Entries in "Current Events"

GOTD (Gross-out of the Day)

Weekend Project: Pepto Bismol ice cream

Comments from the Peanut Gallery 2

Apologies that some of this is old. I'm still catching up post-viewbook.

I was struck by this article in the NYT is about the cost insurance companies stalling when it comes to paying heath care providers.

Tardiness or refusal to pay what doctors consider legitimate medical claims may add as much as 15 to 20 percent in overhead costs for physicians, forcing them to pursue those claims or pass along the costs to other patients, according to Jack Lewin, a family doctor who is chief executive of the California Medical Association, a professional group of 35,000 physicians.

Politician are always talking about torte reform and malpractice insurance costs--but this seems like just as large of a problem. Then again, our politicians are currently all hot and bothered about flag burning (don't think I've ever seen one) so their view of what's important is obviously astigmatic.

While I think this questionaire was probably a bit too edgy for high school, it would seem the people kicking up a fuss SOooo missed the point.

So now Jeb Bush wants ninth graders declare majors. Oy! I was barely prepared to declare one at twenty.

Move over lava lamp. Now there's a laser pod. Pretty cool! Even more cool is the puzzle floor.

How is it news that the Sci-Fi channel did a black hole movie. Aren't cheesy, outrageous TV movies part of Sci-Fi's raison d'être?

By now you may have heard about the lawsuit against MySpace over a girl that was sexually assaulted by a guy she met on the site. Since when do parents let their 14-year-olds go out with guys they don't know? While the assault was terrible, there was a lot of communication taking place between the girl and the perp outside MySpace, lots of opportunities for the parents to be asking their daughter questions.

Apparently, MySpace related crime swings both ways. Witness this story about a man who was misled by two girls and then robbed at gun point.

"The Fantasticks" is Fantastic

Last night I went to see the preview of The Fantasticks at Willoughby Fine Arts Association and it was really great. And I'm not just saying that because Jon Erik is in it.

It was very funny, a little bitter sweet. The two young men in the production (tenors) were obviously scraping the bottom of their ranges in their baritone-ish roles, but their diction was crisp enough to carry the lyrics. Otherwise the singing was great -- clear, perfectly tuned. I was particularly impressed with the female lead. The part calls for a very agile soprano -- someone with classical training as oppossed to a Broadway belt -- and she definitely had it.

The cast was mostly local veteran actors, who were able to add depth to their characters. The players were particularly funny, with stage personas on top of well developed actor-characters. Of course the one not-so-veteran is Jon Erik. (Love you honey!) He's in no danger of overplaying his part with grandios gestures, but it's a solid performance, he moves well, and it shows a great deal of growth in his acting abilities.

I've always thought that The Fantasticks is self-conciously theatric as written, but this production played that up. Improvised bumbling in the dark before and after each act reminded the audience that the ensemble was creating a scene. The musicians, visibly positioned behind the main platform on the set instead of in the pit, were a reminder of artifice of music theatre. The Mute sprinked glitter rain and paper snow. The spare set consisted of a multilevel platform, a few boxes, a stool, two leafless trees and a big steamer trunk from which props and people were produced.

A kid in the audience was overheard saying, "I think there are stairs inside that box." Yeah, you know it's Brechtian when a grade-schooler is pointing out the mechanics of the show.

P.S. For any of you planning on seeing it, I will be attending the performances on Sunday 6/11, Saturday 6/17, and Saturday 6/24.

How did I miss this?

How did I miss that there's a legal LSD-strength herbal hallucinogenic?

Can't. Control. Mouth.

I think that this news article in Crain's is by far the most... uh... interesting... that I've seen about the Hundert broo-ha-ha. Bully for Maya R. Payne and Shannon Mortland for getting those quotes from Krauss and Gordon. I particularly like the image of Krauss commenting from the Carribean. (Palm trees swaying the background?) I know, I know, he's there for a workshop. It's still a great image--perhaps better than him in his office easy chair, cardboard Spock and Captain Kirk and inflatible Scream guy backing him up, when WKYC interviewed him about the vote.

Hey. Is this the kind of blog posting that gets people fired?

Comments from the Peanut Gallery 1

I have subscribed to too many feeds in Bloglines. Way too many feeds. But how to pare them down -- that's the question.

I frequently think of getting rid of BBC -- it doesn't often tell my something I haven't already learned from the NYTimes. But, oh those unique tidbits I get from BBC! Who else is going to tell me that drug smugglers are using puppies as mules, or that US customs found a human voodoo head in luggage inbound from Haiti. Severed human heads are "hazardous material" -- who knew?

Need a reason to take your multivitamins? Fruits, Veggies Not as Nutritious As When Truman Was President

Need a reason to distrust congress more? Congress caught making false entries in Wikipedia. Maybe the solution is to make your congressional representatives responsible for a wiki, since buy[ing] your DRM-loving senator an iPod has been found to reverse thier opionions of DRM.

If this guy ever gets his underwater environment up and running, I think I'd like to visit.

Case recently hosted David Callahan, author of Cheating Culture, to speak for Integrity Week. Plaigery, just one of the many types of cheating that Callahan discussed, is a topic that now has its own academic journal. What a sad sign of the times.

And now for something completely different...

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Ball Lightening

The Internet is a weird virtual place.

Recently, I stumbled across a news of the first ball lightening generator.

My fascination with ball lightening, which you can make, derives from the fact that my grandmother was struck by ball lightening. Although so dispute the existence of ball lightening, I tend to belive. After all there were scorch marks on Gram's floor where the ball lightening grounded through her.

Cool Cat

I always suspected that the Dalai Lama is a cat man. After all, he's one cool cat. Now we have proof.

Links

In no particular order...

• Spontaneous Combustion Explained - I knew there was a perfectly logical explanation.
• Build a Marshmallow Gun - Ah the possibilities!
• Oklahoma 71-year-old wins homecoming crown - So there's still hope for me?
• Gay penguin goes straight - Say it ain't so!
• Condoms urge 'protect valuables' - That's one way of putting it.
• Dog shoots man - I've always said that it wasn't fair that humans get the unfair advantage of guns.

Katrina - Good, Bad, Ugly

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of today's news reading.

Good:
From Talk Radio to All Katrina - I like it when companies think about the common good before money.

Bad:
FEMA to Mac, Linux users: drop dead - 1. And our government sued Microsoft for monopoly. Hmmm. 2. That's just lazy web design.

Ugly:
Barbara Bush: things going 'Very Well' for poor NOLA evacuees - Now we know where Dubya gets it.

Well, when you put it that way...

The Dead-enders Club: Thirty-four percent of Americans believe in UFOs. Twenty-four percent believe in witches. And in the new AP-Ipsos Poll out today, 20 percent of Americans say they "approve strongly" of the way the Bush administration is handling the war in Iraq.

What an Onion

If Jonathan Swift were alive today, I think he would be writing for The Onion.

... The Intelligent Falling (IF) Theory

What is a Moderate?

Matt on the definition of a moderate.

Christianity, not just for republicans anymore

Check this out.
Christian Alliance for Progress
Nuff said.

Go Librarians! *Wuff*Wuff*Wuff*Wuff*

It's not often that librarians score a political victory, so I feel obliged to cheer them on now that the House has blooked the Patriot Act provision that allowed surveillance of library records.

Unfortunately, this morning's news consumption was a good-news-bad-news thing, as I heard on NPR that photographers are being questioned and sometimes detained by police who think it's now illegal to photograph bridges, public buildings, infrastructure, etc. (It's not.)

Oy!

I hope they don't discover any of the pictures of me and my sister with the Golden Gate bridge in the background from a decade ago.