Living is bad for you

The headline on Slate read: "YOUR COMMUTE IS KILLING YOU." Citing an obscure university study in Sweden (in Sweden?!), the two-page, 500-word+ article written by Annie Lowrey can be reduced to this: "Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia." Needless to say, if this was a legal case, Lowrey and her editors would be laughed out of the courtroom. That's how flimsy this piece is. You might as well write about how the mere fact of living is bad for your health. So why publish such obvious dreck? Because it's all about the page views and tv/blog mentions, baby. Hey, I was dumb enough to click on it, read the first couple of paragraphs, shake my head in astonishment (I'm shocked, shocked!), and then write about the story's silliness. So the scheme is obviously working. You're welcome.