man bites dog story, as Slate’s William Saletan points out:
According to a scholarly review published three years ago in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, "Age of onset of graying also appears to be hereditary, developing usually in late fourth decade. Thus, the average age for Whites is mid-30s, for Orientals late-30s, and for Africans mid-40s, such that by 50 years of age, 50% of people have 50% gray hair."
With “a plummeting economy and two wars” why are The Times and The WaPo wasting column inches – and our time - on this twaddle?
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