Saturday, December 12, 2009

Time Out, Tiger



Oh Yeah, This Too







Divorced Kid

ARW podcast host Stephen Smith talks with Sasha Aslanian.

She's the producer of Divorced Kid, a Minnesota Public Radio documentary about the 1970s divorce revolution and what it can teach us about how to improve divorce for kids today.


Audio: APM's American Radio Works.

Just the Same

Buck up. Bunky!
Stay in school!
Any swine flu symptoms yet?
Tonight, I'm on the loose
Wooly BullySingle or plural, same word.

RU-27, North Atlantic 1

Rutgers' Transatlantic 'glider'
The 1 for the ocean is a previous attempt that failed, but last April a 6 foot 120 pound robot called RU-27 left the coast of New Jersey with a mission to be the first remote controlled vehicle to traverse the Atlantic Ocean underwater.

IEEE Spectrum Radio’s Ari Daniel Shapiro reports the story of RU-27’s dramatic voyage and recovery.


Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now December 10. Host: Robin Young.

Sugar Daddy Dating

I saw Comedy Central run half hour infomercials back to back in the middle of a Saturday night... Not so much to an audience of established men, but to the same guys who drool at the Girls Gone Wild infomercials with the drunken naked coeds a half hour later...



She'll stay long enough to get a new nose, then dump him & upgrade.

Friday, December 11, 2009

War and Peace Prize

Reaction was largely positive, but never has a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance lecture been more about justifying war.




"C'est la vie."

"Non, mon ami... C'est la guerre."


photobucket.com image by FNR_Thomas

One Saw It Coming

Charlie Pierce writes for The Boston Globe, Esquire and is author of four books; the latest, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, was published in June 2009.

Charlie isn't shy about being on radio. He's been a panelist on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me since the news quiz show's launch in 1998. But on the subject of Tiger Woods, he'd prefer his prescient writing speak for itself.

But Christine Brennan of USA Today will accept questions.

How could one of the world’s greatest sportsmen fall from grace as precipitously as Tiger Woods has?

With reported earnings of over $100 million a year, mostly from endorsements, and with a carefully crafted image as a squeaky clean family man, the recent explosion of accusations about Tiger’s sexual infidelities calls into question the media’s role in idol making and how the story has played out.


Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now. Host: Robin Young.

Golfing great Jack Nicklaus predicts Tiger's future.

All Climate Snowman

For the part of the country without the real stuff...


Paper maiche by Joanna Parker Designs, suggested by Heather Sitarzewski.

E-book Readers a Bad Gift Idea?



Amazon is pushing its Kindle e-book reader as the ideal holiday gift this season. Is it really? Mike Elgan of Computerworld says a coming bigger, better wave of options is worth the wait.


Audio: APM's Future Tense, Host: Jon Gordon.

Cyclo not Psycho

If You're So Smart


Why is your brain shrinking?

If we humans are smarter than other creatures, it's not because our brains are bigger. In fact, the human brain is actually shrinking somewhat as we evolve.

Insert your own joke about younger generations here.


Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Demise

It's disappointing to be a politically aware, passionate progessive.



And yet the most vocal proponents of public option seem calmer.



Polling reveals discontentment, but support for what was abandoned.



New bumper sticker: Mammoth Cave... More than a National Park.

Outfoxed

Jon Stewart mocks Fox & Friends' grasp on facts & figures, then says newsmodel Gretchen Carlson dumbs herself waaaaaaaaay down to connect with an audience which sees intellect as an elitist flaw... Turns out she really doesn't need to look up so much, after all.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down - 12/08/09
www.thedailyshow.com
Full EpisodesPolitical HumorHealth Care Crisis

Read: Wikipedia profile and Huffington Post piling on.

Lego Skeletons


From Legoland.

Eleanor Rigby: Pandemic Victim




Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File.

Holiday Cheer



It took a while to figure out the girls were saying "talk to the moose," but then granddads don't always understand their yelling 8-year olds on first take... Although "talk to the hand" made sense from day one!


Talkin' 'bout my generation.

Reporter’s Revenge


Two years ago, the BBC’s Simon Cox tracked down one of the world’s most notorious spammers.

Then, Cox became part of the story in ways he never imagined.



Audio: BBC, PRI & WGBH's The World, Host: Marco Werman.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Clarification

Elin Woods, married to a famous CheetahElle Woods, Legally BlondeElwood, Bues Brother on a mssion from God

Someone Stole My Paper

Or maybe, everyone did!

In a copy-and-paste Internet world, larceny is a mouse click away and newspaper articles are easy pickins.

A group called the Fair Syndication Consortium has, for the first time, identified just how widespread the problem is.

Editor & Publisher’s Mark Fitzgerald explains.


Audio: WNYC's On The Media Host: Bob Garfield.

Periodic Table

Photo: Anonymous via Makezine blog.
Photo: Anonymous via Makezine blog

Facing Extinction?


Fungus Face imperils brown bats. Bugs could go bonkers!


Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File.

Who's Elin?



Photo Montage from NY Daily News.



Hospital confirms: Woman hospitalized was Elin's mom.

American Golf Pic

Self Definition

I Am What I Yam.

His AlmightinessPopeye, Seaman of Considerable StrengthMulti-colored Vegetable
Draw your own conclusions.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Gassed Up, Ready to Go

Tiger or Cheetah?





T-shirt from Zazzle

Rubik's Cake

Photo: Eden Cakes, Memphis TN
Offered by Eden Cakes of Memphis... Few takers at $622 price!

Want to up the ante?

Rubik's Pentagon
What looks like a Rubik's Pentagon is really a dodekahedron, a geometric solid with 12 pentagonal sides, designed by Marcus Huttler. If you're wondering, it rotates along lines within the stars.

Tan Lines

President Obama refers to House Republican leader John Boehner as a man of color... A color which is not found in the natural world.

Boehner appears to be a patron of tanning salons, which have grown in popularity in the United States. There are 25,000 of them now, attracting some 30 million customers. But doctors suggest they should come with a cancer warning.


Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File.

Life Sentence



Protect the sanctity of marriage? That'll teach those Californicators!

Airborne Plague

The new movie "Up in the Air" seems tailor-made for our recessionary times, with George Clooney playing a corporate grim reaper, flying from vity to city and firing people.

Director Jason Reitman ("Juno") based it on a prescient 2001 satirical novel by Walter Kirn. Reitman and Kirn say the project ended up having more resonance in the real world than either could have anticipated.


Audio: PRI & WNYC's program Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Snob

Down to the dregs before laundry time, the ragman pondered a dull gray day.
A sparrow, sheltered from rain on the walkway by his door, thought "there goes the neighborhood," and flew away.

Powering Down

As the biggest Climate Change summit is soon to take place in Copenhagen, Elizabeth Palmer reports on Swiss family solutions.



The Cheese Factory is all electric, exposed to both high cooling & heating season costs and is located within a 35 year old building without any particular environment friendly upgrades... Average daily consumption per person 7.8 kwH. That's one third less than typical American consumption, but a failure by idealistic Swiss standards.

Tiger's Slow Jam

One Man's Mission

In his book, “Three Cups of Tea, nurse turned humanitarian Greg Mortenson described his experience as a mountaineer who took a wrong turn, ended up being saved by Pakistani villagers and repaid the kindness in a way atypical of the U.S. in central Asia.

His charity group has since established over 130 schools, mostly for girls, in remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the U.S. military is now turning to him to find out how he does it.

Mortenson’s new book is “Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”


Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now. Host: Deborah Becker.

Out Here in the Fields

Emerging Market

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Boogie Chillen

Every year the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress selects 25 recordings to be preserved for all-time. This year's picks include John Lee Hooker's breakthrough song "Boogie Chillen". Blues veteran Charlie Musselwhite and writer Peter Guralnick explain how Hooker's 1948 song left its mark on American music.


Audio: Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen.
Produced by Ben Manilla and Devon Strolovitch.

George Thorogood
One Bourbon, One Scotch,
One Beer
George Thorogood & the Desroyers (1977)

Tiger as Target





Tiger's game is sufferring: His drives are off. He's having trouble with his putz. He's caught in a trap with a bad lie. And his wife is really teed off.

The Confessor


Forbes has called Frank Warren “the most trusted stranger in America.” He’s the founder of PostSecret, an art project that collects anonymous secrets, mailed on postcards from around the world. We speak with him about his new book “PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God.”


Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now. Host: Deborah Becker.


Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me, and gain strength for the sharing. -- Sybok, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)