Musings...
11/22/03 - Everyone is wading in on the Paris Hilton thing, so I'll take a quarter's worth of verbal discourse on that subject. I read where she is at once embarrassed about the public showing of her in a very private video, and on the other hand thinks it could be a boost for her career. She may think she is trapped into following the latter path. It doesn't have to be that way. There is precedent for being embarrassed by something like this, and recovering in a dignifying way. The role model for Paris Hilton could be Vanessa Williams. Everyone knows the story of this former Miss America who was stripped of her crown after nude photos of her were published. But then, instead of exploiting that tarnish of her reputation, she went to work and became a heroic figure... a role model. She would not let an incident define her in a way she did not accept. I think the choice for Paris Hilton right now is whether or not she wants to have 15 minutes of leering fame, or a lifetime of self-satisfaction....
11/09/03 - O.K...if you are squeamish, or too proper for biology, press eject NOW..... If you are still reading, consider this. If stool is made up of mainly microorganisms such as beneficial bacteria and the like, where do those little live things get their nutrition? Are they stealing our food? Is the reason people get fat is because they take too many antibiotics and kill off their little krill-like things and therefore do not have help getting rid of excess food intake? This is going to bother me until someone provides an answer. An illustration would be better, because as someone once said, "a picture is worth a thousand words". Plus, pictures are words that can be read in any language.
11/04/03 - The BBC Online website pointed to a section that is asking for ideas on how to live better. So, I solved the obesity epidemic for them. I went back to something I wrote doun 4, maybe 6 years ago. It was a suggestion for a fat tax. My idea then was to check everyone's body fat index, and charge them a higher tax rate... to allow for the burden they presented to society. The old stick incentive. I now realize that the carrot approach is much better. So, to reverse obesity, allow for a hefty tax break for anyone who falls into a healthy body fat parameter. The burden of proof would be on the individual applying for the tax break. And to get children involved, allow for a "combined family body fat tax incentive" under the same guidelines. I'm tellin' ya' the family that fasts together... etc. etc. and so on.
Sure, there are wealthy people who would find some loophole, like getting a doctor to call it cellulite instead of fat. But others, like the Letterman family for example, would earn their tax break the old fashioned way...liposuction. And speaking of Letterman, there is this selected short reel that keeps running in my "theatre of mind." It involves a dispute between Dave and Paul (Schaffer) over the use of a term...firmament I think it was. Anyway, Paul's very logical use of the word was sort of upheld by one dictionary, but then Dave's usage was validated by one of the more respected references. And when Paul asked to revisit his validation source, Dave said there just wasn't time because they had guests arriving and people to meet and bring on stage. Whereupon, with perfect timing, Paul turned aside and began busying himself around his work area while muttering something like "then I'll mix some drinks..." That, to me, was the most hilarious and spontaneous moment on television since the old Johnny Carson shows. When the little Letterman grows up and he or she (I haven't heard if it's a boy or girl, so from here on I will refer to the child as "yt")...yt, will probably pitch a DVD of the best of Dad's old "Late Night with David Letterman" shows. I hope yt will include the scene I've just referred to...I don't have Tivo so I do not otherwise have a copy. But that's alright...I can wait another 20 years or so. It will still be funny then. Who knows, maybe yt will be funny, too.
11/02/03 - I was just wondering what happened to the geomagnetic storms? I know they probably aren't done yet, but I fully expected more havoc than I've seen with the naked eye (naked, as opposed to one with a patch???). So I'm wondering, maybe the havoc was left unwreaked because the first big cloud that hit us head-on was aligned with the earth's polarity, thus reinforcing our own magnetic field. Then, when the next one hit shortly afterwards--the one with a supposedly devastating opposite polarity--the extra forces cancelled each other out, and things will soon revert back to semi-normal? Bet there's been lots of sparkin' goin' on up where atmosphere and space meet. But, since static electricity is sometimes an air cleaner, I wonder if maybe things aren't getting reset to where they were before we started literally...messing Up? Wouldn't that be great? If that does happen, we'd better not go back to doing that again. Sorta like a guy I knew who smoked and needed a lung transplant. He stopped smoking so he could get one. Then, after he started feeling better, he went back to smoking thinking he had lots of years before he would need another lung transplant. He's dead now.
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