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May 31, 2006
A Painful Death at Peaceful Acres
Just finished reading a Raymond Chandler novel, then stumbled across a news story about a fatal fire that reads as hard boiled as any of Chandler's prose.
"Jameson's body was found, one arm outstretched, just inside the door of his trailer in Peaceful Acres Mobile Home Park.
"On the ground near his body was a litter of empty crushed and blackened beer cans.
" 'He fell asleep on the sofa and woke up a little too late," Whitten said."
For the record, Bill Jameson's final word appears to have been goddamn. Which seems remarkably restrained under the circumstances. So much for Peaceful Acres.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:45 PM | Comments (0)
Stupid Soccer Tricks
These are trying times for some Swedish feminists. The national soccer team has passed on the idea of publicly protesting the extra prostitutes (or sex slaves as the case may be) imported into Germany for the World Cup competition; women bosses in private and publicly traded companies has dropped from 32 percent in 2004 to 25 percent today (sorry, it's in Swedish); and the World Cup team from Paraguay is angling for babes.
That last item isn't such a big deal. But it is amusing that one soccer player's lame attempt to score with a Swedish photographer was the top headline of a Swedish paper this morning (thanks for the English translation, DN). It seems that a player from Paraguay was smitten with a female photographer for Dagens Nyheter (the Daily News). She is part of a reporting team that briefly interviewed some team members and then covered a game between Denmark and Paraguay.
According to today's paper, FIFA, the international soccer organization that runs the World Cup, employs "team liaison officers" to help national teams with various tasks, including translating media interviews. After the Denmark-Paraguay match, Paraguay's liaison officer, Manuel Hoffmann, reportedly called the DN photographer at 1 am to say a soccer player wanted to meet her immediately "to get to know her a little better" (translation is mine).
This strikingly original line failed to work any magic for the player involved (although DN managed to squeeze out a fair number of column inches about it). The photographer went back to sleep but wondered the next day (along with her fellow reporter and at least one editor) why the hell an official FIFA employee would help a soccer player chase women. The liaison officer refused to comment on the record but supposedly told one reporter that it was hard to say no to a player when a whole gang of guys were standing around. (Maybe it seemed easier to dial than face a beating with a cleated shoe.)
In the Swedish article DN helpfully points out that players are supposed to behave "for the good of the game" and that FIFA's Article 7 bans gender discrimination (although it's unclear to me how this qualifies as gender discrimination).
It also mentions that two Chilean players got shipped home after a training match against Ireland because women visited their rooms after the match. Guess the Paraguayan player is damn lucky the photographer turned him down instead of going to his room with a camera and a tape recorder.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2006
No Wonder They're Depressed
According to "Good Mood Food," an article from Science Now (subscribers only), "A team of researchers led by neurobiologist William Carlezon at Harvard's McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, studied how omega-3 fatty acids and uridine affect the behavior of rats using a standard depression test. (I'm trying to imagine just how this standard depression test for rats was developed but no matter--if I faced this treatment, I'd be depressed too.)
"Rats forced to swim in chilled water with no way to escape will normally become hopeless and float motionlessly. But when treated with prescription antidepressants, rats remain active longer, searching for an escape."
Apparently the poor rats who got high levels of Omega-3 oil in their diets also "stayed active and focused on escape." If I understand the research, that means we should be scarfing down copious amounts of salmon, herring and walnuts just in case we fall overboard during a cruise in icy waters.
That is the point, right?
Posted by Deborah Branscum at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2006
Older Americans Month
Only eight more days to celebrate Older Americans Month, apparently a U.S. tradition since 1963. I've developed a keen interest in all things oldster-related, probably because I turn 50 this year, but this particular bit of presidential pandering is completely new to me.
You must be asking yourself, what would Older Americans Month be without a theme? Greatly diminished, that's obvious. 1993's late and lame observation had no theme at all. But this year, I'm happy to report, we celebrate "Choices for Independence" and only cynical wisecrackers would read too much into the press release's loving description of The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, Medicare Part D.
Catchy motifs from the past include "Aging: An Experience for a Lifetime" and "Aging: A Lifetime Opportunity," so maybe the theme-building gig finally got outsourced. I can't predict future themes but given how few people have big bankrolls for retirement, I can think of a few themes that might resonate, including "Aging: Makes Dealth Look Good" and "Cat Food: Tastier Than It Looks."
Posted by Deborah Branscum at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2006
Magazine Death Pool
"Book your reservations on the River Styx now! Place your bets on what The Grim Reaper believes will be one of the richer passengers to cross over a few years from now. I have to admit that I am having one of my boatsmiths constructing a special gold-plated monogrammed vessel for the future Conde Nast business title." The principal over at the Magazine Death Pool has many things to say about the upcoming "Vanity Fair of business," none of them favorable.
"The Reaper knows there'll be a BIG party when it launches. And the Reaper knows that the cover will be plastered in the NY Post and other places. They will be diving headfirst into a shaky category that is experiencing its bumps -- even Forbes has quietly put itself up for an investor's stake.
"The Reaper knows that there'll be a big ad campaign to launch it and there'll be millions spent to promote the first two issues. The Reaper knows there'll be plenty of advertising in the first two or three issues from marketers who just want to ride the initial buzz wagon.
..."The Reaper knows that after the bloom is off the rose, people are going to wonder if another flashy business magazine is necessary. Will their target readers actually buy it from the newsstand once it hits issue three or four... or will the love affair die, like it did with Cargo?"
Magazine Death Pool is a good reminder that technology companies aren't the only ventures that go belly up with alarming frequency. My injured arms prevented me from clicking through the whole damn photo gallery but I didn't see mention of the last two mags I wrote for, Absolute New York (which won a photo award recently) and CMO, which went belly up within a few months of each other. (The editors at both magazines were a joy to work for and I miss them all. Sniff. CMO does live on as a website and who knows, it may return.) Other late, lamented mags were there, including FamilyPC, Yahoo Internet Life, the Industry Standard and Upside.
And now I understand why the bookstores I visited in New York last month were out of Budget Living. Oops!
Posted by Deborah Branscum at 07:10 PM | Comments (0)