[At least once a month, McSweeney’s assistant editor — and website letters section organizer — Amie Barrodale sifts through the magazines received gratis at the McSweeney’s offices, summarizing the contents for you the busy reader. All of the periodicals listed below are real, as is the material Ms. Barrodale discusses.]

FROZEN FOOD AGE
May 2000

Traci Carneal takes this month’s cover with NFFA/IICA commissioned study on space productivity within the ice cream category. Traci says ice cream category unit price averages exceed miscellaneous frozen food department averages by 45%.

Jerry Cochran has this to say about consumers, and their awareness of hand held entrée quality: “Consumers,” Jerry says, “are aware that there’s pretty good quality.”

FLEET OWNER
June 2000

Jim York breaks the de facto vow of silence, touting trucker quality of life improvements resulting from the DOT’s mandatory 24-hour rest periods. York — claiming to have logged over a million miles under the old system — fails to mention his new job, as Senior Risk Engineering Consultant for Zurich Insurance. Street Cred or no, York is a desk man now, a “risk assessor,” (whatever that is), and, as far as we’re concerned, just a tiny step above the safety extremist communities like CRASH, AHAS, and PATT.

BIOMECHANICS
June 2000

This month, Anthony R. Edwards debunks outdated Handedness Theories. To wit: The Lefty does not die younger. The Lefty is not more clumsy than the Righty. The Lefty is not more injury prone than the Righty. Earlier Turkish studies of Lefty ballplayers “sampled from one baseball encyclopedia, not from two.” Using data from two encyclopedias, American Scientists found that Lefties actually tend to live 8 months longer than Righty Ballplayers. Notes Edwards, “This is a total reversal.”

THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
May/June 2000

Editor Mike Moore bids farewell in this, his final issue as Bulletin Editor. Moore and his wife will be moving to the family home in Missouri, where Moore will focus on writing his unwritten novels. Linda Rothstein, whom Moore describes as “passionately committed to the Bulletin and to the principles that comprise its soul,” will take over.

Mike, being that you are a novelist, I have provided you with some useful comments:

What are these “principles”? Too vague. And who is Ms. Rothstein? What are her interests? How does she hold herself? Maybe she has a funny habit of tugging her ear… We need more on her! And who is this wife? Is she younger? Or bitter, and middle aged? Could we lose her entirely? Maybe this is just me — I read this pretty quickly — but the wife seemed a little hackneyed.

MARITIME REPORTER AND ENGINEERING NEWS
April 2000

The Hose Handling Safety Subcommittee has submitted its final report on the safe handling of cargo hoses to the AWO Interrogation Safety Committee. Working closely with riggers and inland tank barge operators, the subcommittee identified six areas of concern in liquid cargo barge hose operation. They are: drip pan design, barge header position, hose weight, hose length, employee training & awareness, and dockside cranes & assistance.

Hale Propeller’s latest Propeller Measurement Recording Instrument (MRI) operates within the Windows 98 environment, and provides sophisticated 3-D propeller analysis (Isolated; Local and Mean Pitch; Axial, Angular Deviation; Blade Area; Rake; and Blade Contour) in about five minutes. The MRI will be distributed to the marine community through a strategic alliance with Michigan Wheel Corp.