A few weeks ago, Slate's Jack Shafer wrote a Press Box column in which he asked Tom Friedman of the New York Times to quit saying that things are "flat." (Gelf seconded the notion.) One of the reasons, certainly, was that Shafer was tired of seeing Friedman using the Times op-ed page to plug his book The World is Flat. Presumably, though, he also thought that writing narrowly makes a columnist boring. But Shafer has fallen into a similar trap. Six of his last eight Press Box columns have concerned reporting about drugs—in particular, crystal meth.

Don't get me wrong. Shafer has provided a service by breaking down and taking apart those articles that seek to build up fear about drugs with little justification. (Though, as Shafer noted at the end of today's column, his zeal to correct meth myths has led to some embarrassing corrections of his own pieces.) But certainly there are better things for him to be doing than examining the use of the phrase "meth-mouth" in the media for several weeks straight. Two weeks ago, Wonkette suggested we should interpret Shafer's articles as a cry for help. Here at Gelf, we predict a new book deal. (The Meth World Is Flat, anyone?)