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Can’t we be in the top ten of anything good?
First, no Kentucky contests made The Fix’s top ten Senate races of the decade. Now the Fairdale Bigfoot gets the cold shoulder on Cryptomundo’s list of the top ten cryptozoology stories for 2009. Maybe the Fairdale Bigfoot didn’t make the list because his advice column is too snarky and his Twitter feed is too sporadic. Or maybe the picture of the bigfoot is really a picture of a bird in flight and the story doesn’t rank up there with misplaced pygmy hippos and pervy yeti.
Robert Krulwich had a story on Weekend Edition about a new sanitary technique in mens’ bathrooms. Urinals are being engraved with flies. Forgive the unpleasant images here, but it seems that giving potentially careless men a target reduces splashing and spilling in the bathroom.
Krulwich covers the science behind the target idea and tries to figure out why the target is a fly instead of, say…a bullseye.
Outgoing NPR newscast legend and continuing Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me announcer Carl Kasell recently sat down with Time Out Chicago. He gives a few insights into how the voicemail prizes on Wait Wait work.
How do you record the messages?
When I get to Chicago on Thursday afternoons, I go into a studio and record them and have them transferred to a CD and they’re mailed. At the beginning, winners would send instructions on how to record it remotely onto their machines.I can see that going poorly.
It did! I’d spend 15 minutes trying to get the darn thing recorded, and most of the time it wouldn’t work.What’s the weirdest message request you’ve gotten?
A couple weeks ago, someone wanted me to sing their message in a specific melody from a 50 Cent song.Were you even aware of 50 Cent?
No. An intern, who helps me on this, got the recording, and I was able to come close to sounding like him. I’ll tell you one I got a big kick out of: “You’ve been long friends of our family. We enjoy what you’ve done for us through the years, and for making this call $10 has been added to your telephone bill.” [Laughs] Doug Berman [producer ofWait Wait and Car Talk] had me do that one for him. People kept hanging up because they didn’t want $10 added to their phone bill.Are there any messages you’ve said no to doing?
Not yet. They get filtered through the intern, who tells the contestant if it’s something that I wouldn’t say, like a commercial pitch or any profanity.Carl Kasell doesn’t swear?
No, he doesn’t swear. I try to avoid it. But once in a while you get so darn frustrated that something comes out.Do you ever feel this whole message-as-prize thing is sort of beneath you? Like, “I’m legendary newscaster Carl Kasell, dammit! I don’t need this!”
I enjoy doing it, though I have had winners onWait Wait request messages to that effect: “Daniel Schorr wouldn’t do this! Terry Gross wouldn’t do this! I feel so cheap.”
At The Edit, we’ve long been saying that the mountaintop removal means the end of jobs. We don’t advocate mountaintop removal, but we just ask if the workers should receive help finding new careers . Alternative energy plants, perhaps?
This fight between nature and the economy is getting bigger, and the Rural Blog sums up two recent stories (one from the AP, one from the CJ) about the feud.
Vicki Smith of The Associated Press notes that protesters on both sides in West Virginia have been charged with battery…
[edit]
Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal reports from Kentucky: “Beneath Appalachian mountains wreathed in mist, dozens of religious leaders gathered to decry a mining practice they see an as affront to both God and nature … but … at First Baptist Church in Pikeville, a congregation replete with miners and those in coal-related businesses … say they ‘thank God we’ve got the coal.’
Are you travelling for the holidays? Will your New Years resolutions list include a vacation? Well think on this…travel can make you smarter. Writer and frequent Radiolab contributor Jonah Lehrer has a piece in the latest McSweeney’s about how trudging around the world stirs the creative juices by taking us away from our problems.
The problem, of course, is that most of our problems are local–people in Indiana are worried about Indiana, not the eastern Mediterranean or California. This leaves two options: 1) find a clever way to trick ourselves into believing that our nearby dilemma is actually distant, or 2) go some-place far away and then think about our trou-bles back home. Given the limits ofself-deception–we can’t even tickle ourselves properly–travel seems like the more practical possibility.
Of course, it’s not enough to simply get on a plane: if we want to experience the cre-ative benefits of travel, then we have to re-think its raison d’ètre. Most people, after all, escape to Paris so they don’t have to think about those troubles they left behind. But here’s the ironic twist: our mind is most likely to solve our stubbornest problems while sitting in a swank Left Bank café. So instead of contemplating that buttery croissant, we should be mulling over those domestic riddles we just can’t solve.
I was going to make a Star Wars reference, but this might not be the right time for that.
I clicked over to the unofficial (as in, not affiliated with the city) LMPD website this morning to check out the new scanner live stream and found something way better.
But first, the scanners. By clicking here, you can monitor police radio activity in the urban and suburban districts. This is the flash-based alternative to buying an actual police scanner and listening for crimes. The streams are pretty helpful tools for anyone who wants to keep an eye out for police activity (citizen journalists, concerned neighbors, etc)
The faux-LMPD site also has an arcade section. You can play casino games, sports games or adventure games. I think that a few rounds of “Too Many Penguins” are a welcome addition to anyone’s day. If the games aren’t your bag, maybe you’d rather watch the Lady Gaga videos linked (via a web gadget) to the page.
But it’s not all fun and games (literally). The site has a news and commentary feature that makes it clear this is not a city webpage. Here’s an excerpt from a piece about Mayor Abramson.
“…it can be reasonably assumed that a man who has made a career of micro managing his puppets departmental heads might not sound credible when he claims ignorance as a defense.”
So to review, LMPD.com is not affiliated with the city (here’s the official site). It does feature games. It is a source for opinion pieces that highlight various frustrations with the Abramson administration and the official LMPD.
The Fix has put together a list of the top ten Senate races of the decade…
- South Dakota 2004
- Missouri 2000
- Minnesota 2002
- Minnesota 2008
- New Jersey 2002
- Illinois 2004
- New York 2000
- Virginia 2006
- Connecticut 2006
- Georgia 2002
No Lunsford-McConnell, Mongiardo-Bunning, etc.
What do you think of the list? I cast the first-ever vote of my life in race #6.
Will Paul-Grayson-Conway-Mongiardo 2010 make another list?
A Senate poll from Public Policy Polling gives Rand Paul a 44% to 25% lead over Trey Grayson in the Republican Primary. Jack Conway leads Daniel Mongiardo 37% to 33%.
Given the undecided numbers in the poll, it seems like familiarity is still the issue.
Here’s a PDF breakdown, courtesy Page One.
