The pro-wrestling trucks have pulled up to take over the winter home of the St. Louis Blues Hockey club. I don't know . . . maybe they ought to simply call it "summer hockey" to maintain the fan-base. Can you think of another sport where a fistfight breaks out yet the officials stand around and watch it, and where the repeated aggressors are not expelled from the game and from the sport?
Bill Moyers is highly critical of the NRA:
Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S.," he said. "Firearm violence may cost our country as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns than guns ... we have become so gun loving, so blasé about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined.
Restaurants and bars play special music to make you eat and drink too much. This claim sounded a bit far-fetched, but then I read this article by the NYT: "Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar." Not only can the loud music and the rhythms make you eat and drink too much; it can and does damage the hearing of the patrons. Much of the music is louder than "a C train hurtling downtown in Manhattan." Normal conversation is 60-65 decibels. Music in many restaurants exceeds 90 decibels, some exceeding 100 decibels. How loud is too loud?
The background noise is too loud, Dr. [Gordon] Hughes said, if a person’s voice has to be raised to be heard by someone three feet away. Signs of too much exposure include not hearing well after the noise stops, a ringing sound and feeling as if the ears are under pressure or blocked. None of these symptoms necessarily mean the damage is permanent, though even if hearing seems restored to normal, damage may have been done. Yet hearing loss from noise typically takes months or even years to develop.I played in a band when I was younger, and I do regret the damage I've done to my ears (I hear fairly well, but I have a difficult time discriminating a particular conversation in a loud room. Because I'd like to hear other people talk and because I want them to be able to hear me, I work hard to sway the selection process toward a restaurant or bar in which we can hear each other easily. Not only do I want to hear the word, but I want to hear the dynamic range of the other people--it's hard to express oneself fully if one is always shouting. Nonetheless, despite my efforts, and despite the assurance that we're going to a "quiet" place, probably half of these places fail the test quoted above. Further, I find it strange that we have become a country where people need to wear hearing protection in order to safely enjoy many types of concerts.
Actor Jason Alexander had this to say with regard to the recent massacre:
These weapons are military weapons. They belong in accountable hands, controlled hands and trained hands. They should not be in the hands of private citizens to be used against police, neighborhood intruders or people who don’t agree with you. These are the weapons that maniacs acquire to wreak murder and mayhem on innocents. They are not the same as handguns to help homeowners protect themselves from intruders. They are not the same as hunting rifles or sporting rifles. These weapons are designed for harm and death on big scales.
Over the last two days, I've needed to upgrade WordPress and my website theme due to an exploit (the TimThumb image-resizing script). Lots of tedious work, and I'm grateful to two very smart tech-savvy guys who guided me through the process, and Solostream, which provided the upgraded theme. The end result: This looks about the same, but has a lot more functionality and it's now a safe installation. It reminds me of Oscar Wilde's quote: "This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again." Now, if only I can set aside more time for writing, in order to put out a better product . . .