The child formerly known as Talula

A judge in New Zealand has made a 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that the embarrassing name her parents gave her — “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii” — can be changed:

In his ruling, Murfitt cited a list of the unfortunate names.

Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter “and tragically, Violence,” he said.

No word on what Tula etc.’s new name is, but I do know that happens to be available if the judge is a music fan.

Dust those deck chairs

The news just gets grimmer and grimmer here in buggy whip land:

The New York Times Co. will increase the Monday-Saturday newsstand cost of its flagship paper by 25 cents to $1.50, the publisher said Wednesday.

Times Chief Executive Janet Robinson said the price increase for The New York Times will take effect Aug. 18. The company has already raised home delivery prices for the paper 4.5 percent in two separate hikes since last July. That helped overall circulation revenue rise 2.5 percent in the latest quarter.

Your product is losing money by the truckloads. Fewer and fewer people are buying it, and you keep laying off staff so you are giving the remaining readers less and less. So you raise the price. I’m not an  expert in this area, but that does not seem like the best business model I ever heard of.

Need volunteers: You, you and you

I’ve written here about the the oxymoron “mandatory volunteerism,” and the concept unfortunately just keeps gaining momentum. There is a group called Service Nation with some heavyweights behind it, and, considering their stances on national service, both Obama and McCain would surely endorse its goals:

Service Nation is a 16-month non-partisan grassroots and grass top political campaign intent on pushing the issue of National Service to the forefront of American life and convincing the next President and Congress to put into law a Voluntary National Service Act by September of 2009.

The secondary goal of Service Nation is to set America on a trajectory to become a nation of universal national service by 2020.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think we can get to “universal” national service without a mandatory program — you know, like a draft, but for everyone. Scary.

A tale of two women

I have dismissed the Olympics as anything but the noble competittion of amateurs they are claimed to be. But I’ve gotten caught up in the Dara Torres story. Who wouldn’t? At first, everybody thought it would be a nice nostalgia story, 41-year-old mother, retired from swimming, comes back for one last shot at the Olympics, the old lady might even make the team for a record fifth time. But she started kicking teen swimmers’ butts, and suddenly it’s a very real story of perseverance and achievement.

I have announced rather proudly that I take no notice of those silly reality shows, yet this summer I find myself semi-hooked on “America’s Got Talent.” The atrociousness is more varied — instead of just awful singers, there are awful dancers, awful jugglers, awful comedians and just plain awful people who defy description. And there are the surprising performers who pop up. Last night there was a ventriloquest who actually brought something new to that art form and a guy who made amazing hand shadows. And there was Queen Emily (watch video), the last performer of the evening, who came out and just knocked everybody’s socks off.

Be careful of what you publicly mock, I guess is my point.

PMO

Something I wasn’t aware is available but am not surprised by:

If you demand quality veterinary care for your pets, then you already know that this is not inexpensive. If your pet becomes unexpectedly ill or injured you may find yourself suddenly facing hundreds to thousands of dollars in veterinary bills. Many pet owners have found that pet health insurance can be a convenient way to help cover the costs of routine or emergency treatment for their pets.

My last cat, Pierre, was mostly low maintenance, but when he had a kidney problem, it cost me $1,200 before it was finally taken care of. The load might have been lighter if I’d doled it out a little at a time over the years as “insurance,” but I suspect the bottom line would have been about the same. This seems more like a payment plan — spread out that gas bill instead of having such giant bills in the winter — than real insurance. My in-house survey of Dutch and Maggie revealed a consensus:That’s your worry, don’t bother us with the trivial details.

On the other hand, some people probably can’t even afford pet insurance, not to mention pet therapy. We should probably pay attention to Obama’s and McCain’s plans for this looming national crisis. Somebody at least needs to come up with a Pets Maintenance Organization plan.

Hair today. . .

Dress does are fine, and I think I’ve even written that school uniforms can help create a good learning environment. But messing with a kid’s hair is getting too personal:

A small rural school district in Fort Bend County and a determined mother are tangled in a dispute over hair.

Michelle Betenbaugh says her 5-year-old son, Adriel Arocha, wears his hair long because of religious beliefs tied to his Native American heritage.

But the leaders of the Needville school district have strict rules about long hair on boys and don’t see any reason to make an exception in his case.

The dispute illustrates a problem American schools have faced for decades: how to balance individual student rights against rules designed to maintain order and discipline in the classroom.

Perhaps I empathize with the kid because I’m recalling my Ball State days, when I had luxurious locks that reached my shoulders. Or maybe I’m nostalgic about even more recent times, when I actaully had, you know, hair.

Happy COGD!

Today is Cost of Government Day for 2008:

Working people must toil on average 197 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government.  In other words, the cost of government consumes 53.9 percent of national income.

Cost of Government Day falls four days later in 2008 than last year’s revised date of July 12.  In 2008, the average American will have to work an additional 17 days out of the year to pay off his or her cost of government compared to 2000, when the COGD was June 29. 

In fact, since 1977, COGD has fallen later than July 16 in only four of those 32 years - in 1982 and 1983, and in 1992 and 1993.  The driving factor for this development is the fact that all components of the cost of government – federal spending, state and local spending, and regulation – are now increasing faster than national income.

So, for 168 days of the year, we get to work completely for ourselves! That’s more than five months out of 12! Almost half! And you have the nerve to complain about Big Government.

Snooze it or lose it

You probably haven’t been losing any sleep wondering about this, but in the digital age, a snooze alarm could be any length of time. It’s nine minutes because of the limitations of tehcnology when the alarm was invented:

Alarm clocks in 1956 had standardized gears. The snooze gear needed to mesh with the teeth of the other gears. Due to the configuration of the gears, a 10-minute snooze cycle was out of the question, so the engineers had to choose between nine minutes or 10-plus minutes.

And we live in America, chock-full of that whole Protestant work ethic, so the engineers went with nine minutes. Don’t dare be late for work or you’ll end up a miserable failure.

The nine-minute interval carried into the digital age. Some early digital clock designer probably took a look at an old mechanical clock and decided nine minutes was the standard.

Love my snooze alarm. On work days, I set the alarm for just over an hour before I have to get up — that’s seven snooze alarms. But that means you have to wake up eight times in one morning, say the morning-loving ntwits who like to bound out of bend and tackle the day with zest. But I get to go to sleep seven times in the same morning — that’s the point.

Write it down

A new study suggests that the simple act of keeping a food diary – just writing down what you eat and when — can help you with your diet, even doubling the number of pounds you lose. The reason given for fort the technique’s effectiveness rings true with me:

“Keeping a food diary doesn’t have to be a formal thing. Just the act of scribbling down what you eat on a Post-It note, sending yourself e-mails tallying each meal, or sending yourself a text message will suffice. It’s the process of reflecting on what you eat that helps us become aware of our habits, and hopefully change our behavior,” says Keith Bachman, MD, a Weight Management Initiative member. “Every day I hear patients say they can’t lose weight. This study shows that most people can lose weight if they have the right tools and support. And food journaling in conjunction with a weight management program or class is the ideal combination of tools and support.”

Simply writing things down makes you pay attention to whatever you’re trying to make important. I’ve never had a PDA — I write appointments down in the appropriate square of my wall calendar. If I don’t write it there, the appointment doesn’t exist; if I do, I don’t have to refer to it — I will usually remember it. Back in my reporting days, I usually took too many notes when I interviewed people, writing down single thing they said with a combination of terrible handwriting and made-up-on-the-spot shorthand. Half an hour later, I could barely read it. But the act of writing it all down made me remember what they said with remarkable clarity — I could quote people verbatim without fear of being called up with a demand for a correction.

Post-it-notes, by the way, would make my list of all-time best inventions.

Watts up?

Representatives of Indiana Michigan Power visited with the editorial board yesterday to argue for their proposed rate hike, and I’ve gone into a mini obsessive state over what electricity costs:

1,000 watt-hours is a kilowatt-hour (kWh). For example.

One 100-watt light bulb on for an hour, is 0.1 kWh (100/1000)

One 100-watt light bulb on for ten hours is 1 kWh (1 bulbs x 100W x 10h= 1000Wh = 1 kWh)

Ten 100-watt light bulbs on for an hour, is 1 kWh (10 bulbs x 100W x 1h= 1000Wh = 1 kWh)

Ten 50-watt light bulbs on for an hour, is 0.5 kWh

Ten 100-watt light bulbs on for 1/2 an hour, is 0.5 kWh

Running a 3500-watt air conditioner for an hour is 3.5 kWh.

 Take a moment to understand the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours. The former is the rate of power at any instant. The latter is the amount of energy used A light bulb doesn’t use 60 watts in an hour, it uses 60 watt-hours in an hour.

Electricity now costs the average customer here about 7.2 cents a kilowatt-hour, the I&M representatives told us, and would cost us about 8.7 cents a kilowatt-hour if the increase is approved. I’ve been going around the house and looking at all the lights I leave on when they don’t need to be on — four 100-watters I leave on in the living room, even when I’m at work; a 100-watter in the basement and three 40-watters in the kitchen that are on all the time. It’s relatively easy to do the lightbulb math and calculate what a wastrel I am. If I start trying to figure out what my air conditioning, computers and appliances cost to run, I’ll know I’m really obsessed.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Hey, Pard, hold ’er up there. Better drop that sidearm off at the sheriff’s office afore you go to the saloon. We got us a no-gun zone here. Oh, it’s just a plain old six-shooter? Never mind, then.

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court’s repeal of the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., may be a boon for a segment of the firearms industry whose last major windfall might have been in the heyday of the Dirty Harry movies: those who make and sell revolvers.

 The court ruled that a blanket ban on handguns is unconstitutional, but D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and other Washington officials want to keep in place a prohibition on semiautomatic handguns — those in which a bullet clip is inserted into the gun’s grip.

Such a ban would continue to outlaw 9-mm and other popular pistols that are legal in most other places around the United States. And it would make the classic six-shooter the only legal handgun in the District.

Just won’t give up, will they? Oh, well, I’d still take that matchup. Revolvers feel better in my hand, more natural and comfortable. But I shoot better with the semiautomatics. The point is, though, that I need not be defenseless when someone wants to do me harm. Gun-control zealots are obsessed with rate of fire, but I don’t have to be all that fast. Just readier than the thug thinks I am.

Cheese and whine

This is an abomination:

Sometimes a glass of white wine is not enough. Nor is a beer, an iced tea or a lemonade, though heaven knows few things are better than a tart lemonade in a beaded glass on a hot summer’s day. …

we want red wine. And how are we going to drink this red wine?

That’s right, chilled! Cold, cool, brisk, whatever you want to call it, we are going to enjoy this red wine at a temperature that refreshes, restores and revitalizes even the most exhausted soul.

The only good thing to do with a “light-bodied, low-tannin wine” (the kind said to be best for chilling) is . . . well, there is no good thing to do with such a thing. Simple rule of life: white wine chilled, red wine room temperature. We ate at a Mexican restaurant Saturday night, and the only red wine they had was a burgundy (which is too heavy for this shiraz and cabernet drinker), and they served it ice cold. Ick.

And let the cheese you have with your warm, red wine come to room temperature, too. You’re welcome.

Victory gardens

Everything old is new again:

Many claim that food prices are causing people to dust off their green thumbs, but whatever the reason, gardening is in.

The impact has been felt at seed companies nationwide and at area garden centers.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported in early June that W. Atlee Burpee & Co. had doubled its seed sales this year. The seed company, which started in 1876, has struggled in recent years as modern families moved away from growing their own food.

Growing your own food to stretch the family budget — what a concept. Another reason could have been given — it’s a way to rely less on the increasingly less reliable food distribution system. And every time you pick dinner out of the back yard instead of going to the market — you’re using less gas. Get back to nature! Live simpler! Stick it to the oil man!

Sorry, got a little carried away. My extensive gardening experience has taught me two things: Peas take up more room than they’re worth, and herbs are the most fun things to grow. Even a little window sill herb garden can really punch up the most ordinary dishes.

The change candidate

Be careful that when you go to the polls you don’t end up voting for a third Bush term. That would happen if you elect — no, not John McCain:

We’re beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of “George Bush’s third term.” Maybe he’s worried that someone will notice that he’s the candidate who’s running for it.

Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn’t merely “running to the center.” He’s fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he’s embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush’s policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

What do you know? This is almost Change I Can Believe In.

Just kidding. What if we try for a third George Washington term? I think he’s the last one most of us agree got the job done right.

The coal, hard truth

The best answer to Harry Reid’s energy idiocy:

As pressure builds to develop America’s domestic energy resources, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now says it’s a health issue. Coal and oil, he says, make us sick. So why does he oppose nuclear power?

[. . .]

Let’s face it: Harry Reid and the Democrats want no new domestic coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear power. It’s their energy policy that makes us sick.

And what in the world is he talking about anyway?

For the first time, U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, the government reported Wednesday.

The increase mainly is the result of falling mortality rates in most leading causes of death, health officials said.

Happy too soon

Wait just a second. Isn’t this country going to hell in a handbasket? Hasn’t our own Associated Press told us that Americans are in a mood of dour helplessness because everything seems to be spinning out of control? Then how can this be?

We’re number 16 … in world happiness. Feel the joy. The United States ranks ahead of more than 80 countries, but below 15 others in happiness levels, according to new World Values Survey data released in the July issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

[. . .]

The latest surveys, taken in the United States and in several developing countries, showed increased happiness from 1981 to 2007 in 45 of 52 countries for which substantial time series data was available.

You people just aren’t getting it. You’re supposed to stay gloomy and grim as long as a Republican is in the White House. Then, when Obama takes over, you’re supposed to respond to all the cheery press stories about how good things are. Just wait and be patient, OK?

Keep ‘em out of my back yard

Maybe it’s because I spend so many of my working hours thinking and writing about politics, but my answer would be “neither of them“:

WASHINGTON (AP) — People would rather barbecue burgers with Barack Obama than with John McCain.

While many are still deciding who should be president, by 52 percent to 45 percent they would prefer having Obama than McCain to their summer cookout, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Wednesday.

I wouldn’t mind having dinner or a drink or two with either or both of them. Perhaps in such a social setting, they could loosen up enough to talk about politics on some higher level than Democratic or Republican cant. Maybe they even have an interest or two besides politics (though I rather doubt it). But a barbecue? No way. That’s for people you either know or are at least comfortable enough with to relax in their presence. Those who have had for so long the goal of being president would be so singleminded and focused that I couldn’t imagine a more boring barbecue guest. Bill Clinton would have been an exception, I guess. He’s the only president in my lifetime who didn’t come out of the job looking haggard and beaten down, and you just know he has a million stories to tell.

Boom, boom

Let’s try to enforce these, ‘K?

The Indiana State Police reminds Hoosiers that only persons over the age of 18 may purchase fireworks.
And a person 18 or older must be present when anyone younger than 18 is using or possessing fireworks.

The fireworks have already started in my neighborhood, big-time over the weekened. My cats totally freaked. Can’t wait for the patriotism to get a little quieter.

And stay off my lawn!

Come fly with me

Oh, dude, it’s just so cool. You light up and take a deep toke, and the next thing you know, you are just, man, oh, man, flying:

DENVER (MyFOXColorado.com) - One pro-marijuana group is calling on the government to allow marijuana in smoking lounges at airports across the country.

Cigarette smoking at Denver International Airport and other airports across the country is restricted to smoking lounges.

[. . .]

Denver voters approved a measure that made possession of one ounce or less of marijuana in the city legal. That happened almost three years ago. It was the first city in the nation to pass such a law.

I am being only slightly sarcastic. I don’t mind flying in general — even the landings are OK. But the takeoffs scare the bejesus out of me. It takes me halfway through the flight to get my heart out of my throat.Maybe getting a slight buzz on would be the way to go.

Wait a second, there. There are still airports with “lounges,” in which people can “smoke”? Who knew?

Quality counts

I’ve been remiss lately in my duty to pass along shocking and stunning news from the fascinating world of university research. So here’s a beaut of a study:

Women have not adapted to casual sex, according to a Durham University study.

More than half the women interviewed for the survey said they had negative feelings about one night stands.

Professor Anne Campbell from Durham University said the negative feelings reported by women after one-night stands suggest they are not well adapted to fleeting sexual encounters.

Men are more likely to reproduce and therefore to benefit from numerous short-term partners.

For women, however, quality seems to be more important than quantity.

Men like quickies and one-nighters, in other words, but women want enduring “quality.” So, that’s been the problem! Knowing this could certainly would have saved us a lot of trouble, huh?

Marking the miles

(Today’s quiz: What’s the distance from the Fort Wayne Airport Expressway exit of 1-69 to the I-465 exit in Indianapolis?)

Outside of Fort Wayne, the road I travel on the most is I-69, to visit my sister in Indianapolis once or twice a month. Driving it (as I did this past weekend) gives me an appreciation of one thing Indiana gets right. Some states (such as New York) number their interstate exits consecutively, without regard to any outside factor — Exit 1, Exit 2, Exit 3, etc. But some states (such as Indiana) do it a better way: The exits are numbered according to the mile marker they are at or closest to. So, heading south, you go from Exit 64 (Marion) directly to Exit 59 (Gas City). Heading north, Exit 14 (Fortville) comes immediately after Exit 10 (Noblesville).

If you’re driving on an interstate in New York and see that you’re at, say, Mile Marker 55, all you know is that you’re 55 miles from one end of the highway. (Tip of the day: All interstate mile markers start at the southern or western end of the road; numbers get higher as you go north or east.) But if you see that you’re at a certain mile marker on I-69, you also know what exits you’re near. And if you happen to see an exit, you don’t have to have been paying attention to the mile markers to know how far along the trip you are. This is a tremendous aid to people like me who are cartographically challenged (couldn’t find our you-know-whats with our hands and a flashlight).

Quiz answer: Exit 99 (here) to Exit 0 (there), the perfect 100-mile trip.

No, but hum a few bars

Another one of those silly lists compiled by people with too much time on their hands — 14 songs you should never play in a bar:

There’s nothing worse than having a perfectly good drinking session ruined by a song that either doesn’t belong in a bar, has been crammed down your ears too many times, or just plain sucks.

The three songs that should not be on this list but are — “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Hotel California” and “anything by the Beatles.” But that’s all subjective, which is the whole point of such lists.

I have two strong memories of songs being overplayed in a bar. One is Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.” We played it every time we went into a certain bar in Michigan City. But so did a lot of patrons, and nobody seemed to mind. It was a catchy tune that everybody liked, and it expressed a sentiment that people drinking in bars might like to hear. “Hey, Honey, lay down you money and play your part, but lemme finish this drink first.”

The other was Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” A bunch of us from Fort Hood found it on a juke box in Killeen, Texas, and kept playing it over and over for about three hours straight. The locals (”civilians” is what we called them) were not amused, but the more annoyed they became, the more determined we were to keep playing it. We threw in Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” occasionally to keep them off guard, but they weren’t fooled.

“Stairway to Heaven,” by the way, is one song on the list that definitely belongs there. Even when I hear it on the radio, I have to pull over and make myself calm down. “Sometimes words have two meanings.” Yeah, right, move it along, for God’s sake, my ears are bleeding.

Bad boys

Well, this isn’t exactly a shock:

The bad boys get more girls. You always suspected it was true and now a psychological study backs it up.

Research done by Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University says it’s all to do with the “dark triad” – a trio of otherwise negative characteristics combining the narcissist’s sense of entitlement, the non-clinical psychopath’s high impulsivity and thrill-seeking nature, and the manipulative skills of Machiavellianism.

At high levels, they’ll make a person a social pariah, but a certain amount of each will result in a highly active sex life, says the study.

It goes on to say that, while the girls look to these bad boys for short-term thrills, they realize they aren’t good for long-term commitments. So then they come looking for, well, people like us (I know who reads this blog). Yeah, go ahead, get all that fun out of your system, then settle down and get ready for the long, boring haul. Glad to be of service.

Double shot

Life is good:

Stumped at the café? Go for a mocha.

According to new research, the tasty beverage provides a double-whammy of health benefits: chocolate may slow cancer growth, and java could help you live longer.

I discovered a Starbucks mocha ice cream bar at the market the other day. Awesome. Still waiting for that research on the health benefits of fried food to come in.

Show me the way to go home

For someone with absolutely no sense of direction — if you’re ever lost, just ask me which way to go, then do the opposite — this seems like a pretty silly concern:

For most people — the cab driver, the tourist, the business traveler — the ubiquitous GPS has become a lifeline, giving directions to the nearest bathroom, a pizza joint or the shortest route to the office.

But, just like with spell-checker before it, some experts believe that the guiding device gives less than what it takes away. The price we pay for the convenience, they say, could be our sense of direction.

You can’t lose what you never had. Some machines may have made us dumber — the mentioned spell-checker, the hand-held calculator — but GPS? Don’t think so.