Fan Death Rides Again!

Fan Death Threat!

Blithely unaware of the looming danger...

(Image from Yonhap News)

Robert Koehler, founding rodent of the Marmot's Hole, has posted an entry on fan death that betrays his obvious disbelief in the truth of fan death despite his ostensibly journalistic commitment to noncommitment:

Fan Death -- Urban Myth?

Yonhap News ran a surprisingly long piece on the "debate" surrounding "fan death."

It seems most Korean doctors find "fan death" to be groundless, but Yonhap did find two med school professors who said fans could kill.

Unfortunately, the Yonhap article is in Korean, which I am incapable of deciphering, but since I -- and not those 'Korean' doctors -- am the local expat expert on fan death, I felt compelled by honor to speak out against this shoddy excuse for journalism:

I haven't read the article, but I am sure that it is wrong. Readers who value their lives should come to my website, do a search for my entries on fan death, and read my various defenses of the fan-death facts.

Don't listen to the experts. Listen to me. Fans can kill you.

Later, I posted a direct link to a complete index of my various writings on fan death:

To save all those who wish to circumvent termination by the whirling blades of death, I'm offering this public service: an index to all my blog entries on fan death!

Unfortunately, there are always the scoffers, the doubters, the sceptics -- and none such are worse than the wolves in sheep's clothing (do sheep wear clothes?). I mean those who, under pretense of arguing for the solid proof of fan death, actually intend to debunk the belief through despicable parody, such as in this comment by Mizar5:

I would warn you, dear reader, that any man with the curmudgeonly moniker H. J. Hodges cannot be trusted. He parodies an issue of utmost significance when any number of logical constructs can be used to justify the beleif in fan death.

For instance, negative proof may be used to assert that a proposition that has not been proven false is therefore true.

Statistical proof can also be offered. For instance, there is the statistical proof of spurious correlation, in which correlation may be used to imply causation. In this case, the causal connection is produced through the operation of a third causal variable ie. "lurking variable") such as the wind vacuum mentioned above.

The "three men make a tiger" proof (三人成虎), or argumentum ad populum, can be invoked to show that the premise of fan death has been mentioned and repeated by many individuals, and must therefore be accepted as the truth.

Contextomy may be employed to effectively remove an event from its surrounding circumstances in such a way as to prove that deaths that would otherwise have been attributed to strokes, heart failure and numerous other causes by mere medical science are in fact attributable to fan death.

Need I go on? With proofs so abundant, there is no need to investigate any further.

Mizar5 is obviously unserious, for what individual would seriously defend fan death by calling it a "beleif"? Another skeptical commenter with the crazy moniker of KrZ added his own two centimes:

No wonder H. J. Hodges believes in fan death, he certainly seems to enjoy the Korean delicacy of SPAM.

Naturally, such attacks could not go unanswered, even at the risk of more groundless accusations about my throwing a 'spammer' in the works, so I wrote:

SPAM? Me? Nay, KrZ! I am simply doing my logical, empirical best to warn expats against the true dangers of fan death. Articles like the one offered by Yonhap make my job tougher, admittedly, but I simply struggle all the harder.

Perhaps, as rebuttal to Yonhap, I should write for the Korea Herald another Expat Living column devoted to this pressing issue.

Meanwhile, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, Mizar5, whose moniker announces fivefold misery! His is the obvious parody, whereas my posts are in dead earnest!

I admit, however, that some of Mizar5's arguments -- against his obvious intention to debunk -- can nevertheless be used to help prove the solid fact of fan death. I especially admire his inadvertently compelling use of contextomy for its pure, empirical way of isolating a fact:

Fan + Death = Fan Death

Okay, that's actually two facts and an equation, but it's really close to the actual event, and by multiplying instances, we can amass a very considerable amount of empirical data as support for the scientific truth of fan death.

In fact, I'll go do that now . . .

With this post, consider that promise now kept.

Fan Death Debate!

The X-Files: "Fan Death Episode"

"God's mill grinds slow, but sure."

Outlandish Proverbs (1640)

(Image from Wikipedia)

Finally, my rearguard defense of the truth about fan death is gaining traction. With more support, we 'Chosun Few' outlanders who buck the expat tide and warn against the dangers posed by electric fans might become part of a Korean Wave of enormous candlewatt power radiating out to counter the darkness of ignorance!

Forget the futile feeble flickering candle-whatnot generated by Korean protests over 'beef death' -- an issue totally unsupported by a single shred of scientific evidence anyway -- and focus on our real beef with modernity: electric fans!

What, you ask, has lit the light of such expansive optimism in my otherwise dark little heart?

None other than an uplifting message of support expressed in comment number 44 posted only hours ago to my very first blog entry on the danger posed by electric fans: "Fan Death is Real!"

Hello all, I will very soon be using "fan death" as a debate topic for an high achieving high school students in a prestigious high schools in Korea. This blog site is very helpful and I am looking for other evidences for the pros side of the issue. If anyone can let me know of any kind of proof that would be helpful such as doctors, ooroners reports. Studies in physics that can help confirm this etc .. I would greatly appreciate it.

This is too good to be true! A fan-death debate among students in 'prestigious' high schools here in my adopted land of Korea! Hooray! I'm so happy!

An email address was even provided for the benefit of those who wish to help provide 'proof' of fan death. Of course, I am anxious to help. I can't provide any "ooroners reports," of course, but I can perhaps assist this researcher by linking to my various blog entries on this crucial, pressing issue:

Fan Death is Real!

Fan Death Redux

Another fan-death disbeliever!

Doc Rock's diagnosis: "You've been smokin' way too many fans"

Nevertheless, fan death is real!

President-Elect Lee Myung-bak: Policy Suggestions from Gypsy Scholar

Expat Living: "Fan Dumb"

As anyone can plainly see, I have dedicated manifold posts to this hugely important issue. For any readers still mired in ignorance despite my repeated warnings, let me explain. The fatal result known as "fan death" refers not to the final malfunctioning shutdown of a fan but to the untimely demise of a human being that occurs when an electric fan is carelessly left running overnight in a closed room while the poor unfortunate soul is sleeping there. This "fan death" results from extreme overcooling or supersonic vortices or radical oxygen depletion or quantum weirdness or the forking universes hypothesized by David Kellogg Lewis or whatever. Nobody really knows why. Apparently, it just happens to happen.

But I won't give up seeking for hidden "X-Files" with the answer to precisely how electric fans kill unwitting sleepers because "I want to believe" that "the truth is out there," and I'll "trust no one" who rejects fan-death facts.

Meanwhile for those whose faith in the reality of fan death is wavering under the beckoning cool breeze promised by those rapidly gyrating blades, just remember this bit of Korean wisdom:

이열치열 (ee-yuhl chee-yuhl)

In English, that means, "Beat Heat Through Heat."

Therefore: the next time that you feel tempted to switch on that electric fan to cool off during one of those hot, sultry, July nights when sweat oozes from every pore in your entire, suffering body, resist! Beat heat through heat! Just fire up the furnace, full blast, and survive that hot, humid, summer night!

Nevertheless, fan death is real!

Fan Death? Not Really.

Let's try to be serious...

(Image from Encyclopedia Dramatica)

Yesterday, an unnamed fellow from the great, wide internet discovered my blog entry of September 12, 2006 on fan death: "Fan Death is Real!"

Long-time readers may recall that entry for the logical reasons that I offered and the empirical evidence that I supplied to prove the scientific reality of fan death. If not, then allow me to jog your memory:

How can people doubt fan death!? Fans kill thousands of people each year, but most of the deaths go unreported because the fans were in a different room. It's a little-known fact that the whirling blades cause disturbance in the ether that pervades the universe, and the ripple effect impairs organisms up to 500 feet distant.

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our cat, driven mad by ripples in the ether, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor beetle to its death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky as the cat. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself out of its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor ... shriveled and dry. That could happen to you, too. Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Miraculously, our cats and children have survived, but we're taking no more chances, especially now that our two fans have begun to alter weather patterns in our apartment. In the past two days, they've actually been blowing cool air at night -- even though there's no air-conditioning unit attached! We think that the fans are now trying to freeze us to death, so we've put them away in a closet, completely covered in a bag zipped carefully shut to prevent them from doing even more damage.

Fans are killers. Why do you think that they're called fans? The word "fan" is short for "fanatic." You can't trust fanatics. Don't trust fans, either.

How could anybody deny such a cloud of witnesses? Nevertheless, disbelievers abound, especially outside of Korea.

Such as the anonymous skeptic who visited my blog yesterday. Unconvinced by my arguments for the truth of fan death, he signed on as "Anonymous" and posted this comment:

Lol, you are stupid.

Along with this attempt at a well-reasoned refutation of my views on the reality of fan death, Anonymous added a link to support his own views. I discovered that the link leads to an fan-death article on a website called Encyclopedia Dramatica, which looks rather like Wikipedia but isn't.

Initially, I was confused because the site appears to confirm the truth of fan death, yet Anonymous calls me "stupid" for my princely and valiant efforts to warn non-Koreans about the great danger of sleeping in closed rooms with fans left blowing their virulent breezes. Indeed, the Encyclopedia Dramatica article had some excellent, scientific information on how fans kill:

An electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.

The fan uses up the oxygen in the room and creates fatal levels of carbon dioxide (i.e. more carbon dioxide is magically created simply by blowing air around).

If the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing (you'd think it would actually blow air towards the person).

Fan blades chop up oxygen molecules Tae Kwon Do-style so that the air is no longer breathable, thus resulting in suffocation.

Fans cause hypothermia, which can only be caused by freezing the guts, not merely the skin's surface like fans do.

All of these very likely factors combined can also cause fan death.

But along with this excellent evidence, the article began to trouble me. Why, for instance, does it add such a remark as "carbon dioxide is magically created"? We're not talking magic! This is science!

Moreover, the article undercuts some of its own evidence by noting that fans suck up oxygen but then explicitly calls this point into doubt by suggesting that fans don't suck air but blow it. Now, I ask -- is there really a difference? Making such a distinction might lead some fan-death believers to question the truth of fan death, so this sort of indecisiveness about how fans kill people should be avoided in public discussions.

At length, I came to see that the article is not supportive of fan death but is actually critical of people who believe in fan death!

No wonder Anonymous left this link along with his ridicule about my intelligence.

As I read very closely, I came to see that the article is satire. Maybe not entirely satire, though. The arguably racist remarks about Asians, especially in another cross-linked article, don't sound especially satirical. But that point aside, the article is satiricial and only pretends -- albeit without consistency -- to be defending a belief in fan death.

Well, let me just state my views very clearly. Despite Jonathan Swift's assured position in the Western Literary Canon, I think that satire has no legitimate place in reasonable discussions. Satire is inherently offensive because it pretends to be what it is not and is therefore no better than lies. Indeed, satirizing is worse than lying because not only is it unethical deception, it compounds this immorality by setting up as objects of ridicule those who fail to see through the satire.

Therefore, given the profoundly serious faults inhering in satire, I for one refuse to put up with it on my website.

I hereby declare Gypsy Scholar to be a satire-free zone.

Oh, and just in case anybody is still wondering ... I also hereby declare that fan death is real.

Fan Death Redux

Close-Up: Electric Fans Sold in Korea

(Image from Wikipedia)

On September 12, 2006, I posted a blog entry on fan death in which I tried desperately to convince non-Koreans of its dire reality by presenting evidence from my own experience:

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our cat, driven mad by ripples in the ether, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor beetle to its death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky as the cat. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself out of its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor ... shriveled and dry. That could happen to you, too. Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Most responses were supportive, and one scientist, Dennis Mangan (aka Man of Manganese), added this empirical evidence:

A fan killed Thomas Merton. Really.

And yet, there exists the occasional skeptic, some person or other who disbelieves and seems to think him- or herself on a sacred mission to disabuse believers of their fan-death views, such as a commenter calling himself "Anonymous":

Fand death, eh? as i know it i'd say that a fan is made to move hot air from a spot where it's not wanted to a spot where it doesn't bother anything/anyone.

Oh really? Then somebody should place a fan in front of your mouth! We could certainly use less of that bothersome hot air. Plus, the fan blades could trim your words and maybe rid your orthographic rendering "Fand" of its excessive dee. And maybe the breeze would puff up a few of those minuscules to majuscules! Anyway, I replied to this "Anonymous" with the following reasoning:

Anonymous, can 43 million South Koreans and one foreigner be wrong about fan death?

That was several months ago. Now, another skeptical commenter has posted, but not another anonymous poster. This one calls herself "Veronica" and begins by quoting my reasonable words:

"Can 43 million South Koreans and one foreigner be wrong about fan death?"

Then -- inexplicably -- disagrees:

Yes. The consensus is that fan death is an urban legend -- keep in mind that if the 43 million South Koreans are right, then the other 6 billion + people in the world are wrong. Which is the more likely scenario?

I sleep every night with a fan in my room, and I've yet to die. And anyway, if fan death is real, why does it seem to only kill South Koreans? The most likely scenario is that fan death is an urban legend perpetuated by South Korean culture and -- perhaps more importantly -- the South Korean media.

Such a challenge could not go unmet, so I posted the following response:

I raised the following, very -- dare I say exceedingly -- reasonable point about fan death:

"Can 43 million South Koreans and one foreigner be wrong about fan death?"

To this impeccable reasoning, a commenter posts an unexpected reply:

"Yes."

The commenter, who calls herself 'Veronica,' proceeds to willfully post an egregious challenge to the authority of my democratic reasoning by supposedly trumping it with some democratic reasoning of her own:

"The consensus is that fan death is an urban legend -- keep in mind that if the 43 million South Koreans are right, then the other 6 billion + people in the world are wrong."

Sigh, so many skeptics, but oh so many potential converts in dire need of and even waiting for the truth...

'Consensus'? You mean 'compromise'? Oh, yes, let's each give a little bit! That's always the best way to reach the truth.

'Urban'? What arrant nonsense! Even rural Koreans know about fan death!

'Legend'? Well, a legend can be true. Think of a map legend. According to the online Free Dictionary, a "legend" can be:

"An explanatory table or list of the symbols appearing on a map or chart."

Surely, Veronica, you would not claim that such a explanatory table is misleading! What sort of explanation would that be?

As for the 'other' so-called "6 billion + people in the world," I'm sorry, but the democratic reasoning works only in a single political entity.

We don't let the whole world vote for the US president. Why should Koreans allow the rest of the world to vote on fan death? That would be like allowing the entire world to vote on whether or not the magnificent East Sea island of Dokdo belongs to Korea or Japan.

Only Koreans know the truth about Dokdo; logically, then, only Koreans know the truth about fan death. Evidence? Plenty! More than 99 percent of non-Koreans have never even heard of fan death, so how can they possibly have a discerning opinion?

Veronica adds:

"I sleep every night with a fan in my room, and I've yet to die."

Your life is in grave danger!

"And anyway, if fan death is real, why does it seem to only kill South Koreans?"

They are the canaries in the coal mine.

"The most likely scenario is that fan death is an urban legend perpetuated by South Korean culture and -- perhaps more importantly -- the South Korean media."

There's that 'urban' nonsense again! I've already demolished that reasoning. As for your orientialistic dismissal of South Korean culture, I can only advise you to read Edward Said's magnum opus, namely, Orientalism. Reading that should be punishment enough for your thought crimes.

As for your attack upon the South Korean media, I won't even attempt a defense. Everyone knows the fine professionalism shown daily by South Korea's media! South Korea's investigative media bring to light truths that would otherwise remain covered up by lies. In this regard, Korean journalists are like the famous muckrakers of American fame.

Why, without South Korean newspapers, for example, I wouldn't know about the crime wave being perpetrated by foreigners in Korea. Apparently, we commit a lot of crimes relative to our numbers in Korean society. It's actually rather frightening. I've started being more careful around myself. There's no telling what I might do, so I keep an eye on what I'm doing when I think that no one is watching. And you know what? It's all true! I've watched myself steal some pieces of chocolate from the fridge when my wife and kids are out of the apartment. Those unsuspecting, naive people think that I'm slaving away at my computer, working on articles for academic publications, when I'm actually gnawing on chocolate and posting things like this on my blog.

Obviously, I cannot be trusted.

Except when I'm posting on fan death, of course. You should then believe everything that I write.

President-Elect Lee Myung-bak: Policy Suggestions from Gypsy Scholar

President-Elect Lee Myung-Bak

"Squinting to the future..."

(Image from JoongAng Ilbo)

In a record voter turnout, Lee Myung-bak has won the presidential election by a landslide -- almost most of all those Korean voters who voted actually cast their votes for him!

Okay, so we've factored down the concept of landslide to mean 50 percent of the vote, or thereabouts, and the record is a record low, but still, the guy won, and that's pretty darn good for a slippery politician who's been caught on video lying about his involvement in the obscure BBK scandal.

Hey, don't think that I'm dissing President-Elect Lee. I happen to kinda like the guy . . . even if he does always squint at me from those supposedly flattering campaign posters.

Anyway, since readers depend on my blog for political insight regarding peninsular matters, then I'm sure that everyone will be interested in my opinion as to what the future holds for Korea's President-Elect Lee.

Doubtless, there are two questions on everyone's mind:

Question 1: Will President Lee Myung-bak be the first Korean president to serve his time serving time?

Answer 1: No. As president, Lee can pardon himself.

Question 2: Will President Lee Myung-bak make a concerted, public effort to alert the whole world to the dangers of electrical fans, namely, the very real risk of fan death?

Answer 2: Definitely yes maybe. This is a very delicate issue upon which every Korean politican has had to tread very lightly. Now, each Korean knows -- and knows to the core of his or her Dokdo soul -- that fan death is real. Absolutely real. No doubts. And I agree with Koreans on this issue, as regular readers will recall. Many a time, I have promoted the truth of fan death on this blog, hoping to alert foreign readers mired in ignorance of the risk that they face on those hot, sultry summer nights in bed when they have to strip down to . . .

But let's not get so specific about that detail.

My point is that fans left running at night can kill you in your sleep, a truth that I've defended ad nauseum on this blog:

Fan Death is Real!

Fan Death Redux

Another fan-death disbeliever!

Doc Rock's diagnosis: "You've been smokin' way too many fans"

Nevertheless, fan death is real!

Okay, five posts in three years of blogging might not constitute an ad nauseum defense, but take a look at the comments, where much of my fan-death defense has been carried on. There, I've faced constant ridicule from non-Koreans who are aggressively ignorant about the scientific truth of fan death and who stoop to the lowest of personal attacks to ridicule me for my views.

I've been called crazy, stupid, drug-addled, ignorant, and even had my scientific knowledge questioned -- yes, questioned, despite my master's degree . . . in history of SCIENCE. Most recently, a commenter calling himself 'Christian' quoted one of my facts and denied it:

"[Hodges stated:] It's a little-known fact that the whirling blades [of a fan] cause disturbance in the ether that pervades the universe, and the ripple effect impairs organisms up to 500 feet distant."

[Christian blathered:] Yeah, that's true, it is so little known that I didnt knew about that. Oh,and btw, aether does not exist, and there was a famous experiment about that in the 19th century (and many other later): Michelson-Morley Experiment.

In my reply to this screed, I ignored Christian's difficulty with orthography and courteously focused upon his appalling scientific ignorance:

Christian, thanks for visiting and posting.

As for the Michelson-Morley experiment, it was obviously flawed. How else explain that those two so-called 'scientists' missed the obvious existence of the ether, the very fifth element known to natural philosophers since antiquity?

Yes, there are only five elements. Forget all that stuff you learned in chemistry. It's utterly wrong.

Only fan death is real.

How can anyone rationally argue with my view? Obviously, I know far more about the ether than 'Christian', who thinks that the ether doesn't even exist! I mean, how ignorant can one get?! Ether has existed since the days of the ancient Greeks!

So, you see what I'm up against in my struggle to publicize the very real risk of fan death. Those people whom I'm trying to save from mortal danger are the very ones who ridicule me.

So . . . I wouldn't blame President-Elect Lee Myung-bak if he opted to ignore the issue of fan death, for he has to deal with foreign policy and can't afford to jeopardize his credibility on international affairs by announcing to a hyperskeptical, disbelieving world that his administration has a position on fan death.

But this Lee administration definitely must take a position, even if an unannounced one, for no device so dangerous as an electrical fan can be ignored, especially since at least one other country does accept the scientific evidence for its deadly effects and is rumored to be pursuing a secretive fan-death program.

I refer, of course, to North Korea.

The danger is clear. A line of towering, gigantic electrical fans can be erected by the Communist North along the DMZ, and the threat of their being turned on at night when all of the South should be sleeping soundly after a hardworking, capitalist day will cause many an anxious, sleepless night and thereby significantly impair the South's economic performance.

To paraphrase the inspiring Churchill's famous words on spine-stiffened resistance to an oppressive regime's infamous, threatening rule:

That is something up with which we shall not put!

Let us echo those Churchillian words! The South must act now to protect itself, for under the progressives' Sunshine Policy of the past eight years, the North has already been left free to forge ahead with a fan-death program, and the South is in danger of falling behind. I therefore appeal to President-Elect Lee Myung-bak to act quickly:

"Mr. President, we cannot allow a fan-death gap!"

Another fan-death disbeliever!

Fan Death in Korea

The pain is horrific to bear!

(Image from OhmyNews)

Despite my best efforts, I seem to be fighting a losing battle against those who doubt fan death. Why do I say this? Because another fan-death skeptic has visited my blog, and this one is a Korean!

The infidel's name is "Julia," but we cannot blame her loving parents, for the accursed disbeliever tells us that her own dear mother:

...used to wake up EVERY night at 3 am to open my brother's bedroom door because he slept with the ceiling fan on. Because Richard would never heed her advice about leaving the bedroom door open if he was going to have his fan on, she was horrified that the fan (in a closed room) would SUCK the air our of the room and leave her with an empty shell of a human being as a son...

Such loving care -- careful love that only a Korean mother could bestow -- was wasted on this ingrate, who laughed at a sad song titled "Fan Death Suicide Pact Cult" that she heard in some bar and then returned home to Google the internet so that she could laugh at the sad stories of others who have posted warnings about fan death.

She even happened across my blog entry of warning about fan death and reported back on her own blog:

[H]ere's what one crazy ex-pat professor of English Literature says about fan death (it's just too insane to NOT share):

How can people doubt fan death!? Fans kill thousands of people each year, but most of the deaths go unreported because the fans were in a different room. It's a little-known fact that the whirling blades cause disturbance in the ether that pervades the universe, and the ripple effect impairs organisms up to 500 feet distant.

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our cat, driven mad by ripples in the ether, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor beetle to its death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky as the cat. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself out of its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor ... shriveled and dry. That could happen to you, too. Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Miraculously, our cats and children have survived, but we're taking no more chances, especially now that our two fans have begun to alter weather patterns in our apartment. In the past two days [this September 2006], they've actually been blowing cool air at night -- even though there's no air-conditioning unit attached! We think that the fans are now trying to freeze us to death, so we've put them away in a closet, completely covered in a bag zipped carefully shut to prevent them from doing even more damage.

Fans are killers. Why do you think that they're called fans? The word "fan" is short for "fanatic." You can't trust fanatics. Don't trust fans, either.

If you want to see the original post, check out his lunatic rants here.

As if her own scoffing at the truth weren't bad enough, Julia is in league with others opposed to fan-death theory. A certain Jennifer comments:

Wow, I'd be speechless, except I suspect the English professor is being satirical. If he isn't... well, then I really am speechless.

I think "fan death" will make it into a blog post, oh yes indeed! :)

Jennifer's skepticism even extended to doubts about my very sincerity, but Julia at least believes that I'm sincere (an important Korean virtue):

I would have thought that as well, seeing as how ridiculous his claims are, but if you read the rest of his blog entry... I don't know. I think that he believes in fan death...

At this point -- seeing that I needed to certify my sincerity -- I posted the following comment:

Yes, [Jennifer,] do blog on fan death:

"I think 'fan death' will make it into a blog post, oh yes indeed!"

Call attention to its dire threat!

Not only does it cause death, but even in small doses, it will make one ill.

Why, it's already driven me insane ... as duly noted in this blog entry [by Julia]. (Thanks for noticing.)

Indeed, I am so mentally disturbed by the etherial effects of those whirling blades that I even believe this nonsense about fan death.

I realize that this belief is crazy, but ... well, so am I.

That's the sad part, of course: I'm truly insane. Those whirling fans have driven me mad, forcing me to scribble all sorts of egregious nonsense. Yet, even my "nonsense" has more sense than non. I count five letters to three, which implies that sense wins out.

Need I remind you, therefore, that fans drove the brilliant Hwang Woo-suk to utterly destroy his illustrious career in cloning? Recall how Hwang's fans made the poor doctor look even more ridiculous?

Or note how fans are also responsible for the disgraced Shin Jeong-ah, the disgraced Lee Ji-young, and the disgraced Lee Hyun-se. How, you might ask, are fans responsible for their false academic claims? A moment's sober reflection will answer that question.

Koreans are such fanatics about obtaining higher degrees from elite universities that each year, high school graduates even kill themselves for failing to score high enough on qualifying exams for admission to Korea's top three universities. Although Shin Jeong-ah, Lee Ji-young, and Lee Hyun-se escaped almost certain death by academic disappointment, they did glimpse the abyss gaping at their feet. They faced a stark choice: either die or lie. Thank God they made the right decision, and we should respect them for choosing life.

Besides, it's not their fault that they lied. Academic fanaticism drove these three to deceive everyone! Read the authoritative words of Thomas R. Ellinger and Garry M. Beckham ("South Korea: Placing Education on Top of the Family Agenda," Phi Delta Kappan, April, v. 78. no. 8, p. 624) for what they tell us about this sort of fanaticism:

South Koreans view education as they view the rest of life: a process of winning and losing. They have no concept of a game played well for its own sake. The family emphasis on educational achievement is so strong that it has been dubbed "education mania." (quoted in Paul Robertson, "The Pervading Influence of Neo-Confucianism on the Korean Education System," Asian EFL Journal, June 2002, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 1, paragraph 8)

And what is "education mania" but insane fanaticism? Indeed, such fanaticism made academic fanatics of Shin Jeong-ah, Lee Ji-young, and Lee Hyun-se. In short, they were themselves, literally, turned into academic fans!

But it's a fate that they share with all Koreans, for each and every Korean is secretly an academic fan for whom education -- like life itself -- is a process of winning or losing! Most, of course, lose out and grow self-destructive. I think that Korea's current, unsustainably low birth rate can only be explained as the collective suicide of all those failed educational fans. In other words, fans are killing the entire Korean nation.

Fans are truly insidious...

Esquire Magazine Presents: Professor Jeffery Hodges, Fan-Death Expert

"She calls her poor father a squire..."

(Image from Esquire Magazine)

Yesterday -- or was it the day before? -- my helpful friend Malcolm posted a thoughtful announcement of my return to the blogosphere:

Thanks to the kind and generous efforts of my friend Bob Wyman over at Google, Jeffrey Hodges' blog, The Gypsy Scholar, is on the air once again. Go pay a visit.

Being the sort of beast that bites the hand that feeds me, I retorted:

Yes, it’s good to be back. I've been gone so long that Malcolm's forgotten my name! (It's "J-e-f-f-e-r-y," Malcolm.)

But to make up for the painful snap, I imparted some of my wisdom -- implicitly providing a defense of the liberal arts in the process:

I made the most of my time away from the blogosphere, using it to read much of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The novel has helped me get in touch with my feminine side . . . you know, my feelings. It's also helped me to understand the situation better. But I couldn't quite figure out if Google was Wickham or Darcy. For now, I'm going with the Darcy interpretation.

See how useful and relevant literature is? But despite the power of the literary word, my name continues to be a problem, for in a following comment, "the one eyed man" noted:

Jeffrey Hodges is quoted in this month's Esquire (Ask AnswerFella) regarding the mysterious subject of fan death.

Yet, I was suddenly out of the mood for arguing orthography or making snarky remarks about somebody possibly needing a monacle, so I merely inquired:

What did I say?

Not -- unlike Uncle Cran -- that I had been drinking and couldn't recall. Rather, the interview was several months ago, and the details therefore hazy.

In his generosity, "the one eyed man" posted the passage with quotes from the interview:

Jeffery Hodges, a professor at Ewha Women's University in Seoul tells AnswerFella, "I've heard as explanation that the belief originated at a time when Koreans were first able to purchase electric fans and used them to such an extent that electrical systems were burdened, so the government spread a rumor that running them overnight was potentially fatal."

Hodges also shared the following passage from the government issued Cultural Guide to Migrant Workers in Korea. "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from oxygen deficiency, hypothermia, or from overheating." Some Koreans, he adds, "have outlandish explanations about how the whirling blades of a fan can sever oxygen molecules."

Yes, it all comes back to me now. But I distinctly recall carefully calling Esquire's attention to the correctly incorrect spelling of my current university: "Ewha Womans University." I wonder if "the one eyed man" mistakenly altered that to the incorrectly correct spelling.

The Esquire interview was originally supposed to be conducted by phone, but when my interviewer -- the lovely Ms. Brenna Ehrlich -- attempted to reach me from the States, her call wouldn't go through, so she interviewed me by email, and as you will see, the information that I provided was somewhat more extensive because Ms. Ehrlich asked several questions:

1. When did you first hear about fan death?

I heard of it relatively late, sometime early in this decade -- perhaps around 2002. I first read of it on a blog by some Western expat in Korea. Oddly, none of my Korean students had ever mentioned it to me.

2. What is it?

Supposedly, fan death is the fatal consequence of sleeping in a closed room with a fan running all night.

3. Is it widely believed in Korea? How so if it is?

I'm told that every Korean believes that fan death is real. In reality, some doubters surely exist, especially among Koreans who have lived abroad and spoken to many skeptics. Also, an occasional skeptical report will be published in the papers, so some Koreans are doubtful, it seems.

I'm not sure that I understand your latter question. "How so if it is?" People believe in fan death and warn against letting fans run all night. Do you mean "Why do people believe in fan death?" That's a good question. I'll speculate further below.

But if you mean why is belief widespread . . . I don't know, except that Koreans tend to be far more uniform in their opinions that Americans are. Koreans will often agree on many issues where Americans would express a range of opinions.

4. Does the government warn against it? Fan manufacturers? Schools?

Yes, the government does. For instance, the Cultural Guide Book for Foreigners in Korea, put out by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, warns of fan death:

Dangerous electric fans

In summer, many go to bed with a fan on. In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from oxygen deficiency, hypothermia or fire from overheating. A fan with a timer can help prevent such dangers: you can set the timer before going to bed for one to two hours' run. Do not forget to have the windows open for ventilation. [I linked to the original source, which states this on page 33, but that link is broken]

I don't know if businesses or schools do, but my wife, a native-born Korean, doesn't think that schools do.

5. How often is it in the papers?

Warnings about fan death usually appear in newspapers during the hot months -- late May to early September -- often in conjunction with a 'fan-death' fatality. Someone will have been found dead in bed in a closed room with a fan on (or so we're informed), and this news report will cite Korean doctors or scientists who have 'evidence' for the reality of fan death. This sort of report gets printed several times a year. I guess that some Koreans just aren't careful about setting those timers for that recommended one to two hours' run! Or perhaps only foreigners are informed about that recommended daily dosage of fan-propelled air.

6. What do you think of the idea?

I'm extremely skeptical about most of the fan-death 'information'. Of course, one has to be concerned about any electrical convenience overheating and causing a fire -- as the Cultural Guide Book for Foreigners warns in the case of electric fans -- but that's not fan death.

The warnings about oxygen deficiency and hypothermia, however, are typical fan-death 'information'.

Supposedly, fans can deplete oxygen. Some Koreans give outlandish explanations about how the whirling blades of a fan can sever oxygen 'molecules'. I suppose the idea is that single oxygen atoms are useless, that only oxygen atoms bound together into an O-2 molecule can be breathed and utilized by our bodies.

Or . . . fans cause hypothermia by cooling a body down too low. I think that the room would already have to be quite cold for this to occur, but in that case, who would use a fan?

Or . . . conversely, fans cause heat stroke because they dehydrate the body. I am doubtful that this would be at all common, but I concede that if one is already severely dehydrated, a fan might cause further dehydration. But I am skeptical even of that.

Keeping windows open for ventilation is usually a good practice, of course -- so long as the windows have screens to keep out mosquitoes -- so that one bit of advice from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is useful, I suppose. We should thank them for that.

"Thanks." Deep bow to the Ministry.

7. Had you ever heard of it in the US?

Never, but I left the US in 1989 and came to Korea the first time in 1995 almost directly from Germany. Oddly, my wife never mentioned fan death to me until I asked her about it, and we'd been in a relationship since 1992. I think that she just wasn't a 'fanatic' about the belief.

8. Do you know where it originated?

No, not as a matter of fact. I've heard as explanation that the belief originated at a time when Koreans were first able to purchase electric fans and used them to such an extent during hot weather that electrical systems were burdened, so the government spread the rumor that running them overnight was potentially fatal.

I doubt this explanation. It fails to account for the strangeness of the belief. The government could have just explained that fans were burdening the electrical system -- or have warned about fires from faulty wiring in fans.

I wonder if the belief in fan death might have more to do with Korean superstitions about wind. Koreans believe that even a gentle breeze can harm a baby if the baby's head is uncovered. Also, women who have just given birth are supposed to stay indoors and away from wind. My wife told me of this latter superstition, then added darkly that Koreans have a lot of superstitions about the dangers of wind . . . but she didn't elaborate, and I had to hurry off to work this morning.

In other words, I provided a lot to select from, and what they actually selected might imply that I think that the explanation about the government-spread rumor to be the likely origin of the fan-death superstition -- despite my explicit skepticism -- but I suppose that AnswerFella likes to keep quotes short. I still haven't seen the copy of Esquire, for I couldn't find it online, so I cannot link to the AnswerFella column.

By the way, Ms. Ehrlich has her own fine blog, Watching the Detectives, on which she posts material on crime in her hometown of Chicago, among other places, but that link doesn't work for me anymore. Let me know if it works from inside the States, for it looks as though it's still being updated.

Oh, and thanks to Ms. Ehrlich, to research editor Robert Scheffler, to the AnswerFella, and to anyone else involved in this Esquire article. After all my years of studying the Coptic language in order to read the Nag Hammadi Coptic Gnostic codices, I'm honored to have finally been considered an authority on . . . fan death.

Expat Living: "Fan Dumb"

Fan Death!

Fanatical Fans Fancy Fatalities

(Image from Wikipedia)

My second column on Language has appeared in the Korea Herald. The print version graces the paper's edition this morning, but the online version was already posted at the paper's website yesterday evening. Again, some editing has occurred, which I accept as inevitable, and it's mostly innocuous . . . aside from one point that I'll note later.

If you wish to read the column as printed, you can -- and should -- buy the paper's hard copy at a newstand if possible, but those who cannot do that can also go to the Korea Herald website, but be forewarned. The site has one or two popups, and also does not allow me to link directly to my article. If you do go there, scroll down slightly and check the lefthand links for Expat Living. Click on that and scroll down however far is necessary for finding the following column headline:

[Jeffery Hodges on Language] Demystifying fan. death

My original headline was "Fan Dumb," a pun on "fandom," but I expected that to be altered (though I hardly 'demystify' fan death). I'm assuming that "fan" with the dot has been used to suggest an abbreviation. More on this point later. For now, you can read my original version:

Jeffery Hodges on Language: Fan Dumb

Despite my strenuous efforts to publicize the threat posed to humanity by electric fans, most everybody in the developed world still falls asleep on hot, humid summer nights in close proximity to those electrically powered, whirling blades of mortality, blissfully blind to the danger, perhaps never more to awaken.

Theories abound on how fans kill, but the empirical fact cannot be reasonably denied even though many expats living here in Korea stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the Korean truth that electric fans left blowing overnight can kill a full-grown, sleeping man.

I admit that I once stood among the stubborn scoffers, but what made me a believer, even a proselytizer for the truth, was a close brush with fan death in the late summer and early fall of 2006. Hoping to persuade disbelievers, I posted my experience online:

How can people doubt fan death!? Fans kill thousands each year, but most deaths go unreported because the fans are in different rooms. A little-known fact is that whirling blades disturb the ether pervading our universe, and ripple effects impair organisms up to 500 feet distant.

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our younger cat, driven mad by etherial ripples, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor insect to death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself from its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor . . . shriveled and dry. That could happen to you! Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Thankfully, our cats and children have survived, but we are taking no more chances, especially now that our two fans have started altering weather patterns in our apartment. In these past two autumn days, they have actually been blowing cool air at night -- even without air-conditioning units attached! We think the fans are trying to freeze us to death, so we are putting them away in a closet, completely covered in bags zipped carefully shut to prevent them wreaking even more damage.

Nearly all non-Koreans reading this sincere, personal testimony resist the truth. Typical response: "You are stupid." Indeed, I have been called not merely stupid but also crazy, drug-addled, and ignorant. Even my scientific knowledge has been questioned -- yes, questioned, despite my master's degree . . . in history of SCIENCE!

More disappointing than personal attacks from non-Koreans, however, is my premonition of losing the battle, for one recent challenge comes not merely from another fan-death skeptic but from a Korean fan-death skeptic ridiculing her mother's concerns:

My mother used to awaken EVERY night at 3 a.m. to open my brother’s bedroom door because he slept with the ceiling fan on. Since he would never heed her advice about leaving the bedroom door open if he was going to have his fan on, she was horrified that the fan would SUCK the air from the closed room and leave only the empty shell of a human being as her son.

Such loving care -- careful love that only a Korean mother could bestow -- wasted on ingrates!

Yet even if I am losing against fan-death ignorance, I shall never, ever surrender. Why? Because fans are killers. Proof? Here comes proof in a language lesson. Why do you think they are called fans? "Fan" abbreviates "fanatic." You cannot trust fanatics. Trust no fan, either.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com – Ed.

That was my original version, and for the most part, it's been printed as is, with a few minor edits. The only substantive edit was a transitional phrase inserted after the large block quote about my own brush with fan death:

Back to reality. Nearly all non-Koreans reading this sincere, personal testimony resist the truth.

The phrase "back to reality" doesn't quite work. I can see why the editors felt the need for a transition following the block quote, but this particular transition seems to say that my personal anecdote was not 'real' -- and I didn't want to explicitly say that. Indeed, I would never explicitly say that about fan death! (Or almost never.)

And in fact, my anecdote was real. Everything mentioned actually did occur . . . although my febrile imagination may have contributed the role attributed to the electric fans, but that's a minor point.

Finally, concerning the headline, Demystifying fan. death, I suppose that I should comment on the abbreviation implied by the dot that the editors supplied following the word "fan."

My column plays on two different words spelled and pronounced exactly the same: "fan" meaning a device to propel air for cooling and "fan" meaning a person who strongly supports someone or something. I pretend that these are the same word, but they have different etymologies.

The former word "fan" stems from from the Old English word "fann," borrowed from the Latin word "vannus," both words referring to a "winnowing-fan."

The latter word "fan" stems not from "fanatic" (as I claim in my article) but from the word "fancy," which it abbreviates and which you can read more about at the online Free Dictionary at the entry "Fan (person)."

I felt that I ought to set that straight.

Esquire Magazine Officially Presents: Professor Jeffery Hodges, Fan-Death Expert

Flailing Fan of Fatality!

(Image from Esquire Magazine)

Okay, I'm now officially famous, for Esquire's 'interview' with me on "Fan Death" has finally reached the internet.

The 'interview' is posted this week (specifically, on January 22, 2009) as a reply mediated by Esquire's "Answer Fella" to the question "Why Do Koreans Think Electric Fans Will Kill Them?"

This week, Esquire's Answer Fella dispels an urban myth that may or may not leave you with hypothermia.

The 'answer' -- which I'll get to in a moment -- was in response to a query directed to the "Answer Fella" from some newcomer to Korea:

I just arrived in South Korea, and my colleague says that I can die if I sleep in a closed room with a fan on. He insists that "fan death" is an actual danger. What the hell?

In response to the reporter from Esquire who contacted me as an 'expert' because of my voluminous writings on "Fan Death," I provided my rather detailed thoughts on the topic, which Esquire pared down to the following:

"I'm told that every Korean believes that fan death is real," Jeffery Hodges, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, tells AF. "I've heard as explanation that the belief originated at a time when Koreans were first able to purchase electric fans and used them to such an extent that electrical systems were burdened, so the government spread a rumor that running them overnight was potentially fatal."

Hodges also shared the following passage from the government-issued Cultural Guide for Migrant Workers in Korea: "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from oxygen deficiency, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." "Some Koreans," he adds, "give outlandish explanations about how the whirling blades of a fan can sever oxygen molecules."

So far as AF is able to determine, no scientific literature exists to support the existence of fan death, nor does it seem to be a perceived threat in any other country but Korea. File it -- like the faith of the French in the healing power of Rochebaron cheese smeared on the testicles -- under "Urban Myths, Foreign Dolts."

I actually expressed my words quoted within the above passage in a more qualified way during the 'interview', as readers of this blog will already know:

I doubt this explanation [about a government-inspired rumor]. It fails to account for the strangeness of the belief. The government could have just explained that fans were burdening the electrical system -- or have warned about fires from faulty wiring in fans.

I say more, of course, but I don't want to repost what is so easily read at the link.

I must confess, though, that I do fear that with this 'interview', I may have harmed my chances for being awarded the prize in the category "Best Blog for Dire Warnings in Defense of the Absolute and Horrifying Truth Concerning Fan Death!"

Fan Death is Real!

Close-Up: Electric Fans Sold in Korea

(Image from Wikipedia)

Those of you who live outside of Korea have perhaps never heard of "fan death" even though it kills thousands of people every year. If you haven't heard of this, then read the informative article at Wikipedia, which tells us:

The belief [in Korea] is that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners and the fans in cars. When the air conditioner or fan is on in a car, some people are apt to leave their car windows open a crack to avoid "fan death." Fans manufactured and sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.

Although the article is written by a disbeliever, it does summarize the central facts, and more people need to be aware of these facts.

Unfortunately, some individuals -- mostly just Westerners guilty of arrogant Orientalism -- try to deny fan death. For instance, the Lost Nomad is on a misguided campaign to convince Koreans that fan death does not exist, but I've tried to warn him otherwise by providing the results from my own, rigorously conducted research:

How can people doubt fan death!? Fans kill thousands of people each year, but most of the deaths go unreported because the fans were in a different room. It's a little-known fact that the whirling blades cause disturbance in the ether that pervades the universe, and the ripple effect impairs organisms up to 500 feet distant.

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our cat, driven mad by ripples in the ether, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor beetle to its death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky as the cat. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself out of its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor ... shriveled and dry. That could happen to you, too. Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Miraculously, our cats and children have survived, but we're taking no more chances, especially now that our two fans have begun to alter weather patterns in our apartment. In the past two days, they've actually been blowing cool air at night -- even though there's no air-conditioning unit attached! We think that the fans are now trying to freeze us to death, so we've put them away in a closet, completely covered in a bag zipped carefully shut to prevent them from doing even more damage.

Fans are killers. Why do you think that they're called fans? The word "fan" is short for "fanatic." You can't trust fanatics. Don't trust fans, either.

That's what I posted on Nomad's blog, and I'm now posting it in slightly altered form here with the aim of alerting others to the deadly effects of fans. I just hope that more people will come to see how dangerous these things are.

Spread the word.

Doc Rock's diagnosis: "You've been smokin' way too many fans"

Fanning out for a full frontal attack...

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yeah, fan death again! No sooner do I deal effectively with some disbeliever or other, but another one pops up -- almost before I can catch my breath!

A certain 'Doc Rock' -- whose name sounds like a queer marriage of irreconcilable differences from DC and Marvel comics (along with Doc Savage in a ménage à trois?) -- rejects my arguments for the truth of fan death. Like most such disbelievers, his opening shot is a bit of ad hominem:

You've been smokin' way too many fans, I think.

He thinks? And what sort of 'thought' is this? While electric fans can overheat and smoke -- and that's another of the many dangers that they pose -- to suggest that I've actually been smoking electric fans is surely the most absurd charge laid against me and my defense of fan death. How, pray tell, does one (in the transitive sense of the word) 'smoke' a fan? We're not talking here of those paltry hand fans that folks wave about in a futile attempt to cool themselves down as they heat themselves up. A paper fan of that sort could, I acknowledge, be ground up into tiny bits and smoked, and if the paper were made from the plant Cannabis sativa, then Doc Rock's personal attack might have a point.

But no, we're talking here of electric fans. Fan made of plastic and steel. Who in his or her right mind would ever attempt to smoke such machinery? Does Doc Rock think that I'm crazy!? Am I being accused of lunacy by yet another fan death skeptic? But let's see what else the good doctor has to say:

I'm 66 and grew up without airconditioning. We had fans in every room and slept with doors CLOSED!!!! I have fans in almost every room in my house and we are all still going. The only basis for this insanity is the power of urban legend and the paucity of science education.

Sixty-six? Really? Does the photo here look like that of a 66-year-old man? Not to my eyes -- nor, I suspect, to your own.

Be that as it may, for the doctor's information, I also grew up without air conditioning -- and a good thing, too, for every air conditioner comes equipped with a fan! There's really no difference, scientifically, between using a fan and using an air conditioner. Both can kill you.

But let's consider Doc Rock's other points. He claims to have grown up with fans in every room. Really? Does that include closets? They are also rooms. And was every single door truly closed? Tightly? And sealed? If fans were not really on in every room, and if every room were not truly closed and sealed airtight, then the fans' effect and the Doc's argument are both seriously weakened. Note that he even admits that these days, he only has "fans in almost every room" (emphasis mine). Almost is not every! And why not every room? Does the doctor perhaps, subconsciously, in fact recognize the grave danger? Yet even if not on in every room, those fans nevetheless pose a threat to the health of him and his family. Illness can strike at any moment, even to those who brag that they are "still going" even as their fans are still going.

And at this point in his argument, Doc Rock's better judgement takes over, for concerning his own practice of having a house full of fans going full blast, he says:

"The only basis for this insanity is the power of urban legend and the paucity of science education."

I agree with the doctor's self-diagnosis. Having fans on in almost every room in one's house is insane. I was unaware of any urban legends about the harmlessness of having so many fans running (are their whirling blades supposed to set up interference patterns that cancel each other out?), but the doctor is surely right about "the paucity of science education" that lies behind people's ignorance of fan death. Americans are prescientific compared to Koreans, who attain some of the highest math and science scores in the world and who lead the world in such cutting-edge scientific research as cloning technology. Should we be surprised, then, when Koreans are the first to recognize the dire, indeed fatal effects of fans?

Fan death. A scientific fact established in Korea.

Korea's Fan-Death Theory Disproven?

Fan Use Prevents SIDS?

(Image from APAM)

All my valiant efforts to defend Korea's Fan-Death Theory may be for naught if a new study is bourne out by the evidence.

A study conducted by Kimberly Coleman-Phox (MPH), Roxana Odouli (MSPH), and De-Kun Li (MD, PhD), "Use of a Fan During Sleep and the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome," published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 162 No. 10, October 2008, offers the following conclusion:

Fan use may be an effective intervention for further decreasing SIDS risk in infants in adverse sleep environments.

For those readers who enjoy perusing statistics, here are the results:

Fan use during sleep was associated with a 72% reduction in SIDS risk (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.28; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.10-0.77). The reduction in SIDS risk seemed more pronounced in adverse sleep environments. For example, fan use in warmer room temperatures was associated with a greater reduction in SIDS risk (AOR, 0.06; 95% CI, 0.01-0.52) compared with cooler room temperatures (0.77; 0.22-2.73). Similarly, the reduction associated with fan use was greater in infants placed in the prone or side sleep position (AOR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.03-0.55) vs supine (0.84; 0.21-3.39). Fan use was associated with a greater reduction in SIDS risk in infants who shared a bed with an individual other than their parents (AOR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.01-1.85) vs with a parent (0.40; 0.03-4.68). Finally, fan use was associated with reduced SIDS risk in infants not using pacifiers (AOR, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.07-0.69) but not in pacifier users (1.99; 0.16-24.4). Some differences in the effect of fan use on SIDS risk did not reach statistical significance.

In clearer English, the article says:

Rebreathing exhaled carbon dioxide trapped by bedding near an infant's airway has been suggested as a possible mechanism for the occurrence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Increased air movement in the room of a sleeping infant may potentially decrease the accumulation of carbon dioxide around the infant's nose and mouth and decrease the likelihood of rebreathing exhaled gas. In this case-control study of 185 infants with confirmed SIDS, fan use during sleep was associated with a 72% reduction in the risk of SIDS. The reduction in the risk of SIDS appeared more pronounced in warmer rooms, for infants placed in a prone or side sleeping position, and for those who did not use a pacifier or who shared a bed. Use of a fan in the room of a sleeping infant is an easily available means of possibly further reducing SIDS risk.

I haven't read the entire article because one needs a subscription, but two factors were studied, as indicated by "Intervention":

Fan use and open window during sleep.

I have to assume that these two factors were studied separately; otherwise, the study is fatally flawed, for if a fan were on all night in a room with an open window, then the significant factor could be the open window, and Korea's Fan-Death Theory would remain undisproven.

Perhaps I can try to access the article from a university computer later today.

Grandpa Archie: Cousin Bill's Comment

Typical Ozark Scene

White River

Not terribly far from Norfork Lake

(Image from ozarkmountains.org)

Even Cousin Bill is now waxing nostalgic -- as readers of Sunday's comments already know -- but his nostalgia is as well-waxed as Grandpa Archie's old pickup truck . . . actually far better, for that truck was never waxed. Anyway, I've posted Cousin Bill's comment here, which begin with a reference to the music of David Lynn Jones:

In a previous Blog comment I relayed my two memories of DLJ's beautiful music.

Bill, I found one memory but not the other. No matter, though, carry on:

Now, I will relay two or three stories about Grandpa Arch.

For the benefit of my foreign readership -- such as folks from the State of Misery, just north of Arkansas, or elsewhere beyond even state lines -- the following scene takes place at my paternal grandmother's Big Creek farm, which was situated some eight miles from Norfork Lake, about halfway between the small northern Arkansas towns of Eliabeth and Viola, up on an Ozark ridge, mostly, and at the isolated end of a six-mile dirt road, just at the beginning of the wild lands, so there was a lot of wildlife around there. Grandpa Archie, as I've noted before, was a genuine woodsman -- the old-style hillbilly of part-Cherokee blood who grew up knowing the woods and hills and the creatures in them. According to Cousin Bill:

We (myself, wife, Grandma Nora and Grandpa Arch) were sitting in the living room late one night when Archie turned his head, listened intently to something, arose and proceeded outside without a word. Shortly the front door opened and Archie walks in, one arm behind his back, grinned and thrust a neck-held live possum straight out for all to see. He explained he heard a ruckess in the hen house. I have a picture of old Arch standing there with the critter, and, well, he's grinning like a possum.

Knowing Grandpa Archie, he probably let the poor creature go free . . . unless he decided that it would make a good possum pie for the next evening meal. Grandpa Archie was always catching some creature with just his hands. I'd seen him sneak up silently behind a bullfrog and grab it with his hands before it even noticed him, which may not sound like a great accomplishment, but just try it some time, and with your own repeated failures will come some respect for a fellow who could do it easily, repeatedly, without fail.

I wouldn't be especially surprised to learn that he'd also caught a bird that way . . . though I've never heard that he did. But I've seen him catch those big glade lizards, a feat requiring even more skill than catching bullfrogs.

The next scene described by Cousin Bill takes place mainly on the narrow dirt road leading down the farm's ridge on its steep side, which was wooded and rapidly declined some hundred and fifty feet or more in altitude along its slope to the little, spring-fed branch below:

Secondly, years ago, I took little brother Scott (a college freshman) to the farm for a week. While there we contributed to the woodpile, with Archie doing the cutting, us trying to split and stack, did a little fishing and ate them out of house and home. While there we headed to town in Archie's black, hand-brush-painted pickup. We headed down the lane, round the curve and down the hill toward the branch, and this pickup was rapidly gaining speed with Archie frantically clutching and going through the gears. I looked toward Archie, noticed mid seated brother Scott's sudden large eyeballs, and tried to calmly ask why he didn't use the brakes. The answer, "ain't got any, haven't had any for a long time". And so we continued [the seven miles] to Viola and back.

Broken down that truck may have been, but Grandpa Archie was partial to it . . . and he was a man of principle, in some mighty peculiar ways, as Cousin Bill relates:

In later years that pickup carried license tags with an outdated year sticker. I ask why no renewal, Archie's reply was "the tax went up a dollar and I ain't gonna pay it".

The government wasn't about to stop Grandpa Archie . . . nor was old age, as the next scene reveals:

Another time years ago, the wife and I took Grandma Nora and Grandpa Archie to the Salem singing, note here that it was darn good music by local folks, and I can vouch for Archie's dancing ability, even twirling around a little with Grandma and my bride. I even thought Grandpa Arch had perhaps located a little moonshine the way he twirled around.

Grandpa Archie stayed healthy, strong, and often slightly unshaven nearly so long as he lived, as Cousin Bill's wife can also attest:

And wife Cheryl still remembers us arrving for a visit and Archie's quick pace (even in later years) heading her way. Once there he give her his big hug and going for the welcome kiss would leave scratch marks from his two day old whiskers.

I remember those scratchy whiskers, too, but I noticed that Grandpa Archie always shaved on Sunday mornings, and when he had got dressed up, too, he looked right handsome.

Cousin Bill winds his anecdotes down by confirming two of Uncle Cran's creature-feature tales . . . but goes on to warn about an additional story, a tale of what sounds like a far more alarming but thankfully imaginary creature apparently dreamed up by Uncle Cran in some techno-dystopian-induced nightmare:

I've lots of good memories of both grandparents. Good people and characters, both of them. Now, to our Uncle Cran's fishing/turtle tale, lightning strike tale and upcoming bear story. I believe the first two, however, if he comes up with some hare brained snake story about rattleheadedcoppermoccasins, I'll suggest he was a little touched by Arkansas "Fan Death" when electricity arrived at the farm and the Flora community in, I believe, the early 50's. Or he got a little brain-toasted from hours sitting under the single, center ceiling mounted light bulb or got the neck noosed by the lightbulb's pull string hanging down.

'Fan Death' in the Ozarks?! Say it ain't so! I remember Flora Church in the early 1960s, and folks were still sitting and sweating in pews despite the open windows that let the wasps in, and every soul was waving those hand-held fans with depictions of Jesus holding a little lost lamb, without an electric fan in sight, so I doubt that Uncle Cran suffered there from the effects of the most-dreaded entity, the electric fan . . . unless you mean (shudder) in the farmhouse itself, a thing too terrible to imagine -- and largely unimaginable anyway, for Grandma Nora and Grandpa Archie both lived to be nearly 100, a feat impossible if their health had been affected by deadly electric fans. But brain damage by radiant waves emanating from that single light bulb . . . well, that may be a factor in Uncle Cran's amazing stories. Couldn't be that bulb's pull string, though, for pull strings are harmless. They don't pull; they are pulled.

Cousin Bill then tacks on a couple of three lines more:

And one word on our Grandpa Horace. Dad once told me "if you like Woodrow, you'd have loved my Dad. Will wait for more tales from you both.

I wish that I knew more about my paternal grandfather Horace, for I've inherited his name, but if he was like Woodrow, then I would indeed have loved him. As for tales from me, they'll have to wait until Uncle Cran finishes those two still untold tales about a bear . . . and some imaginary varmint called a rattleheadedcoppermoccasin?

I presume that this latter 'critter' has never been confirmed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Requiem for J. D. Salinger

J. D. Salinger

Photographer: Lotte Jacobi

(Image from New York Times)

I happened to notice that J. D. Salinger died the other day at the ripe old age of 91. Recalling that fact over dinner, I remarked to my wife:

"J. D. Salinger is dead."

"Who?" she said.

"J. D. Salinger. American author. Wrote Catcher in the Rye."

"Ah," she noted, a light coming on. "I didn't know he was still alive."

"He isn't," I said. "Not any more."

My daughter laughed. My son slurped his soup. I reflected upon Salinger's death . . . and his famous novel. It was supposed to be the voice of an adolescent generation in the 1950s, precocious baby boomers, I guess. Charles McGrath of the New York Times noted in an obituary (January 28, 2010):

With its cynical, slangy vernacular voice (Holden's two favorite expressions are "phony" and "goddam"), its sympathetic understanding of adolescence and its fierce if alienated sense of morality and distrust of the adult world, the novel struck a nerve in cold war America and quickly attained cult status, especially among the young. Reading "Catcher" used to be an essential rite of passage, almost as important as getting your learner's permit.

Well, we were told that it was supposed to be a rite of passage, so I dutifully read it as a teenager. It bored me to . . . well, not tears, but yawns. I found Holden Caulfield pretentious and unsympathetic, as one might expect in a character from the hand of an author who used to go "striding around campus in a black chesterfield with velvet collar and announcing that he was going to write the Great American Novel."

At dinner with my family, I suddenly realized why the Caulfield character didn't resonate with me. Growing up in the Ozarks, I didn't find the older generation "phony" at all. They fascinated me, the way that Mr. LeRoy Tucker's stories fascinate me. I'd rather read a novel by Tucker -- if he's written one -- than a short story by J. D. Salinger.

At the death of John Updike -- who once remarked on Salinger's "detriment of artistic moderation" -- I was saddened, and posted Updike's own proleptic poem on the sad passing, so here it is again:

Requiem

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
"Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise -- depths unplumbable!"

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
"I thought he died a while ago."

For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

I had a reply to Updike's ironic humility, which I posted then there and now here:

Valediction

It struck me wrong to hear you say,
Were you to die (you did today),
No one would think you still so full
Of promised depths unplumbable.

Did any shrug with tearless eyes,
At putative past-due demise?
The wide response, I think I know,
Was hope you didn't really go.

Because your life and work are huge,
Your death is more the subterfuge.
Thus, enter in the register:
"Not here." That's best I can concur.

I thought that Salinger also deserved some sort of requiem, albeit one appropriate to my indifferent reaction at hearing of his death, so I borrowed from Updike again to compose some lines for an author who left me cold:

Requiem for J. D. S.

It came to me the other day,
Just when you died -- I had to say --
"Hmm, that's a shame. Not young, but full
Of unkept promise plumbable."

With that, a shrug, and tearless eyes,
I met your overdue demise;
My wife's response was just, you know,
"I thought he died a while ago."

Your life, a shabby subterfuge,
Your death, unreal, not dark or huge,
No shock of it to register --
Except but where it did occur.

I suppose that'll offend a few readers, but I have to be honest in my feelings about Salinger in his work and his life. I could be wrong, of course, about his work, for I never read anything else by the man than the Caulfield misadventure, but as an individual, he seemed proud and self-centered, the sort of man who would order "his agent to burn any fan mail."

Yet if he really has two novels stashed away in a safe, and they turn out to be great, I'll eat my words . . . some of them, anyway, for I can't imagine changing my opinion of the Caulfield story.