Random Thinking

My Brother with Down syndrome spreads kindness by Melissa Hart

My brother’s currency is kindness, and he offers it like a philanthropist: handshakes, hugs and laughter. Everywhere he goes, people greet him by name. “It’s like he’s Brad Pitt,” my mother says. “How does he know so many people?”

Technorati Tags: down syndrome

Your car isn’t inspected and you get a ticket, so what do you do? If you are like most people, you simply pay your $35 fine and move on. But Robert Eberth isn’t “most people”. Eberth wasn’t using his Ford Taurus because he was saving it for his son when he got his license so he had parked the car in a private lot of the apartment building where he lived. Eberth got a ticket anyway and decided to fight it. But it wasn’t an ordinary fight and Eberth had to go through six years of court cases before he finally won his case. Read about one man’s fight to prove a law wrong – A Ticket On a Taurus Grows Into Much More.

Yes, this really happened.. a plane crashed into a tree next to a sign for a flight school right outside of Colorado Springs. It might look like a setup but on December 7th, a pilot practicing take-offs and landings lost power and crashed into a tree. The pilot was alone and had only a few minor scratches. No word on whether he passed the flight test. But he did make an amusing photograph.

Tuttle is in heat. She is seven months old and we were supposed to take her in to get her fixed last month but with Michel’s dad being sick and with the holidays the cat got pushed to the low priority list. That was a mistake. The poor thing is howling and sticking her butt up in the air almost constantly. She really really wants a boyfriend. I have never seen a female cat in heat before and it really is a pitiful thing. I suggested to Michel that maybe they sell kitty vibrators at the pet store but she didn’t think that was likely. It would probably have to be a pet store in the Village anyway. So we are waiting for the results of her blood and urine tests and if everything looks OK she will be fixed (why isn’t it called “being broken”?) tomorrow. Then the poor little thing can get some rest.

Update: Tuttle is going to the vet tomorrow to get spayed but she was much calmer yesterday.� I think she is back to her normal self.��

Royal Nepal Airlines has started an ad campaign to promote tourism in Nepal. And what better way to promote travel to Nepal than to show a picture of Peru in your ads. After all one mountainous ruin looks just like any other, right? Ummm… but then why go to Nepal to see their mountains and ruins?

Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be a mistake and the airline offered an apology to Peru for showing the famous Machu Picchu in their ad campaign.

In related news, Royal Nepal Airlines sent apologies to France, Great Britain, and Egypt for the accidental use of their icons in the “Have you seen Nepal?” ad campaign.

Via Daily Kos:

Apparently, the National Review believes that the reason things aren’t going well in Iraq is because our troops are lazy and drink too much designer coffee:

Note that an increase in embeds doesn’t necessarily require an increase in overall troop strength. We’ve got lots of soldiers sitting on megabases all over Iraq. They should be out and about, some of them embedded, others just moving around, tracking the terrorists, hunting them down. I don’t know how many guys and gals are sitting in air-conditioned quarters and drinking designer coffee, but it�s a substantial number. Enough of that.

Michael Ledeen, the author of this nonsense, wants us to invade Syria and Iran also.

If we do not tackle Syria, we will simply provide the terrorists with more targets. If we do go after them, we may yet win this thing. As luck would have it, this is the ideal moment to go after the Iranians, since their supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is either dead or dying, and a vicious internal power struggle is under way in Tehran. (my emphasis)

I would bet that he doesn’t have any children in the military.

This blame the troops garbage fits in perfectly well with White House spokesman Tony Snow’s statement yesterday that the infamous Mission Accomplished banner was the fault of the sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln…

You know that the mission accomplished banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the president, on that very speech, said just the opposite, didn�t he?

Put up? Well, yes, Donald Rumsfeld did not climb up onto the island of the aircraft carrier and put up the sign. But the previous White House spokesman Scott McClellan admitted that the banner was produced by the White House.

And now our president will send more troops to Vietnam Iraq to try to justify his failed policies. Because the vote in November that threw the Republicans out of power was because the American voters wanted more of their fellow Americans sent to fight a war we can not win. I am old enough to remember Vietnam. And the president is old enough too.

Technorati Tags: Daily Kos, Iraq, Stupid Conservatives

Motorola just bought Symbol.

November 2006:

January 2007:

A year ago, I was blogging about a blizzard. This year we are having warm temperatures… warmer than Phoenix! Although the NY Post predicted 69 degrees (left) for Saturday, we actually reached 72. I used the opportunity to clean up the yard a little bit (all those leaves from my neighbor’s trees) and open the windows to let some fresh air in. It is still unseasonably warm but it has cooled down quite a bit since Saturday.

According to the news, we have broken the record for the latest point in the season without a measurable amount of snow. That was on January 4th. It looks like we are going to smash the record because there is no snow in the forecast for the next ten days. In fact, the forecast predicts temps back into the 60′s early next week.

The weather experts tell us that this in not because of global warming but because of El Ni�o. This is also the reason that we have been seeing huge snowstorms out west. Whatever the reason, I am enjoying the warm weather but I am sorry for all the skiers. As a former skier, I can tell you that skiing on man-made snow is OK, but nothing beats the real stuff!

Tags: weather, snow

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco

I have often joked that I would rather read Umberto Eco’s shopping list than many of the so-called popular novels. In this book, Eco goes to prove me wrong. Eco has written a book that is a struggle to read, not because it is deep, complex, and rich but because it is an utter bore.

The story tells of the case of Yambo, a rare-book dealer living in Milan. Yambo suffers a curious brain injury straight out of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. In his case, he can not recall anything that ever happened to him but he can remember every book he ever read. Curious. But Eco fails to do anything of much interest with this defect. For example, Yambo runs a book studio and has a female assistant. Yambo worries that perhaps he had an affair with her and wonders how she would react. He need not have worried, because like everyone else, she treats him with no mention of the past. Yambo’s wife is perfectly accepting of his condition and Yambo is able to bluff his way through conversations with any friends or acquaintances he meets. The end result is that nothing much happens and the book drones on.

Yambo decides to ride off into the country to visit his childhood home in hopes that something there may trigger his memories. Yambo wonders around and gives us a detailed description of his bowel movements. A lovely snail-shell structure still steaming. I was underwhelmed. Yambo wanders through the house finding secret rooms and reading old books. But none of this seems to go anywhere. In fact, it seems more like an excuse for Eco to discuss (although not in any detail), pre- and post-World War II Italian novels that Eco fondly remembers.

The book does pick up a little towards the final part but by then I just wished the book would end. I cared nothing for the main character of the story and found the whole enterprise an absolute chore to pull myself through. Eco has done much better. If you are a true fan then go ahead and read the book to see that Eco is, indeed, fallible. Otherwise choose one of his other books instead.

Technorati Tags: book reviewing, books, Umberto Eco, Queen Loana

Consumer Reports(CR) recently reported that they did a study on 12 of the most popular car seats and 10 of them failed in their crash tests. The Evenflo Discovery car seat that was tested did not even pass the Federal standard in CR’s test and Consumer Reports has called for a recall.

Evenflo responded with a statement and sent their CEO onto CNN to dispute the results of CR’s testing. The result of the interview was rather amusing. Robert Matteucci came across as more concerned about his companies reputation than concerned about the possible death of the children of his customers. His argument was that he hadn’t seen the protocol used by CR therefore he disputed the validity of CR’s testing! The best part was when he said that his company had not been notified of any of the testing and then Soledad O’Brien of CNN pulled out a copy of an email that had been sent to Evenflo’s Vice President of product integrity.

Matteucci’s performance reminded me of the SNL skit where Dan Akroyd plays a children’s toy manufacturer by the name of Irwin Mainway who manufactures toys such as Bag O’Glass and Pretty Peggy’s Ear Piercing Kit. Mainway keeps insisting that his toys are safe and in any case they are no more dangerous than any other toy. Matteucci expressed no concern that his company’s car seat went flying out of its base and just kept insisting that there must be something wrong with CR’s testing protocol.

Links:

Consumer Reports Article

Consumer Reports Video

Evenflo Response

CNN Video – Interview of Evenflo CEO and Consumer Reports Deputy Editorial Director Kim Kleeman

Technorati Tags: Evenflo, car seats, child safety, Consumer Reports