Good thing I'm eating mostly raw & vegan these days...

Um, well, you see, I have been a mostly vegetarian with occasional visits to piscatarianism (fish) for eighteen years now. Lately I've been eating mostly vegan and raw, for digestive health reasons.

And this story from the AP makes me never want to buy farm factory eggs ever again:

Video show chicks ground alive at egg hatchery

E-gads!

This Week in WTF - Gainesville Mayor Arrested for Nudity

Hooray for Wonkette for providing this link:

http://old.accessnorthga.com/banners/officialdocuments/Musselwhite.incrept.pdf

This is the best police report in the history of the world. Former Gainesville Georgia Mayor Mark Musselwhite was arrested for nudity. He was drunk and camping. Oh my giddy gumdrops. As I noted in my comments on the Wonkette, this makes me wanna go camping in Georgia real real bad.

Best line: "[I] ASKED HIM IF HE'D DO THAT AT WALMART HE SAID NO HE WOULDN'T."

The Business of Health

I'm horrified and forlorn as I listen to this story on Fresh Air about how health care providers over-order too many things, tell patients to schedule an appointment rather than follow up calls because they make money off of visits and other despairing things occurring around the nation...

Listen to the interview with Dr. Atul Gawande, doctor and Boston's Brigham and Women's (down the street from where I live) and staff writer for The New Yorker (very far away from where I live):
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105483669

I heard another story the other day of a Massachusetts task force declaring that we need to completely overhaul the health care model by shifting the focus from healing the sick to maintaining the health of the healthy. The incentive gets shifted to wellness and maintaining it, rather than patching up the sick...This is how it is explained on WBUR.org's coverage page:

The idea is to spend less on health care by rewarding doctors for helping patients stay healthy instead of rewarding them delivering unlimited care when patients get sick. If that sounds straightforward, it’s not.

Full story from WBUR is here:

http://www.wbur.org/2009/05/27/health-cost-control

This Week in WTF - porcelain Michelle Obama doll

Someone - the Danbury Mint, in fact - has manufactured a freakishly life-like Michelle Obama porcelin collector's doll. How did I find this? Because Random Ads show up to the right of my Facebook homepage, as they do for you I'm sure, and this was one of them. I clicked out fo morbid curiousity.

And now I'm freaked.

This Week in AWESOME - 500 Plus Pounds of Pot at Costco

"Police seized more than 500 pounds of marijuana when officials broke up a large-scale narcotics delivery" at a Costco parking lot in Danvers.

Seriously.

More info:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/05/five_arrested_5.html

This Week in WTF: Rumsfeld Plays with Page Maker & the Bible

In the first days of the Iraq War, Rumsfeld would bring by the daily briefings himself in person. The covers had photos from the war and quotes from the Bible. Not only is this creepy in the way is smacks of the Crusades, but the covers were done rather poorly and look terribly cheesy. The JUXTAPOSITION (SAT word!) is unnerving: here's a war we went to on a sham, executed awfully poorly in its first years and the guy in charge is fiddling around with PageMaker, or maybe just Paint, and jacking up the steps on his pedometer by bringing it by in person, instead of, say, monitoring the infrastructure of the country we've waged war against.

GQ has the story and the photo slide show of the cover:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret

Oh well! Live and learn*!


*Learn this election cycle, forget it in in 2-3 election cycles and have the political offspring of these cockups back in charge again in a vicious, 1984-like circle of ineptitude.

This Week in WTF - THIEVES!!!!!!!

Thievery! Thiefs! Not fair! ARRRGGGHHHH! Olbermann!!!!!!

Keith Olbermann has taken my idea of "This Week in WTF" and tweaked it for his own sinister purposes and calls it the "WTF Moment".

STEALERS!

I demand at minimum a nod of thanks for the idea. This is bullshisse. I mean, they obv. rd. my blog. So, they totally got the idea from me. Cheeky bastids.

Secrets of the Dead - Michelangelo Revealed

I think because of the upcoming movie, PBS aired a neat-o "Secrets of the Dead" about Michelangelo. Michelangelo was part of a group called "The Spirituali", which also included, and was in fact headed by Reginald Pole. I did not know that Reginald Pole (this is a sorta bullshisse link to the Crazy Catholic entry on Reginald Pole) was actually a progressive Catholic with many more Lutheran ideas than even Henry VIII. In "The Tudors", he just seems like he hates Henry because Henry eschews Catholicism from England. But it looks as if that's artistic license that Tudors writers are taking with history. They don't let the Reginald Pole character have any depth whatsoever, he's just this steadfast against Protestantism.

I went to the PBS "Secrets of the Dead: Michelangleo Revealed" website. There's all kinds of poo-poo from Adamant Catholics, hating on the documentary and throwing in some hatred for Dan Brown and Angels and Demons, too. Then there's someone promoting his website that's anti-Catholic, too. Ha ha. I wrote this:

This comment section is almost as interesting as the program itself! This documentary is prescient for its pairing with the release of “Angels and Demons” and also with The Tudors. It shows a very different Reginald Pole than the one currently portrayed, rather one-dimensionally, in the very fun though not always historically accurate “The Tudors”. The figure that grabbed my attention most was Vittoria Colonna. I love finding out about women who shaped history. And finally, forget the religion stuff you all are arguing about! As a poet, I took exception to one of the commentators saying that the reformist Spirituali did not succeed over the conservatives because they were artists and poets and therefore lacked discipline. Ummm…does the Sistine Chapel look like work that comes from someone who lacks discipline? C’mon, man, give us artsy people some credit here! Thanks for a very provocative and topical show!

Because, honestly, if artsy people really lacked discipline, how would anything ever be created? Weirdo prejudiced facty fact man. Lame-o.

To Click - for Vets

I'm about to go to bed but I wanted to post a link to a website I heard about on Colbert Report tonight.

http://supportyourvet.org/

More on this after I've had time to view the site.

Doom Looms for Boston Globe

Well, um, okay. Here's the thing. If the Globe dies, all we're left with here is the EFFING HERALD owned by wingnut Rupert Poophead. The Herald and it's tabloid 2nd grade reading level spewfest poop all over the 1st amendment by wasting precious trees on their lame crap. If there's only the Herald here, the world will LITERALLY end. Literally.

But also, lots more than just reporters will lose their jobs. The printers, the deliverers, the sales staff, and on and on. That's why the unions are involved with the showdown - those support staff workers' unions have to make major concessions for the papEH to stay afloat. There was already buyouts of reporters & editors, followed by a round of lay-offs. Also.

Me 'n my friends don't read the printed paper so much nowadays - mostly just Sunday. But we go to Boston.com for all our local news: sports, entertainment, politcal, etc. What needs to happen, needed to happen many years ago, is a successful monetization of on-line newspapers. It's the failure of imagination and lack of foresight from company managers that lead to this crap. I hope they hurry up and fix it. I can't live with only the Herald. I can't. I simply can't.

My, my. I had no idea I had such impassioned feelings about The Boston Globe. Look at that. Four paragraphs of drivel, but I still felt compelled to write while this neverending Red Sox Yankees game continues...okay. I'm done now.

What Will the US Do to Free Roxana Saberi?

Alert alert alert: U.S. journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been imprisoned in Iran for months, has just been charged and convicted of espionage & sentenced to 8 years in prison.

The charges are baseless and the State Dept is calling for her immediate release.

At this point, it is not clear what can and will be done to free her.

Keep following the story at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=roxana+saberi

Iran scares the crap out of me. There's chatter amongst the military that once Iraq is done, Iran is next. O God I hope not.

Teabagging Teabagging Teabagging

Phwoar har har har har har! Teabaggin'! The Republicans teabagged each other yesterday! There was some serious teabagging amongst all the Republicans who just love teabagging, especially the guys bringing their teabags with other Republican guys and teabagging for each other as guys with teabags. TEABAG!!!!

Watch Olbermann make, by my count, fifteen innuendos in the first 3 minutes of this segment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#30217426

Then read coverage at Wonkette.
http://wonkette.com/tag/teabagging

Then read a spin off of Wonkette, by regular commenters (way more regular than me) who made their own website for the Teabagging Event of the Century.
http://teablogging.net/

This Week in WTF - Not the Onion

These are the top three stories on RealClearPolitics's page right now. Not the Onion. Not the Daily Show. These are real news stories. How did the world come to this?

-Pirates
-Texas secession
-Ring-wing Homegrown Turrirests

This Week in WTF - More on the Epidemic of Murder Suicides

WTF?

New Orelans, Milton, upstate New York, Michigan, Washington, Phoenix, North Carlina, Santa Clara, Ohio, Los Angeles, and Florida.

If you Google "murder suicide" today, THREE DIFFERENT STORIES come up at once on the newswire, including a mother who shot her 20 year old while they were at a shooting range. The last thing she said was, "I am the anti christ." Then she shot her son in the back of the head before shooting herself.

This is so wrong and so scary. But the worst is, how do you stop it? I mean what action can be taken to prevent people from going on rampages?

People are attributing this to a number of different reason, the number one being the bad economy. I don't know. It's just--I don't know.

Scathing blog post by Robert Reich about Hedge Fun Mngrs

Oh my goodness.

Hedge fun managers made a combined 11.5 BILLION dollars last year. Thanks to, well, you and me, actually. Since we bailed them out. And now, they're going to buy those troubled, oops, I mean "legacy" assets from the banks with the money we gave them. And if it doesn't work out for them, guess who takes on all the risk? You and Me!

Excerpt:

So you and I and other taxpayers have kept these hedge-fund honchos flush enough to be able to reap the bonanza that Geithner now wants to bestow on them for cleaning up the mess they and others on Wall Street made -- a bonanza to be financed by you and me and other taxpayers, who are taking on all the risk.

Full text:

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-you-should-work-for-hedge-fund.html

Don't forget to read the end where Robert Reich slams in Economics Arch Nemisis Larry "The Blob" Summers.

This Week in WTF - Someone Stole Pack!!!!

Mrs Mallard, AKA "Momma Duck" giving me a kiss

Some major a-hole stole Pack, sibling to Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack and Quack, and off-spring of the lovely Mr and Mrs Mallard of 1 Boston Common, Boston MA.

WTF???????

That is, someone stole the second to last bronze duckling statue of the "Make Way for Ducklings" tribute in Boston Common.

I feel so violated. It's like someone crushed Oscar's trash can or stole Mr Roger's car. (That actually did happen, but the person returned it and left a note, "Sorry! We didn't know this was yours!" I heard it on "Wait, Wait! Don't tell me!")

If you have any information about the whereabouts of Pack, please,as the Boston Globe says, call the District A-1 detectives at 617-343-4248. People can also leave anonymous information by calling CrimeStoppers at 1 (800) 494-TIPS or texting the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

This Week in WTF: Nightmare in Milton, MA

Sometimes the WTF stories I post here are the funny kind, but this disturbing story is not of that sort. It's awful -- really tragic. And it happened just down the street, relatively speaking.

MILTON, Mass. (March 29) -- A man on a rampage fatally stabbed his 17-year-old sister, decapitated his 5-year-old sister in front of a police officer and then headed toward his 9-year-old sister before officers shot him amid what their chief described as "a killing field."

The perpetrator was 23 year old Kerby Revelus. The prompting of the rampage has not been unveiled, yet.

That poor family...I feel so bad.

More news here.

Call to Action: Letter to Your Legislator regarding Alzheimer's

As I mentioned in my last blog, I wanted to send letters to my legislators regarding Alzheimer's disease research, both for the prevention of the disease and for finding a cure. I have put together a standard letter. Feel free to copy and paste to your heart's content.

If you don't know how to get in touch with your legislators, this page can help you find yours:

http://www.votesmart.org/

Here's the standard letter for you to tinker with:

From:
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________

To:
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________


March 29, 2008


Dear _______________,

I'm writing to you to today in support of the National Alzheimer's Strategic Plan as unveiled to the US Senate Special Committee on Aging on Wednesday, March 25, 2008.

Alzheimer's Disease has affected [add your personal story here -- you can discuss friends or family members you know who are affected by the disease. Share as specifically or generically as you feel comfortable with].

I strongly urge you to take the recommendations as outlined in the Alzheimer's Solution Project, so that we can find a cure for this devastating disease. We need to act now to help as many families as possible.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

_________________

Alzheimer's Disease - Finding a Cure

I heard this on the radio today:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102338572

Synopsis:

O'Connor, Gingrich, Satcher Discuss Alzheimer's

Talk of the Nation, March 25, 2009 · Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Surgeon General David Satcher discuss efforts to combat Alzheimer's disease. They're on a task force studying the disease, which may overwhelm the U.S. health care system as baby boomers age.

Here's the comment that I made on the NPR page:

Fantastic show today. Thanks so much. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but, I'm very appreciative of the politically savvy mind of Mr Gingrich, since we're on the same side on this issue. I'm having dinner with my extended family on Sunday and I would like to bring letters for all of us to sign and send to our legislators. Alzheimers has affected all of us. My great aunt has it right now and my nana died of it in early 2001. I'm looking forward to the update of the page with the links, as promised, during the end of the show.
Thanks again,
Bridge

Gingrich said that if every person who was somehow affected by this disease contacted their legislators about funding research for the prevention of Alzheimer's Disease, then the necessary funding would pass -- no problem. I really find it strange to be praising Newt Gingrich, but what can you do; he's made an excellent argument for the eradication of this disease.

During the show, the panelists talked about the long term costs to families and the government of Alzheimer's. Sandra Day O'Connor said that as our population ages, the amount of people 80 and older with the disease will be 1 of every 2. ONE OF EVERY TWO. Half the population over 80 will have it! Scary. I better hurry up and have kids, else who will change my diapers in 2070? Sorry, "gallows humor".

It's just that my great grandmother had it, my nana had it, my aunt has it, there's no way I'm not going to suffer from this disease (in 40-50 years) unless there's a cure.

So, help me out will yah? Ha ha ha. For real:

http://www.alzstudygroup.org/

What do you think of the name Erasmus?

I like that name a lot but I'm bound to think of Click and Clack's production staff. You know, the head of the working mother's department "Erasmus B. Dragon".

I'm thinking of that name because Erasmus was one of Henry VIII's tutors in childhood. (A tutor of a Tudor! Ha!) Apparently, like his daughter Elizabeth, Henry was "wicked smahhht" as we say around here. No surprise.

He was also very cunning. He is, of course, a Cancer (June 28). According to my Birthday Book, "cunning" is a trait amongst cancers. However, if our cunning goes unchecked, or we are aware of how persuasive we can be, very bad things can happen. I think Ann Boleyn would agree. And the Catholic church. And Katherine of Aragon. And Bloody Mary.

Erasmus's sobriquet (my new word of the day...) was "Prince of Humanists". He took the middle road between the Protestants and conservative Catholics, pissing off both ends of the spectrum. Free will vs Predestination. To put it in 1990s vernacular: Mrs Gump's box o' chocolates or Lt Dan's Plan. (der...) Humanism in the 1500s "described a curriculum comprising grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied via classical authors. Humanists mostly believed that, although God created the universe, it was humans that had developed and industrialized it. Beauty, a popular topic, was held to represent a deep inner virtue and value, and an essential element in the path towards God." This quote's from Wikipedia, so i'll have to do some further investigating intot he topc but it rings true from other things I've read.

Anyway, that's what I've thought about as a result of reading that Weir book I blogged about yesterday. More later...