Sleepless in Midland

What would the church lady do about a dog at a funeral?

This sounds like something from Dana Carvey's old church lady routine.

An 81 year old Swedish dog lover cherished Milo, the loyal family dog that kept him company during his final months on earth. And one of the gentleman's last wishes was for Milo to attend the funeral.

Nope. No dogs allowed. This comes from The Local which goes on to explain that the priest simply would not bend the rules:

“This is primarily because we have people with allergies. If we allow dogs in the church then we’ll be forced to clean up afterwards. That’s a big project for a church from the 1100’s,” ...

Aw, the clean up. If they are stuck in the 1100s maybe they don't allow plastic bags, either.

Via Arbroath.

Globe trotting for the odd story

France -- Sometimes an Apple App can get just a little too personal. No, we aren't talking about spontaneous cell phone pictures of people doing embarrassing things. This one, called "Jew or not Jew," would tell the user whether someone on a list of 3,500 individuals is Jewish.

Anyway, the App was just banned in France due to a possible violation of a law against compiling information about religious affiliation without permission. Link.

Now who would want an App for that anyway, someone besides a Nazi or an Islamic extremist, that is? Well, maybe a New York Democrat, but really, who else?

Sweden -- "Agency forces amputee to prove leg still gone." That's the taunting headline suggesting socialism run amok. But the issue involved handicap parking spots, and it seems that a permit holder in Sweden has to get recertified as a cripple periodically, even amputees. Link.

The handicap parking spots in the U.S. are usually in the best possible locations. However, who among us hasn't seen a healthy looking person with a handicap placard park in one then saunter to the store? But if a person without a placard parks there, look out. It's a $500 fine in Texas. It seems reasonable to require regular recertifications.

Of course the guy's leg didn't grow back, but whether he was ambulatory was a different matter.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

One instinct most humans possess is the desired to be remembered the way we want to be remembered. Few of us can control that memory as well as we would like. And some are remembered in ways that they couldn't have possibly imagined. Take the people in these copper cans, for example.

The substance of the story is that the bodies of people who died in an Oregon insane asylum in and around 1913 and whose bodies weren't claimed were cremated. And their ashes were stored in copper cans.

The psychedelic image below is one of them, taken by a photographer named David Maisel for his book, Library of Dust.

Aunt Sally looked better in her younger days.

Via Mentalfloss.com via MissCellania.com.

Seeing ghosts

Here are some remarkable poll results.

Eerily, 25 per cent of the UK adult population – or around 11m people - have experienced a ghost, according to research by spectre expert Professor Richard Wiseman. ...

In the 1950s, the figure was just seven per cent, rising to 14 per cent in the 1990s and 19 per cent in 2003.

See Quarter of UK has had ‘ghostly encounter’.

The U.S. has got them beat. CBS says a third of Americans believe in ghosts in the poll asking which one of the following do you think is the most likely to actually exist, Ghosts, UFOs, Vampires, Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, none of the above. Ghosts ranked the highest with a third of Americans saying they believe. There's slim hope, though, with 12% selecting "none of the above."

Are ghosts rising. Nah, most likely it's the influence of TV. Popular TV shows about the walking dead probably aren't taken as anything other than fiction. But with the history channel shows about ancient aliens right along side shows about the hilarity of pawn shop management, it's easy to see how some vulnerable viewers might confuse fiction with reality.

Can't find the TV remote or the car keys? Ghosts. Seems like you just filled up the gas tank, but now it's empty again? Ghosts. Took out the trash, but the waste basket is full again already? Those pesky ghosts, there oughta be a law.

Couldn't find their own asp

Lost: 20 inch poisonous cobra in the vicinity of the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo. If found, please notify zoo keeper.

Via AOLnews.com.

There are some things ya just don't wanna lose.

Updated 3/31/11: Found!

Breheny said the zoo is evaluating its protocols to make sure the snake doesn't escape again. Zoo officials hope to reopen the reptile house next week.

A Fearless Woman

Not to be confused with courageous, this woman is fearless, meaning she feels no fear. The reason, according to the BBC, is because she suffered an injury to the amygdala in her brain.

If only there were some way to temporarily neutralize the amygdala in the normal brain. It might be nice to go into a situation that might otherwise be frightening, whether it's flying, giving a speech, or just asking the boss for a raise, and address it without all the baggage fear brings with it. Or as the BBC article suggests, alleviate PTSD.

Or some of us might want to become daredevils. Why should Evil Knievel have all the fun?

Headline writers must really enjoy their work

Headline writers have all the fun.

Poor old George Steinbrenner certainly led an accomplished life for someone with a wooden head.

What's black and white and red all over?

It's the newspaper! Get it? "Red" is actually "read." Huh wha? You heard it in 3rd grade? Yeah, me too.  Kids are so advanced these days they probably tell that joke before they leave the maternity ward.

The new version goes like this: What's black and white and puts you in the red with its 23% annual cost inflation? Once again it's the newspaper.

I was paying a stack of bills yesterday, and there's the bill from the Midland Reporter Telegram for delivery of the morning paper. A year costs a customer $192, up 23% from last year's $156. Dang. But maybe that means it will be 23% better in 2011, even without the weekly TV Times.

For comparison, a subscriber can get the Wall Street Journal delivered for one year and two weeks for $119.08. But it doesn't have TV Times, either.

Death of the Walkman

There was a time in every city's history when the citizens using the sidewalks, parks and bus stops had their ears assaulted by the noise coming from a Ghetto-blaster as it quaked the earth for 30 yards from the epicenter. Those noise makers seemed to be everywhere, and the fellows who carried them liked to make a deep impression on the eardrums of the innocent bystanders they encountered.

Then alone came the Sony Walkman, the music got personalized, and the cities were peaceful again. The Walkman deserved a Nobel Peace Price for the music it provided for the user and the harmony it brought to the busy sidewalks those long years ago.

But the Walkman's time has passed as we learn that it is going out of production -- according to NY1.com.

Ah, but not so fast. Blogs.WSJ.com says it's being outsourced to China. So it's not out with a bang, or even a whimper, but with a squeaky little noise leaking from an earphone.

The descendant of the Walkman is the MP3 player. And the descendant of the Ghetto-blaster is the car with a speaker system that could knock down the walls of Jericho.

A mistake anyone could have made

The morning paper had a notice about an award recently given to Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway. To wit:

Conaway gets award

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy presented Congressman Mike Conaway with the 2010 William H. Van Rensselaer Public Service Award during its annual meeting Tuesday. ...

Conaway, a CPA, has been a vocal opponent to reducing the national debt, the release says. ...

Emphasis added.

The NASBA press release actually said he was:

... a vocal proponent in reducing the national debt.

With so many born again fiscal conservatives among the ranks of Republican Representatives it was an easy mistake to make.

Stewart Doreen, Editor, Midland Reporter-Telegram

Congratulations to Stewart Doreen in his new post as editor at the Midland Reporter-Telegram. I had to look up "editor" to see just what that job might entail, and it's more than just proof reading and spell checking. It's a job at an even higher level than the managing editor job he just vacated.

We don't know whether anyone else was in contention for the editor's job, but Stewart had a a lot going for him. He was the first local news person to recognize the potential of blogging, and he even did some blogging of his own for a while. So from the Sleepless in Midland perspective, Stewart had to be the front runner.

He said he takes the newspaper's role of government watchdog very seriously, and that's an attitude we should all appreciate. A good politician can turn on the charm and sweep lesser newspaper people off their feet. And besides, those politicians are always good story sources. An entity in the business of selling stories wouldn't want to offend a good source. So we want to wish him the strength to resist those temptations.

As watchdogs of the watchdogs, bloggers want to help them get it right. Let's start with those newspaper editorials telling us how to vote. For example, in 2008 they told us to vote for Choc Harris. They took it offline, but here's my reaction from back then. The Constable is still awaiting trial.

More recently they told us to vote to reelect Mike Conaway, because he brings home the pork -- sigh, such a quaint notion from days gone by. It didn't die with Robert Byrd. (That editorial evades the search engines, too.)

Today's editorial (also not online) reluctantly endorses Rick Perry for Texas Governor hoping we've forgotten that the editorial page was in a quagmire of indecision during the Republican Primary when it might have mattered.

But nevermind.  Let's look ahead.  Stewart set the goal for the new job himself -- to be as good as his predecessors: ... it is our goal to live up to the standard of news reporting set by [previous editors]. That's too easy, Stewart. You can be better.

Meanwhile, the roster on page 2 of the newspaper shows some personnel changes with two old hands missing from the list, Ruth and Bob Campbell. Man, that new editor is tough.

Injustice of the day -- Streaker may not get the money

This is so unfair. Here we are in a serious recession, jobless people are in dire straits, and some rich guy offers a million dollar prize from his inherited fortune for someone to steak naked in front of the President Obama with "battlecam.com" written on his body and to shout those same words six times.

So far so good until Juan James Rodriguez stepped up to the plate and performed a million dollar streak at a campaign rally in Philadelphia. So now the guy who issued the challenge, Alki David, seems to be trying to weasel out of paying because he can't confirm whether Obama saw it. Source and excerpt:

We're waiting to hear from the president to see if he, in fact, saw Juan Rodriguez during the streaking challenge.

Mr. David probably got more publicity for his website than he could have bought with his million dollars, but even if he didn't he should honor his offer rather than offering less the full amount.

And what about Obama? Can't he step forward and help out Mr. Rodriguez? Help the little guy, hurt the rich guy, that should be win/win in Obama's world.

How to write an article about a scientific paper

In a paragraph-by-paragraph guide, the article at the link details precisely how website journalists write articles about scientific papers.

Although it's presented as satire, it's a template that must have been used hundreds of time by journalists. See This is a news website article about a scientific paper.

Via Good.is.

Insult to injury -- airline stewardess robbed from sleeping passengers

As if flying isn't a pain in the rear anyway, here's a stewardess who really made the travelers pay.

According to the Mail Online the Air France flight attendant preyed on long haul passengers who had a few drinks, ate a meal, and fell asleep.

Then she went though pockets and purses extracting cash, credit cards, check books, jewelry and anything else of value. But the complaints came in, and crime analysts soon determined that she was the one common factor.

Via Business Insider with the observation: "But at least they get a large meal and drinks -- that hasn't happened stateside since the nineties."

Old slogan: "Air France. One of the best places on earth." New slogan: "Not responsible for loss."

They get more news from Jon Stewart than from newspapers -- facts about college freshmen 2011

Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.

They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.

Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.

See the whole list at Beloit College's Mindset list.

Local newspaper editorial invites Tea Party to step in trap

So I'm reading the morning newspaper¹ and came across an editorial about the local efforts by the city council to hike city taxes -- see it just off to the right -- in which the editorial board tells the Tea Party group to go home and do their homework:

In the long run, the tea party is right in taking the opportunity to debate the tax issue and to decide for themselves whether the tax increase is feasible or not. Citizens should know the pros and cons of the issue before the council places the proposal on the books.

However, like our city officials, they should be prepared to make real suggestions on what should be cut or what services should be eliminated.

As Tea Party groups all over the country have discovered, the news media folks really like to scrutinize them, complain about them, and in this case, tell them what to do.  Can anyone get in on that? If so, here's some more advice to opponents of the city tax hike.

Don't step into the trap the newspaper editorial board and tax hike proponents have laid for you when they invite you to examine the budget and come up with some cuts. The city budget isn't like the federal budget which is packed with obvious pork. For every penny in the 463 page city budget -- almost a half page per employee -- there is someone who will make a very reasonable and logical argument for why they need that penny. They are very good at that, and those proposing the cuts will come across as stingy, mean and uninformed.

In past budget periods the city management simply told the department heads that they had to cut by a certain percent. The resulting cuts had the advantage of having been thought through by the people in charge of implementing them.

If the citizens take the budget apart and replace it with their own and by some miracle it got passed, it would create a potential for backlash from those who would have benefited from the funds that were cut. And I-told-you-we-needed-that-money moments would surely arise.

Last year at a budget hearing an exasperated council member threw up his hands and asked a citizen, "Well, where would you cut?" The citizen responded that the city council members got elected because they were supposed to be able to do the tough job of running a city. If they are as good as advertised, they should be able to come up with solutions.

Footnote-
¹A few years ago a local newspaper columnist apologized to his readers for using the internet to seek information. What a laugh riot that guy was. This time I need to apologize to readers for being such an old fuddy-duddy who reads the local newspaper. It's an old habit, and besides, what else can I do? I can spill my porridge on the paper or drool all over it without worrying about it. Not so with a laptop or e-reader.

Who is the hardest working reporter at the local paper?

Midland Reporter-Telegram readers know the answer to that one. She's everywhere. Go to any public event you might expect to read about in the paper, and there she is. It's Kathleen Thurber. But don't take my word for it. Here are the results of Google searches conducted yesterday for the first six months of the year, from highest to lowest:

Jan 1, 2010–Jul 1, 2010

site:mywesttexas.com "by kathleen thurber" -- About 229 results (0.10 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by ruth campbell" -- About 206 results (0.24 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by bob campbell" -- About 142 results (0.18 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by audrie palmer" -- About 105 results (0.31 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by len hayward" -- About 67 results (0.14 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by mella mcewen" -- About 66 results (0.77 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by georgia temple" -- About 56 results (0.22 seconds)

site:mywesttexas.com "by mary dearen" -- About 31 results (0.37 seconds)

Why do this kind of search? Um, just curious.

Reporter-Telegram's new web look

Yesterday the Midland Reporter-Telegram concluded its annual opinion poll of "favorites" among its readers. And two categories the newspaper itself is sure to win are best newspaper and best local website. There's only one local paper, so that one is a given. There are plenty of local websites, but the paper's website, MyWestTexas.com, is a pretty good local information hub and deserves the votes.

The website recently underwent a major face lift, and the new look has gotten thumbs up from some of the local bloggers, Jeff and Eric in particular. However, Jessica's Well tried to put a finger on the problem, but couldn't quite come out with it.

The old website had six local blog links featured prominently on the front page. Three were permanent fixtures, and three other local blogs rotated with excerpts from their most current posts. I'm sure the other local bloggers appreciated that attention as much as I did. When Sleepless was featured, there were always folks clicking through to see what showed up on these pages, and when my topic happened to be one that locals were very interested in, a flash flood for instance, lots and lots of people clicked through.

Three local blogs held permanent spots on the front page: Jimmy , Newsroom Stew, and one other that I can't remember. Given the number of click-throughs Sleepless got with a rotation of a dozen or so other blogs, I always wondered what percentage of Stew's and Jimmy's site visitors came from the MRT site. It had to be a lot. So now that they, too, are no longer front page items, their visitor rate has probably diminished significantly. They have both gone on blogging hiatus since the change, but that was coincidental.

The Sleepless daily visit rate dropped off by about 15%-20% initially, and scant few come from the MyWestTexas.com back page blog links these days. But the daily number of site visits has bounced back. So people are finding the site, and hopefully, the information they get here is worth their time.

Townnews, which boasts 1,500 customers, is the MyWestTexas site web host utilizing Blox content management system. And glancing at a random selection of the Townnews new launches, MyWestTexas is doing a lot more for local bloggers than other local papers are. So there are no complaints here. Bloggers like me who feed off news are like raccoons waiting at the dumpster for someone to discard some edible trash, and we are in no position to complain.

But there's an alternative. Take a look at this San Antonio Express News article appearing at MySanAntonio.com. The design looks very similar to the TownNews/Blox sites although this one doesn't sport the logo and link. In particular, scroll down to the section that says "From Around the Web." There we see links to articles elsewhere related to the subject of the article. And lo and behold, there's a link to a Sleepless in Midland article. Nice idea.

If the Townnews/Blox setup allows that type linkage without driving up the price, then MyWestTexas.com could headline an article about a politician's granddaughter's local lemonade stand, and a link to a related site could lead to a Jessica's Well article about local economic development. Synergy!

Lover come back

Joe has a broken heart and hopes his wife will come home. And he says so in this advertisement from today's Midland Reporter-Telegram.

 

Did he do her wrong? Did she do him wrong? There's bound to be a heartbreaking story behind this, but we can only read between the lines.

Updated 5/31/10: Eric (The Fireant Gazette) alerted us to Joe's previous plea in the 5/23/10 Midland Reporter-Telegram. See below.

 

M.A.M., take him back.  Please.  He's breaking our hearts.

Want to buy some real estate in Haiti? Think twice.

Saw a slide show the other day of photos taken by a recent visitor to Haiti while on a humanitarian mission. By all accounts, the Haitians are the nicest people one could hope to meet. But the buildings, even the ones that survived the quake, are in sad shape, and the infrastructure is a mess.

It's no secret that the Haitian government is not the greatest in the world, but the legal rights to real property ownership are inadequate to provide a land owner the sense that he/she could build a house or building and not worry about it being taken away. Consequently, many of the houses are homemade from any available material.

Oh sure, the Haitian Constitution says, "No one may be deprived of his legitimate right of ownership other than by a final judgment by a court of ordinary law, except under an agrarian reform." But there's way too much wiggle room for a greedy government. And sure enough, a bungled land redistribution program has left the Haitian people with little of what we would think of as real property rights. In fact, one source gives Haiti a "10", along side Cuba, on a 1 to 100 real property rights index. For perspective, the U.S. and Canada both score 90.

It's something we in the U.S. take for granted. We buy some land, and although federal, state, and local governments have gigabytes of laws, rules, restrictions, and taxes, and some high profile eminent domain cases have put fear in home owners across the nation, at least we have some faith that it probably won't be taken away from us. Compared to Haiti, we've got it pretty good.

Unfortunately, it's the ordinary Haitians who suffer under the system. They are poor and uneducated -- anyone lucky enough to have gotten an education has left. So they really don't have an understanding of what the country needs to steady itself. And when an earthquake hits, the houses come tumbling down.

Oh those killer whales

The killer whale trainer has replaced the lion tamer as the fearless showman/woman of the center ring of the circus, or in this case, the sea circus.

This is a little late, but it's still interesting. Not too long ago news audiences were fixated on the killing of the Seaworld trainer by a killer whale trying to live up to his namesake.

Along comes some important killer whale trivia by the Shark Guys. See Top Seven Killer Whale Attacks.

Shudder.  Let me know when it's safe to go into water again.

So he just ate his winning ticket

Maybe it's a cultural thing. Americans would be less likely to eat it and more likely to tell the airlines where to stick it.

It happened on a Ryanair Airlines trip from Poland to England. The passenger learned that he held the winning scratch off ticket for a €10,000 prize. According to the article, he wanted immediate payment and grew angry when he learned he would have to collect it somewhere else. So he ate the ticket. From the Ryanair press release:

Since this €10,000 prize will now go unclaimed Ryanair and Brand Force, the scratch card company, have decided to offer the cash to charity and have asked Ryanair passengers to vote on www.ryanair.com (until Fri 5th Mar) for which type of charity Ryanair should donate the €10,000 prize to, from the following list:

1. An Anger Management Charity
2. An Eating Disorder Charity
3. A Gamblers Charity
4. A Disruptive Children’s Charity
5. A Mental Health Charity

Apparently they don't expect the man to be a repeat customer.

A tip of the hat goes to sharp eyed Joe Hathaway.

Guy knows how to give a girl a good Valentine -- a half mile wide heart outlined in manure

It happened on a farm near Albert Lea, Minnesota. With a tractor and a manure spreader, Bruce Andersland shaped a heart for Beth, his wife of 37 years.

The Albert Lea Tribune tells all about it.

Beth Andersland: “Now I’ve got my Valentine! That’s pretty cute.”

Nice going, Bruce. You're making the rest of us look like a bunch of chumps!

Via.

Facial recognition for the cell phone camera

This looks like an interesting and user friendly application of facial recognition software. Who says law enforcement should have all the fun?

Gizmodo tells us about it and has a Youtube embed to view it in action. Link.

In theory the application will allow the user to snap a cell phone photo of someone then see where that face shows up in social media sites. (Perhaps that's another reason not to post one's photo in a social media site, but that's an individual preference.)

I'm still holding out for an application like this in my eyeglasses so I would never again forget a face.

Fake news -- they try to fool reporters for fun, profit and politics

The other day we watched TV reports about the poor balloon boy whose daddy hid him away and released a flying saucer balloon to fool reporters into putting the family on TV. "It was for the show," the kid explained, shining a light on poppa's reality show ambition. But the dad had manipulated government services in this fraud, and cops weren't amused.

How hard is it to fool the reporters? It didn't take them too long to figure out the balloon boy hoax, but apparently it's not too hard to get reporters to go along with a hoax.

A Welsh View points us to Starsuckers celebrity hoax dupes tabloids about some documentary makers who searched through tabloids for stories they could prove were false. That grew tiresome, so they decided to create the fake stories themselves.

They called "Got a story?" phone lines that newspapers advertised and gave them false stories about celebrities, stories outlandish enough that the editors should have checked them out, the pranksters alleged. Exerpt:

A story about singer Amy Winehouse's hair catching fire from a faulty fuse spread across the world after it was printed in the Mirror on 21 March under the headline "Amy Winehouse in hair fire drama". The Starsuckers researcher gave the newspaper fictional details of the story, which she said she had "heard" from an unnamed friend who was at the singer's house. //snip//

Atkins defended his project, saying the onus was on the newspaper to corroborate what it publishes. "Had those fake stories been fact-checked by the newspapers before they were printed, they would have realised – I think within minutes – that they were about to publish complete and utter babble."

Sometimes a story is too juicy to check out. And when they relate to flagrant behavior of a boozing celeb, the stories are entirely believable.

But here's where it gets serious. Another victim of fake news was Sarah Palin. The perpetrator of the fake news is now out hawking his book, I Am Martin Eisenstad. Eisenstadt is the pseudonym of the guy who, after the '08 election, conned MSNBC and L.A. Times, among others, into believing he had been a McCain/Palin campaign staffer who had to expose how terrible a person that stupid Sarah Palin was. That it was all fake probably meant little to the people who would later spout lines from Tina Fey and believe they were quoting Sarah Palin.

The huckster's skill is in tricking people into believing something they want to believe. Anyway, for those wanting to read that particular huckster's book, here's a friendly review, and an excerpt:

What’s consistently funny about the book is that for all that Martin Eisenstadt is an obvious parody, there is a striking similarity between his character and demeanor and those of many of the people you routinely encounter in green rooms and cocktail parties around Washington. This time, like the last time, the joke goes both ways. That’s why I intend it as real praise when I say that I Am Martin Eisenstadt is the best fake memoir of the campaign season.

Be on guard, people. There are prevaricators out there.

How to increase newspaper circulation -- cut the price

Bloomberg reports that circulation has been declining in 21 out of 25 of the major newspapers the past six months. One newspaper increased circulation, and three got "N/A." Here's the lead paragraph:

Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. newspaper circulation declines steepened in the six months through September after publishers raised subscription and newsstand prices to help counter an advertising slump.

They raised prices and customers walked. The one exception was the Wall Street Journal about which they said the print-only drop was offset by online subscribers. However, here's a dirty little secret. The WSJ offered pretty good deals to lapsed subscribers.

Confessions of a WSJ reader -- I've been subscribing off and on since college days when the WSJ gave students a free subscription. But the price kept climbing. When my subscription expired this Spring the renewal rate was $441 for a year. Ouch. However, just the other day I got an offer I couldn't refuse -- a renewal rate of just under $120 per year.

So I'm getting the paper again. And it's a good lesson in marketing 101 -- raise the price high enough and lose customers. Lower the price enough and get them back.

Better to hear you with, my dear -- Implanting a third ear

This example of body part augmentation is fascinating in a carnival freak-show way. And yet the potential is very intriguing.

He had a prosthetic ear constructed with polyethylene material and implanted in his forearm. In a second surgery they implanted a microphone and transmitter so that it could actually "hear." Unfortunately, it caused an infection -- after all, it is very experimental -- and they had to remove it a few weeks later. But they aren't giving up. Here's an excerpt from the guy's website:

The final procedure will re-implant a miniature microphone to enable a wireless connection to the Internet, making the ear a remote listening device for people in other places. For example, someone in Venice could listen to what my ear is hearing in Melbourne.

Read all about it, and see -- gasp -- photos here. More at Design Boom.

James Bond, call your office.

Via Flavorwire.

The Samurai home protection system

A burglary spree + one scared resident with Samurai sword = end of burglary spree.

The Samurai home protection plan is more of a deterrent than an alarm system, at least it was for this student in Baltimore . Here's a link to the article, and here's a quote:

The student "was backed up against a corner, and either out of fear or out of panic, he just struck the sword with force," said city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Pontolillo, who rents the off-campus home, nearly severed the man's left hand, inflicting what police called a "spear laceration."

Donald D. Rice of Baltimore, 49, a repeat offender who had been released from jail Saturday, died at the scene.

Guglielmi said the state's attorney's office will decide whether to charge Pontolillo, 20, of Wall, N.J.

John Belushi would have approved.

Via.

A few good men -- the Marine Corps fitness test

If this looks easy then you might be Marine Corps material.

It's the Marine Corps Fitness Test. To score 100% you only have to be able to do three things. First, 20 pullups -- no time limit but let go of the bar and you're done. Finished with that? Next do 100 crunches in two minutes. Finally, run three miles in 18 minutes or under. Congratulations, you are in first class shape.

As for me, just writing about it has left me exhausted. So I'm off to do my favorite exercise which is pressing downward with all my weight in the Lazy Boy while working out the thumb on the TV remote.

Via lifehacker.com.

Mommas don't let your daughters grow up to be waitresses -- the 1920's

This is an article purportedly from the Minnesota Daily Star of 1921 and which appears to be an expose about women working as waitresses. Link and excerpt:

“Do not raise your daughter to be a waitress,” warns Mrs. Donovan, who has come to her startling conclusions after an investigation of conditions that covers nine months. In order to inform herself accurately concerning this subject, Mrs. Donovan says she has worked in restaurants, both cheap and expensive, in hotels and grill rooms, in tea shops and in exclusive clubs. All of these eating places, she says, offer a menace to the girl who works in them.

/cut/

“‘ There’s 20 cents on your table, dearie,’ one of the waitresses told me. I hastened back to pick it up. I thought I had earned it. Under the dimes was the business card of my late customer, with his name, address and telephone number. I wondered why, but I soon learned the meaning of this card left for the waitress."

Well, the roaring '20s had to start somewhere. Next thing you know they'll be Flappers doing the Charleston at Speakeasies.