My Sick Mind

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." - Neil Armstrong The blog is green for Earth Day , which is either today, tomorrow or yesterday depending on when you are reading. That's about all I'm doing, since I don't have any lamps in the place where I can put in those squiggly bulbs. I'm already running low-flow shower heads and my car is a PZEV (Partial Zero-Emissions Vehicle), so I think I'm maxed out. There's a meteor shower on Sunday night. The Lyrid one. 18 per hour, they say. I'm not all that worked-up, unless one of them slips through and hits my car. I know I shouldn't torture myself, but I was tuned into Fox News today, and they had some sort of round-table discussion of the media's coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, and whether or not the TV news got a li...

Believe it or not, I take this blogging thing seriously. It's almost like a job to me. Most days, I get a little stressed because I realize it's getting late and I have nothing to say. Generally, something odd happens that gets me excited about writing. Other times, I get blind-sided by something and I can't help but run to the log-in and throw it up there. That happened today. I get e-mail from Abercrombie & Fitch because I bought a t-shirt from them 5 years ago. I don't regularly shop there because I find that American Eagle Outfitters , Eddie Bauer or Land's End offer better value and sometimes, better quality products. They sent me a catalog link today, and I started browsing around. I need jeans, so I was naturally attracted to the ones pictured above. Wouldn't you be? Fashion-wise, I guess the idea is that you are purposely wearing something that looks like it should be thrown away, which makes distressed jeans and an iPod a perfect match. Usually, t...

Here’s the latest in the area of planned obsolescence, and I’ll bet you didn’t know this when you bought your fancy new iPod . Get ready to throw it in the trash, and remember to back-up your files: "These days, the champion of audio obsolescence is Apple," writes Giles Slade in the March/April issue of Mother Jones . The iPod is the poster child for products that are designed to be disposable. Apple limits the lifespan of iPod batteries and constantly introduces new products - an alarming fact considering that iPods are crammed with lead, mercury and other toxic materials that can end up in landfills and contaminate groundwater. Apple is hardly alone in generating toxic waste. For example, Microsoft's new memory-hogging Vista operating system will effectively render many existing PCs obsolete. On April 9, 2007 it was announced that Apple had sold its one-hundred millionth iPod, making it the biggest selling digital music player of all time. 100,000,000 of those littl...

The media swarm has descended on Blacksburg, Virginia. I can only imagine the phone calls to Couric, Gibson and Williams on Monday afternoon, telling them to pack (if they aren't already) and head out to Virginia. Once the national parasites checked in, it was only a matter of time (minutes) until the locals had their reservations. Philadelphia's local news had at least two reporters from each station on the scene. Multiply that by 4 (local news here) times all the markets with local news (Umteen) and it must be a media nightmare for the locals. I don't see the value in sending a local news face to do a report on the scene. Does Action News' Dann Cuellar bring any value to the report that we couldn't get from the local ABC outlet in Virginia - who may actually know something about the town and its people? It strikes me as an invasion, and a little exploitative - but that's modern journalism for ya. In my perfect world, as mayor of Blacksburg, it would be ...

This story broke during the day on Monday. Briefly: Two shooting incidents on the Virginia Tech campus today have left 33 dead. Thirty-one, including the gunman, died at Norris Hall; two died at West Ambler Johnston Hall. Fifteen other victims from Norris are being treated at area hospitals. The VT campus is beautiful. I was there about 12 years ago on my way home from Tennessee. The buildings are beautiful grey stone that they call Hokie Stone , which is a variety of limestone that they have been using since 1901. It is quite striking against the green Virginia landscape. Until today, it was the most memorable thing about the school. When I got home from work, I switched on the TV, and up came the BBC News, which is on one of the cable outlets here. The reporter seemed incredulous that such a thing could happen. As a journalist, I could tell that he was challenged, both by Great Britain's attitude toward handguns and his own. He was professional enough to allow it to be a mere ...

I had no idea who Shilpa Shetty was until Richard Gere performed this unthinkable act on her on Sunday. NEW DELHI - Angry crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies Richard Gere on Monday after he swept a popular Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty into his arms and kissed her several times during an AIDS awareness event in New Delhi. Pictures were splashed across Monday's front pages in India — a country where sex and public displays of affection are largely taboo. In Mumbai, members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks and set fire to glamorous shots of Shetty. It sounds more like a Shilpa Shetty awareness event. And I wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to get effigy materials. In some places, the effigy thing seems to be second nature. Just like hugging is here. Shilpa Shetty is a cool name, though. Kind of rolls off the tongue. I suppose Gere is supposed to know better? Gere is a well-known Buddhist and an act...

(CBS3/AP) GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently riding without a seat belt, in violation of state law, when he was critically injured in the cra sh of his official vehicle, a spokesman said Friday. A state trooper was at the wheel and the governor was sitting as usual in the front passenger seat when the SUV slammed into a guard rail Thursday night, authorities said. Corzine broke a leg, his breastbone, 12 ribs and a vertebra. When asked why the trooper who was driving would not have asked Corzine to put on his seat belt, Shea said the governor was "not always amenable to suggestion." So, he's a cranky old guy who intimidated a State Trooper into allowing him to ride without his seat belt. Not only is that bad policy, but it is bad police work. If it were you or I in that vehicle, you can be damned sure that the trooper would tell us to wear our seat belt. Either that, or out of fear we would buckle it ourselves. I'm going to try that amenable ...