"Makes Sense To Me" News Story Of The Day

[auntie aubrey]

Originally Posted by YsaPur EsChomuw

Are lice art?

no.

[auntie aubrey]

thread ate my reply. is that art?

[Frieda]

only if it was eaten by lice.

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

What makes sense to me is the title of that article (Are lice art? Israelis scratch their heads), not “the art” itself.

I’m not a philosopher, so it would be pompous to say what art is and what isn’t.

For my personal use I think of art as the re-creation of something cherished (object, feeling, idea, etc.) and usually enjoyable. Nowadays the concept of art seems to have shifted towards the shocking.

It actually contains an idea ("The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads," ) but I very much doubt it is enough to be considered as an art form.

So my answer is: no.

[auntie aubrey]

'Unbelievable' sportsmanship in softball game
CWU players carry WOU player around bases after knee injury following HR

PORTLAND, Ore. - With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky’s legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, ‘OK, we’re going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,’ and I said ‘OK, thank you very much.”’

“She said, ‘You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,’ and we all kind of just laughed.”

“We started laughing when we touched second base,” Holtman said. “I said, ’I wonder what this must look like to other people.”’

“We didn’t know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run,” Wallace said Wednesday. “That makes the story more touching than it was. We just wanted to help her.”

Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.

As for Tucholsky, the 5-foot-2 right fielder was focused on her pain.

“I really didn’t say too much. I was trying to breathe,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“I didn’t realize what was going on until I had time to sit down and let the pain relax a little bit,” she said. “Then I realized the extent of what I actually did.”

“I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation,” Tucholsky added.

As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.

Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”

For Western Oregon coach Pam Knox, the gesture resolved the dilemma Tucholsky’s injury presented.

“She was going to kill me if we sub and take (the home run) away. But at the same time I was concerned for her. I didn’t know what to do,” Knox said.

Tucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season, and she plans to graduate in the spring with a degree in business. Her home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.

“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run.”

makes sense to me news story of the day.

[auntie aubrey]

somewhere joe kittinger has a voodoo doll and a voodoo balloon.

French skydiver Michel Fournier's bid for a record-breaking parachute jump from Earth's stratosphere was aborted Tuesday when the balloon that was to carry him into the far reaches of the sky slipped away from his flight crew.

The former paratrooper had hoped to set new records for the highest jump, fastest free fall, longest free fall and the highest altitude reached by a man in a balloon. But those hopes drifted away over the plains of Saskatchewan when the balloon escaped.

Still clad in his bright yellow pressure suit, the visibly frustrated Fournier waved away cameras after his ride slipped away shortly after 5 a.m. (7 a.m. ET). There was no immediate word on how the effort was botched, but his flight crew was attempting to recover the balloon, according to his official Web site.

Fournier, 64, planned to start his "Big Jump" at 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the Earth's surface and land safely -- a risky proposition that French authorities already had barred on their territory.

and a little bit of irony for any dayvan cowboy fans:

He later got the approval of Canadian authorities to make the attempt over sparsely populated Saskatchewan.

he must have appealed to the boards.

[Hyakujo's Fox]

I just hope his mum got him an ice-cream or something for consolation.

[brightpearl]

Parts of two articles. *sigh*
I'm going to have to home school my kid so he gets sex ed and evolutionary theory from somwhere.

Texas leads nation in abstinence education funding
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Texas spent a nation-high $17 million last year for abstinence education programs that continue to stir debate about whether classes promoting virginity before marriage work in public schools.

Federal statistics in June showed that 52.9 percent of Texas students in ninth through 12th grades had sexual intercourse, compared with 47.8 nationally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that Texas youths are less likely to use condoms.

Public schools in Texas are not required to offer sex education, but those that do must make the lessons abstinence-focused. Instructions about condoms are couched in terms of how often they fail, according to state law.

Abstinence-only supporters say more comprehensive sex education sends a mixed message to teenagers that having sex at their age is fine, while opponents cite surveys that they say prove abstinence lessons are failing.

Regardless, a change in Texas policy does not appear likely, the Austin American-Statesman reported Sunday.

"The governor is comfortable with the current law and supports abstinence programs," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.


Texas teens lead nation in birth rate
Experts questioning abstinence-only education approach
November 5, 2007
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

While the national teen birth rate has slowed, Texas has made far less headway, alarming public health officials and child advocates.

Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state's teen births in 2004 were not the girl's first delivery.

"That astounded me," said Kathryn Allen, senior vice president for community relations at Planned Parenthood of North Texas. "I mean, what are we doing wrong?"

Experts, though, are questioning that approach. They note that from 1991 to 2004, the state's teen birth rate dropped by 19 percent, while the U.S. rate dipped by one-third.

By contrast, California, which has seen its teen birth rate drop by 47 percent in the same period, teaches abstinence but also explains contraception at school and has gone to dispensing birth control to teenage boys and girls – for free, no parental consent required – in community clinics and doctors' offices.

[Brynn]

Have you noticed how ducks are always enlising humans to fix the problems they encounter in urban environments?

[skip intro]

Viacom 'backs off' YouTube demand

Viacom has "backed off" from demands to divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched a video on YouTube, the website has claimed.

Google had been ordered to provide personal details of millions of YouTube users to help Viacom prepare its case on alleged copyright infringement.

Google, owners of YouTube, will now hand over the database but without data that could identify users.

Viacom has a $1bn (£497m) copyright infringement lawsuit against Google.

A class action by other organisations including the English Premier League has also agreed to the new terms.

"We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information," said a statement on the YouTube blog.

The decision will be welcomed by privacy activists, many of whom expressed concern over a US judge's order for Google to provide the data in early July.

Continuing battle

YouTube, which was bought by Google in 2006, is in battle with Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, over alleged copyright infringement.

Viacom alleges clips from its programmes have been viewed on YouTube without its consent.

When it initiated legal action in March 2007, it said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on the website, which had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Following the launch of its billion-dollar lawsuit, YouTube introduced filtering tools in an effort to prevent content that infringes copyright from appearing on the site.

Viacom had said it wanted the log data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos".

But privacy activists argued in response that the original order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and was in breach of a 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which was passed after the rental habits of a Supreme Court nominee were publicised.

The new ruling means that Google will still have to hand over the data logs but in an "anonymized form", meaning YouTube can swap user logins and IP addresses with other random signifiers

An earlier Viacom request that Google be forced to hand over the source code of YouTube has already been denied by a US court on the grounds it is a "trade secret".

Despite Tuesday's agreement, the companies are yet to agree the process of information disclosure regarding viewing of YouTube clips by employees of YouTube and Google. This is expected to be settled in the coming weeks.

The cases are expected to come to trial in 2009 or 2010.

[trisherina]

Man cuts off own head with chainsaw

[trisherina]

well, sure

[Brynn]

^Unbelievable. I wonder how much more serious their deliberations might have been had they each been served a couple of corn tortillas apiece...

[brightpearl]

Yes, and half a glass of murky water.


Though it would have been really interesting to have provided a meal based on this idea, I actually don't begrudge them having a nice regular meal -- but as it was, what a colossal waste of money that could have gone somewhere less vile, and what a thoughtless way to try to help.

[Brynn]

wow - that cookie chart sure blows a hole into that whole "the U.S. is the most generous nation on earth" load of hooey.