It's Sunday, which makes it a perfect time for a little blog housekeeping, especially about a feature that used to appear regularly on Fridays.
As you may recall, after the death of Echo I put Your Friday Dose of Woo on hiatus for a while because I just couldn't get myself into the appropriately light-hearted and silly frame of mind. Time has passed, and, although things will never be the same, a semblance of normalcy has (somewhat) returned. The loss still hurts--a lot--but my wife and I are slowly and reluctantly adapting. (We did finally share that third ear of corn, by the way; I don't recall if I ever mentioned that.)
In the five weeks since I put YFDoW on hiatus, though, I've discovered one thing. I actually rather like the freedom to be able to write about whatever I feel like on Fridays. Looking back, I think YFDoW had become a bit of a straightjacket that I had come to feel obligated to do because it was expected and readers generally liked it, rather than because I wanted to do it anymore. Thursday nights would roll around, and I'd sometimes plow through the Folder of Woo only to find nothing much that really got me fired up. I think it was starting to show, too. Sometimes, something big would happen related to my favorite topics to blog about, and I'd have to delay writing about it. Now that I've given YFDoW up for a while, though, I actually rather miss doing the feature, which is why the time is coming when I'll almost certainly resurrect it in some form or another.
What I think I'll probably do is to bring the feature back sometime after Labor Day. However, it will no longer be a weekly feature. Instead, I'll only do an installment when some truly YFDoW-worthy bit of silliness comes to my attention. It may be once every other week; it may be once a month; it may be once a week. It all depends on the woo frequency of any given time. Of course, by sending me your best woo, you can potentially increase the frequency that I do the feature.
Perhaps if you converted to YRDoW (Your Regular Dose of Woo) and just did it when the mood arose. Or even YOWDoW (Your (occasionally) Weekly Dose of Woo), if you want to keep up a regular schedule. Certainly I think I speak for all Humble Insolents-in-Training that read here that we don't want you straightjacketed and constrained. I would, however, miss my doses of woo, as they are always informative and fun. In any case. Condolences again on your dog, it sucks to lose a best friend.
Welcome back, Orac. Though I'm very sorry for your loss (and I truly empathize; I lost my Blake two years past, and in the midst of recovering from surgery myself), I'm happy to see you returning: I am one of those readers that really looks forward to your writing on that nonsense.
I don't want this to sound like a plug, but you may be interested to take a peek at my own site (www.dentinogenesis.com) where I'm currently working up a lengthy piece-by-piece ripping apart of a book called "The Roots of Disease: Connecting Dentistry and Medicine," in which Kulacz and Levy (DDS and MD/JD respectively) misrepresent a pile of abstracts in the hope of convincing people that root canals are "the most significant cause" of "many, if not most, serious degenerative illnesses." Not to sound corny, but I consider people like you to be the examples to emulate.
Glad to hear that things are settling down and that woo is once again likely to appear on the menu, even if it's not a Friday-specific thing like fish in my Catholic childhood. Welcome back.
(P.S.: It's straitjacket. I think straightjackets are used at Christian conversion camps for gay youth. Unsuccessfully.)
Talking of Woo in general, over at the BadScience forums we have come up with a suitable salutation for when a notable piece of Woo re-surfaces:
With apologies to Yogi Berra:
"It's like deja Woo all over again"
- credit to BadScience forum member Mojo.
PS The BadScience thread linked may be of interest to some readers - it deals with the latest "Legal Chill" story in the UK, in which the British Chiropractic Association has issued legal proceedings for defamation against science writer Dr Simon Singh, as detailed here.
Already the blogs are gearing up... could be this one will be as big as The Quackometer vs. The Society of Homeopaths.
Good to see you doing Your Friday Dose of Woo again even if on a Sunday. However hard your loss was, Echo will be with you always.
I concur with the previous commentators in both welcoming back the woology, but also with the suggestion to simply rename it to avoid the all too understandable feeling that "you must do it". Well, Ok, you must... ;-)
Please?
How about OOW--Orac's Outrageous Woo.
Or OOWOOW--Orac's Outrageous Woo Overwhelming Other Woos.