One word more or less

I found two eye-catching headlines on Yahoo! News this morning. Probably because they were so eye-catching and all.

For the first one, it occurred to me that if an editor had accidentally dropped a word (in this case, "vote"), the headline would have been overly logical and, at the same time, shockingly stupid:
White House discourages Armenian genocide vote

And for the other, I actually thought the inclusion of one specific word ("temple") made the story seem much more interesting than it would have been without it:
63 die, dozens injured in Indian temple stampede

Speaking of India, have you read about this monkey-man crime spree in Delhi? Not kidding: There's even an article about it on the BBC website.

I don't really even have anything funny to say about it, although I think this line from the article speaks for itself: "One theory is that a rogue male monkey is causing the panic."

Job stress

(No, this isn't about me.)

I'm just concerned that the world of international diplomacy is taking its toll on Secretary Clinton. She looks so much older than she did when she was appointed. For comparison, here's her official portrait from early 2009:

And here's a headline and photo from the New York Times website, apparently showing her after her arrival in Chile today:

Also, for someone offering lots of financial aid for disaster relief, she doesn't look especially pleased to be making a difference.

Not so fast

Yesterday, driving through the mind-numbing Los Angeles traffic on the 10 (or the 110 or 101 - Angelenos are nothing if not creative with the numbering of freeways), I spotted a billboard that looked something like this:

Except a lot bigger. And without the drop shadow.

Point is - and I should have thought of this about five months ago - amid all of its, um, "unplanned acceleration" issues lately, wouldn't you think that the geniuses at Toyota would have come up with a slightly less dangerous-sounding tagline by now?

Like, maybe, braking appropriately?

This post written by an increasingly nervous Prius driver.

Up, up and away

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think my not-quite-favorite online news source could have removed the word "apparent" from the phrase "apparent stowaway" in the headline for this article.

Usually, it's a safe bet the passenger has not bought himself a ticket when he's (1) a passenger on a cargo jet and (2) trying to fly in the wheel well.

PC squared: Phil Collins and the evolution of politcal correctness

Occasionally - usually while I'm supposed to be doing something productive - I wonder whether we're all way, way, way more politically correct than we were when I was a kid or it's that I've just been listening to Bill Maher too much.

This afternoon, I think I answered my own question, thanks to, of all people, Phil Collins. (Well, Phil Collins and the other guys who were in Genesis after Peter Gabriel left.)


Mike, Phil and Tony in matching sombreros.

And I'm pretty sure my answer is, that, Yes, PC has reached levels we couldn't have imagined in 1983, which is the year Genesis released a song called Illegal Alien. Because today, it's equally impossible to imagine a Top 40 music act recording a song and appearing in a video, complete with sombreros and tequila and vaguely Mexican facial hair, like this one. Or, if they did those things, not getting absolutely slammed for it.

A slightly related thought: I wonder if California could find a way to use this song as a PSA.

Easy answer

Joanne Herring: Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?
Charlie Wilson: Well, tradition mostly.

- portrayed by Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks

Charlie Wilson's War, 2007

R.I.P., Congressman Charlie Wilson (1933-2010).

If eating you is wrong, I don't want to be right

Perhaps I have a very very very very subtle death wish. But any time I see a list of "worst foods" or "unhealthiest meals" or "snacks that will kill you dead as soon as you take your first bite," I immediately want to eat most of the foods on that list.

When I saw the latest such countdown of the worst artery-clogging, blood-pressure-spiking cuisine, courtesy of Yahoo! and Men's Health, I also felt a sense of pride. Because I'm pretty sure that during my 13 years in Chicago, I ate about 794 Jimmy John's Italian Night Club subs (oh, the bread!), also known as Number 8 on the list.

So, let's see: 794 sandwiches* times 2,165 grams of sodium means I might have consumed something north of 1.7 million grams of sodium during that part of my life. That sense of pride has just ballooned. Kind of like a cardiac catheter.


* It's possible it was somewhat less like, say, 780 sandwiches.